Notes:
Are you still doubting what to pursue between post-sales and pre-sales? Do you want to know the difference between the two? In this episode, you’ll get to know a former technical expert who shifted to sales engineering and became a vice president even after having an unsatisfied buyer and making a mistake worth $30,000 in his early years in the field. Come and join the rollercoaster journey of Paul Vidal towards his current position!
Paul Vidal is the Vice President of Customer Success at Reprise. He has more than 15 years of experience in data management, technical, and sales. He is a Technical Expert and has two master’s degrees in Computer Science. He started in post-sales but changed to presales after he realize he loves to design solutions. He also considers sales engineering as one of the best professions because it combines puzzle-solving and people skills.
Keys Takeaways:
- Paul’s experience with a buyer who was dissatisfied with his sales organization
- Ramzi shared his experience in shifting from sales engineering to sales
- The first thing that Paul learned being a VP of sales
- Paul elaborated on why sales is more of a science
- What Paul would give to his sales engineers if they want to try sales
- The pressure of sales persons that sales engineers don’t see
- Paul explained the difference between selling to an IT organization and selling to a revenue organization
- Paul shares one of the fundamental things about the demo
- Selling to different customers, marketing, sales, solution engineers
- The difficulty with internal tools most sales engineers face
- Paul shares his notable mistake
Quotes:
“This spectrum, more or less on sales, more or less than the technical side. I personally enjoy both, which is why I think this profession is the best.” -Paul Vidal
“You can’t pretend to know exactly what it is, what it is to be. So just a little bit of humility. There goes a long way.” -Paul Vidal
“From an SE’s perspective, “Oh no, we can’t ask a question. But from a salesperson’s perspective, “Yeah, I want to know why they want to talk.” -Ramzi Marjaba
“One of the fundamental things about the demo is the product that you use to sell your product is not the same product that you use to solve the problem that you’re trying to solve. ” -Paul Vidal
“But that’s the difficulty with internal tools. And I think almost every sales engineer faces that when they’re trying to sell to it, for example, like “Oh, we built this internal tool, right? So what’s gonna happen when the person who built it leaves?” That’s always the question that comes to mind.” -Ramzi Marjaba
“You learn from them. If you don’t do anything, you’re not going to break anything” -Paul Vidal
