Blog
Notes:
Mastering Technical Sales is THE Book that every sales engineer should read. The 3rd edition, and the one that I’ve read, came out 8 years ago. But things have changed significantly over the last 8 years. They changed enough to warrant a 4th edition of that book which includes many updates.
John Care, the author of the book, comes by the show to discuss what those changes are. John has been on the show a couple of other times, so check out those episodes as well when you’re done.
Key Takeaways:
- What has changed to push John Care to update the SE Bible
- Is Value Selling New?
- Fanatical emphasis on the demo vs Business Discovery
- Answering vs Asking Questions
- Poking the Bear
- Are we responsible for a technical win
- Compensation
- SE vs TAM vs Customer Success vs Presales
- Interaction with our salespeople
- RFP = Really Fast Paperwork
Quotes:
“There are over 40 companies that manufacture technology to make the SE’s job easier” – John Care
“Value Selling/Solution Selling has been around since the mid to late 80s” – John Care
“Every time they want tapi tapi tap (on the laptop), the SE would get up, go to the whiteboard and say John this is how you are going to knock off 6 days on the development” – John Care
“I made the CIO decision that we’re going with vendor #2 because they understood my businesses and I was convinced they will help me solve my problem” – John Care
“A lot of the customer knowledge sits in the brain of the SE, so there is something to be said about constant contact between the SE and customer.” – John Care
