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Notes:
Does your industry have a program to help you transition into other industries or roles if you want to do so in the future? If you are currently considering sales engineering as an industry to pivot into, what support can you get now to transition successfully?
In this episode of the Sales Engineering Podcast, my friendly chat with Gareth Jones will give a comprehensive answer to these questions and provide an insider’s peek into what happens in career transitions, specifically toward sales engineering.
Gareth Jones, who describes himself as a father, husband, and comic book nerd, was an army officer for 12 years before being introduced to sales engineering through a serendipitous encounter. After leaving the military, he landed a job at Splunk, where he is now a Solutions Engineering Manager.
In our conversation, we reminisce about the journey that brought him from the army to sales engineering and the lessons he learned along the way.
Key Takeaways:
- How serendipity introduced Gareth to sales engineering
- The best way to find a job as a sales engineer
- How Gareth landed a job at Splunk
- What the Amazon Web Services re/Start program is and how it helped Gareth transition from the military to a new industry
- How Gareth fell in love with sales engineering
- How moving from the public to the commercial sector helped Gareth grow and develop as a sales engineer
- The road to becoming a better sales engineer
- The importance of building a strong network as a sales engineer
- Why mistakes are critical in learning
- The challenges of supervising account managers
- What a negotiation between Gareth and his account managers look like
- Why being a “people person” could help you in becoming a better manager
- The similarities and differences between being a leader in the military and being an SE leader
Quotes:
Links from the show:
- The AWS re/Start Training and Certification program: https://aws.amazon.com/training/restart/
- The Six Habits of Highly Effective Sales Engineers by Chris White: https://www.amazon.com/Habits-Highly-Effective-Sales-Engineers/dp/0578521903/
- Talk Lean by Alan Palmer: https://www.amazon.com/Talk-Lean-Meetings-Results-Relations/dp/0857084976/
- Connect with Gareth Jones on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garethcharlesjones/?originalSubdomain=uk
If you enjoyed this podcast, please support the show by dropping a review or rating on iTunes – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-sales-engineers-resource-for-sales-engineers-by/id1378292171
A basic misconception about sales engineering is you have to know every answer to every question… it’s more about knowing where to get the answer to almost every question. — Ramzi Marjaba
I think shutting up and listening more is definitely something I should have done a lot more early on. — Gareth Jones
What I realized after a while is if my only answer to why they bought from us is price, then as a sales engineer, you’re not really needed. Because at that point, they just do the negotiation. It’s a race to the bottom in terms of price. — Ramzi Marjaba
I’ve become a big advocate of just talking about expectations. So when you sit down with somebody within this new role or this new working relationship, just frame the conversation around what are the expectations of each other. — Gareth Jones
It’s all about your people. — Gareth Jones