#288 Finding And Using Your Strengths To Succeed as a Sales Engineer

Notes:

Are there any more secrets in this world? Actually, I’m sure there is, so let’s narrow it down to what we do. Are there any more secrets to Sales Engineering? There are many out there posting, teaching, and sharing their information.

Fortunately, yes there are still some secrets. Some are hiding in plain sight, and some that we actually need to dig and research to highlight them. Today’s guest Aileen McNabb helps with that today!

Aileen has been on the podcast before (show 155), but if you don’t know here, she is a former SE Leader, and now she is a coach and author who just published her first of what hopefully be many books, one of which she will discuss here today.

Key Takeaways:

Why she wrote the book
What are the three secrets
The process of writing a book and how she would do it differently next time
Common struggles that SEs come to Aileen for
Finding Your strengths and not abusing them
What is Resiliency
We dig into a specific example of resiliency
Reading the room
Personality types and understanding how to deal with them.
Not so fire round.

Quotes:

“You have to be brave to speak the truth to power. You have to be wise to speak it well at the right time.” Aileen McNabb

“I think it helps when you’re being told it’s not that you’re weak is that you’re being too strong in one area.” – Aileen McNabb

“ they’re in the back room thinking about laying you off. Do you think they’re going to give you a heads-up?” – Aileen McNabb

“If I was getting stressed about being able to do it, I might discover that I just spent an hour and a half learning how to use a new PowerPoint technique.” – Aileen McNabb

“It doesn’t matter what the Sales Rep or the SE wants. In the end, it’s what the customer wants” – Ramzi Marjaba