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4/1/1: 4 Random Thoughts from me, 1 tools to help Sales Engineers, 1 quote for motivation
4/1/1 2.5 Important Things That We May Suck at Tracking
- April 29, 2022
By Ramzi Marjaba
4/1/1 Weekly
4 Random Thoughts, 1 Tool, and 1 Quote
It’s been a busy week for me, in the best way possible. Mainly I’ve been having conversations with lots of SEs, AEs, PMs and so many people. The downside is that my brain is filled with so many ideas and I’m suffering from Shiny Object Syndrome. So I will use this email selfishly to put these thoughts into words.
Before we jump into the 4/1/1, I want to remind those who are looking for additional help to up their SE game, the SE Hotline is available for you.
This week I had Rafael Lluis on the podcast and we discovered what it’s like to be an SE lead in Europe covering EMEA.
Check out my conversation with Rafael Lluis
And a new kind of video on Youtube this week. I got a question about KPIs pop up on my LinkedIn Messaging and that drove a short conversation with Paul Newsome where we brainstorm. The question was what KPIs should SE Leadership look at to measure the effectiveness of the Presales process.
Let’s dig into this a bit with the 4/1/1
4 Random Thoughts From Me:
1- Lots of time is lost waiting or doing nothing. That could be time spent searching on several different platforms for a document or product management information. Exercise for next week, just pay attention to how much time you’ve spent looking for something, waiting for some process (Salesforce I’m looking at you), or not something productive.
2- KPIs are an important part of understanding how well we are doing as SEs, and how well the process is doing. But what are the correct KPIs? What we measure is what incentivizes people and changes behaviors. The KPIs are supposed to encourage the right behaviors.
3- One thing I struggle with is taking breaks. I tried scheduling them, but I end up skipping. Recently I started taking time during the workday to work out, otherwise, I won’t take breaks. What do you do to make sure you take enough breaks during the day.
4- I’m getting a lot of questions about running a discovery call, and the perfect discovery question. There isn’t one. There is a perfect discovery conversation. One question is not going to make or break a discovery. It’s a list of questions, clarifying questions, storytelling, guiding questions, etc. One question on its own will not break a discovery wide open.
1 Tool:
I just witnessed an SE shoot their product in the foot and it felt a bit sad that even an experiences SE was not provided the proper training not to do this. All I could think about is he should have read Chris White’s 6 Habits of Highly Effective sales Engineers.
If you have not read it, here’s the link to the book. Yes, it is an affiliate link, so thank you for your support.
1 Quote:
“Everytime an SE opens their mouth, they either add value to a deal, or remove value from it” – Ramzi Marjaba
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