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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 Investing in PreSales to Improve Relationships
- April 14, 2022
By Ramzi Marjaba
4/1/1 Weekly
4 Random Thoughts, 1 Tool, and 1 Quote
One can usually tell how much a Sales Engineering team is appreciated by the investment made in them. I’ve worked with a SE Leader who loved his SE team but he was fighting an uphill battle. He would schedule training sessions for the team, but the only “SE training” provided by the organization was a Solution Selling Session.
Now, there is so much software out there to help scale the SE, improve productivity, or provide data to the management team that can be used to help SEs.
That was the topic of conversation I had with Kerry Sokalski and Chris White in this week’s podcast.
#208 The Definitive Buyer’s Guide For Emerging Presales Solutions
Part of the SE role, beyond playing with the newest gadgets, is to work with people. As an introvert, this has led to some challenges. So I wanted to share how being n introvert has hurt my career.
Now the 4/1/1 is around SE training, and working with AMs.
4 Random Thoughts From Me:
1- Just because companies do spend money on SEs, it doesn’t mean that they value Sales Engineers. I talked to a Sales Engineer who, along with his teammates, received SE training. Part of this training was being part of discovery, which currently they are not. Nothing has changed after the training, so it was a waste of money and time, and still, the SE leaders have the philosophy of bending over backward to support the sales team.
2- I’m all about supporting the sales team. Bending over backward is ok as long as SEs can save the AMs from themselves. So if the AM loves the dash to demo, then an SE can bend over backward and inform the account manager that there are better ways.
3- Many AMs do their job properly. Some don’t and some SEs expect to change that AM’s behavior after one chat. It doesn’t work that way. We have to prove that there is a better way. So if the customer invites us to a no discovery demo, the SE would get annoyed that they are not given the proper information. Instead, we can jump on the call and do a small discovery and then demo. After the call, we can use it as proof that if you had some info earlier, then we could have done a better demo.
4- “Can you show them this feature?” A common question SEs get in the middle of lots of demos. This annoys most SEs, and the answer is a blunt NO, or begrudgingly showing the feature. My response is “I’d love to show this feature, but before I jump in, let me ask a couple of questions”. I proceed to check if the feature is useful for them, or continue asking my questions. In this case, my salesperson is happy, my customers are happy, and I didn’t have to show something that I’ve either not prepared, or my customers would not benefit from.
1 Tool:
Due to my conversation with Chris and Kerry, I wanted to share the Presales Buyers Guide with you. It will be coming next week, but you can let them know you are interested now.
1 Quote:
“No one can change a person, but someone can be the reason for a person to change” – Don’t Know
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