4/1/1: 4 Random Thoughts from me, 1 tools to help Sales Engineers, 1 quote for motivation

4/1/1 We All Make Mistakes, But Can We Identify Them?

June 10, 2022

By Ramzi Marjaba

4/1/1 Weekly

4 Random Thoughts, 1 Tool, and 1 Quote

There are so many different types of mistakes that human beings are prone to making. During my discussion with Paul Vidal, the Head of Sales Engineering at Reprise, we both shared a bunch of them.

Check out my chat with Paul here

It is important to learn from our mistakes. If we can learn from other people’s mistakes or experiences, that’s even better. That’s where books, podcasts, and LinkedIn posts come in. In my latest YouTube video, I provide some recommendations for the books that have helped shape me into the SE today. Hopefully, that’s a good thing.

So let’s talk about the mistakes in the 4/1/1

4 Random Thoughts From Me:

1- Technical Mistakes. I’ve shut down the management of networks. Paul cost his company lots of money. Anyone who’s been in the business more than a year has probably made a mistake that could have been catastrophic. Technical mistakes lead to the loss of business dollars.

2- Preparation Mistakes: I shared a recent mistake about that earlier this week about this. I “was busy” aka I did not prioritize the preparation for the call since I thought too highly of myself. I can handle any situation. And I did handle the situation. The problem was it didn’t need to be handled. It could have been aced and I missed an opportunity to do that.

3- Human Mistakes: A big one assumes that others see us the way we see us. Others don’t. They may see us as people simply trying to take their money. Or people whose job is just to gouge them (salespeople more than sales engineers, but when we’re on the same call…)

4- Regular Slip-Ups: Saying something incorrectly, typing the wrong name in an email (for some reason people tend to assume that the last name is first), having technical issues. All of these are things we can mitigate. Some aren’t and those we have to handle, but we can mitigate as much as we can.

1 Tool:

Because of my mistake, I created a pre-meeting checklist that I will be using going forward. Feel free to take a look at it, copy it, and if you have any suggestions, please let me know.