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As employees of the corporate world, talking about how much we make, the perks of the jobs, and how much we work to get that payment is frowned upon. Employers don’t want the employees to know what the other person is getting paid. On many occasions throughout my career, a manager gives me a raise only to follow up by saying, please don’t tell anyone about how much you are making.
The goal for today’s interview is to eliminate all that. We talk to John Cook, the Senior Marketing Manager at Consensus, who did a lot of research into the subject. In 2020, he released the Sales Engineer Workload and Compensation Report based on this research.
Today, we chatted about the 2021 report that he is currently working on!
Key Takeaways:
Tune in to our conversation and learn:
- Jose has never worked for Consensus!
- Why are they targeting Presales
- Pitching Presales to the uninitiated
- What surprised John about the research
- Presales vs Marketing
- Changes in the sales cycles
- What research was covered in the report
- What the SE salaries are
9:20 Something Peter Cohan said about Presales has not changed, he’s been in it for 35 years. It’s been pretty much the same role for 35 years. Think about every other role and how it has changed. “It’s such a unique set of problems that they have to solve”
16:22 “Unqualified Demos was one of those where we were like really, 1 in 3, was the average. Half of our respondents said that more than 1 in 3 demos is unqualified, that is a huge timesink!”
28:33 “It’s not a terribly pleasant experience to buy software much of the time, so buyers are showing where they are willing to spend their time”
34:13 “Presales motions, Presales discussions, Presales content is what buyers want.”
Not So Fire Round
- What do you love about training salespeople and sales engineers to do demos?
I love that it mimics how buyers want to buy!
- What’s one thing you would change about the sales and pre-sales profession?
The market is changing it in a way that John is excited to see. He would however free up SEs from doing the robotic things to do higher-value activities.
And not presenting the context before going into the demo. People need to get the mindset of where you’re going next.
- What resources would you recommend for sales engineers and salespeople?
- Is there a habit you see great sales engineers have?
The habit of doing more than demos.
Connect with John on Linkedin
Check out Consensus
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
And if you’ve been affected by COVID as an SE, please check out our Leave No SE Behind initiative so that we can help you. https://wethesalesengineers.com/no-se-left-behind-initiative/
