This show is sponsored by:
Notes:
As an SE leader, how can you effectively lead and develop your team to be better Sales Engineers while developing your own social and technical sales skills? You must enjoy taking on new challenges, testing your mental and physical limits, love coaching and training people in your team, as well as figure out how to ensure the growth of the prospect business and share with them the best way to perform better. Michael Townsend shares his experiences as a Sales Engineering leader with us in this podcast, as well as the habits you need to build to excel as a sales engineering manager.
Michael Townsend is the Senior Director of Global Presales Engineering at Egnyte, the leader in content security, governance, and collaboration that provides business productivity experiences while allowing IT to modernize infrastructure and gain visibility and control over sensitive data.
Before moving into leadership, he was an individual contributor (IC) SE for 8 years. His career focus has been Enterprise Content Management, Content Governance, and Content Collaboration as a Customer, Implementer, Consultant, System Administrator, and now Sales Engineer.
Key Takeaways/b>:
- How Michael went from being an individual contributor for 8 years to senior director
- The difference between managing a team versus leading a team
- What most leaders forget to do – finding their second-in-command
- Why Michael doesn’t handhold his team of Sales Engineers
- Some right and wrong things Michael did as a manager to make him a better leader
- What to tweak in the work ethic and habits of someone who just got into a presales role
- How he’s whipped up most of his Sales Engineers with completely different backgrounds back into shape
- The 5 levels of Sales Engineering or being a solutions architect
- Recommendations for those experiencing burnout that affect mental health
- Why it’s important to take responsible time off
- What Michael does when he’s not working directly with SEs
- In which department does technical enablement belong
Quotes:
04:37 “Managing is telling people what to do, leading is pointing the way and finding a way to get people to follow.” – Michael Townsend
12:10 “The things I did right were just emulating what I observed from managers who really stood out as being positive… It’s not micromanaging. It’s coaching and informing and being transparent and candid. Not being a friend or a buddy, but being someone that you could trust and you could go to, and trying not to have a knee-jerk reaction to something someone said to you and saying, I gotta go fix that or yell at someone.” – Michael Townsend
12:49 “It’s protecting my team to a certain extent but also allowing challenges, let them go through that, but letting them do their job, pointing them in the direction that we need to all move forward but also giving them that flexibility to grow and create their own personal brand.” – Michael Townsend
37:52 “Any business that is growing, you gotta look at where you need to be.” – Michael Townsend
43:19 “There’s knowing what our product does and why it does it, but the question of why does it matter? You gotta know what you’re selling into and what you’re replacing and what their pains are driven by.” – Michael Townsend
45:50 “Presales is not just about solving problems, it’s creating solutions and creating value beyond just fixing one little thing. so that is the thing that creates interest in it and creates a challenge. – Michael Townsend
57:35 “It’s giving respect and getting respect, sales wins, it’s a negotiation.” – Michael Townsend
1:00:41 “The most valuable person is someone who helps their boss to be better. If you wanna be valued within your company, help your leader.” – Ramzi Marjaba
Links from the show:
Six Habits Of Highly Effective Sales Engineers by Chris White
The Sales Engineer Manager’s Handbook: Mastering Technical Sales by John Care
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
Connect with Michael Townsend on Linkedin
Check out Egnyte
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
This Post Has One Comment
Pingback: 4/1/1 – A Good Leader has Great Effects | We The Sales Engineers