#172 Athletes Watch Tape, Why Not Sales Engineers

Notes:

In today’s podcast episode, we have an amazing guest who happens to be the President and Founder of Presales Mastery, a demo performance coaching business. He recently also became the President of Sales Engineers of Toronto (more widely known as SETO). Consider this podcast episode a teaser of his coaching program that runs for 3 months! To learn even more about this, join Kerry Sokalsky and me in today’s conversation as we talk about his experience in coaching Sales Engineers and all the other things SEs must be mindful of to keep thriving in the industry.

Key Takeaways:

Tune in to this podcast and learn more about:
Why their focus was helping out only software companies
The biggest mistakes/highest negative impact on demo
His 95-metric demo performance scorecard (14 main categories) including:

- audience engagement and management
- question and objection handling
- technical and verbal delivery
- messaging contents
- the opening and close of the demo

The importance of coaching for SE team members and fine-line managers
The role of third-party experts in better understanding and confidence of SE members towards their team and managers
The danger in thinking you’ve already got everything figured out and the importance of clarifying questions as SEs
What could happen after undergoing three months of coaching with Kerry
Cross-team sharing (positive feedback and constructive criticisms)

Biggest Mistake SEs Unconsciously Do during Demo:

One of the things that highly affect demos negatively is using too much “first-person language”.

The audience does not care what you think. But more importantly, the demo is not about you.
Focus on what’s best for the prospect and what challenges are you helping them solve.

Things You Can Do to Engage and Manage Your Audience Effectively:

Do not make them feel uncomfortable by asking them to turn on their cameras.
Crack jokes. Be friendly.
Instead of having several people just introduce themselves, have them meaningful questions about them.
Listen to what they say and reference them back later on in the demo.
Pause every once in a while, and give them an opportunity to speak.

Quotes:

[08:16] “There’s lots of studies that show that coaching is the single best way to improve sales outcomes, in terms of win rates and insert of attainment to target.” – Kerry Sokalsky

[26:01] “There’s a problem with being the smartest person in the room– is that you can make assumptions that you understand stuff you don’t.” – Kerry Sokalsky

[28:06] “Assume that the people you’re going to be pitching are the smartest people you’ve ever pitched to. And don’t ever assume you have any clue [about] what they’re talking about, so make sure you clarify before you answer anything.” – Kerry Sokalsky