#205 Sacrifice and Dedication Have a Great Payoff

Notes:

Hard work pays. So does dedication. Who knew? A lot of people did, including Dustin Allen, my guest today.

Dustin was in the military, got out and followed in his family’s footsteps, then decided to do something different. He did that something different and posted about it online. Being open to posting online provided visibility for him which is why a vendor servicing Dustin’s employer offered him an SE role and his career has taken off.

Key Takeaways:

The hard work it took for Dustin to be able to get an education and become a Sales Engineer
Solutions Engineers vs Sales Engineers at Dustin’s organization
Being empowered to do the job even when reporting into sales
Perpetual vs Subscription
Scheduling his time
Working with product management
Having customer office hours
Getting new account managers acclimated

Quotes:

“Everyone should understand each other’s role” – Dustin Allan

“I don’t convince them (the Product Managers) to do anything, I go find the customers to verify the need. I have no emotional attachment to it” – Dustin Allan

“We do office hours, we see the problems and demonstrate workflows with customer live, and we want to know: is this impactful? Is this helpful, and we get a lot of feedback.” – Dustin Allan

“It takes time, and you have to provide value, a nugget of knowledge each episode. If you’re not providing value, at least a little nugget of knowledge each episode, people won’t come back” – Dustin Allan

“A lot of the management doesn’t know who well someone who works for them knows how to use the software. It’s just a tool they provide” – Dustin Allan