#201 Understanding Life Goals And How to Achieve Them

Notes:

Are you a sales engineer very early in your career? Do you feel like you lack mentorship in your current company and need to find support and guidance somewhere else? Or perhaps you’re in a different role and sales engineering seems to interest you, but you’re still not 100% sure if this is for you? Well, I hope this episode helps you because we’re talking to a listener of the podcast who has been in the same boat and has finally landed a role in a company she likes.

Christelle Joseph has just moved into a sales engineer role at Snowflake. Christelle and I have worked together through her challenges in her previous role, and through these sessions, we came to the realization that it would be best if she finds a Sales Engineer role elsewhere. We discuss why in this podcast.

Key Takeaways:

How Christelle started in the sales field and ended up in sales engineering
What drew Christelle to the sales engineering role
Did the pandemic make or break Christelle?
A defining moment that made Christelle decide this was a career path she wanted to be on
Challenges she had to face being the first and only sales engineer at the startup she was currently working in
What she felt was lacking in her previous company that broke the camel’s back and find a sales engineering role at a different company
I realized that in the next three to four years, I want to be married, and I want kids. So I can constantly live my life working over, you know, 50 plus hours a week, and not really knowing when I’m going to get a break. So when I realized that my, how I saw life started changing.
How she used what she knew she didn’t want in deciding to join Snowflake
What drove Christelle to ask the tough questions to a hiring manager
Questions you need to ask your hiring manager during an interview that will benefit your career or growth
Christelle shares her thoughts on where she wants to be in 10 years and how she plans to get there
What to expect in your first 3, 6, and 9 months starting your role as a sales engineer
Ramzi answers a question he often asks his guests: What makes a great sales engineer?
Steps a young SE may want to take to excel in their career and in the current company they’re in
Are demos and presentations the same for all your clients?
How often should you be interacting with clients post-sales?
What Ramzi’s weekly calendar looks like

Quotes:

“For someone who is an SE, and you don’t have more than a year or two experience, I think it’s best to be under the belt of somebody who has prior experience or actually have a manager who is an SE, you really can’t just build a structure by yourself.” – Christelle Joseph

“A job has to also help you. People tend to forget that you’re not just there to help with the job. They can get rid of you anytime and they’ll be just fine. But did it help you? Are you going to help me within the next year? Is my career going to be different? I’m at a point in life where I want to grow. And if you can’t help me grow, then I don’t want to work for you. That’s basically it.” – Christelle Joseph

“Don’t expect to be effective in the first month, expect to sit there and learn. And then try to build your questions and don’t limit yourself to one mentor.” – Ramzi Marjaba

“For the first few months, expect to suck. My daughter is learning to walk and she sucks at it. But she will get good.” – Ramzi Marjaba

“What makes a great sales engineer is self-awareness. Self-awareness to figure out what they’re doing right, what they’re doing wrong, to double down on what they’re doing right, to fix what they’re doing wrong. Self-awareness to be humble, to know that if someone gives me information, gives me feedback, even if it’s the meanest feedback in the world, the most negative feedback, there might be something for me to learn there.” – Ramzi Marjaba

“The people who excel are those who don’t limit themselves to one mentor.” – Ramzi Marjaba

“People who excel are either very technically proficient and know how to ask the right questions. Or they just try things. I’m not the best sales engineer out there. I just try different things and see what sticks.” – Ramzi Marjaba

“You have your best customer, this is one customer that you like and you want to make sure that they’re happy. And the support team has a million customers. So how do you make sure that they take care of your customers first? So you build that relationship with post-sales.” – Ramzi Marjaba