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 Challenging Perspectives and Learning from Professional Disagreements

Notes:

Last week I mentioned the 10 mistakes that #SolutionEngineers make that drive Salespeople crazy. This week Wesley comes to the defense of these SEs. Wes and I discuss the dynamics and challenges faced by SEs and account managers in tech sales. Wes shares his experiences and disagreements with certain points raised in a previous podcast episode about common mistakes SEs make, such as hijacking meetings and not following up. The discussion touches on the importance of good communication, trust, and feedback between SEs and sales reps, highlighting how effective management and understanding can prevent many issues. 

Examples from real-life sales scenarios are used to illustrate points, including handling feedback, the importance of pre-call planning, and the need to fire customers sometimes

Key Takeaways:

  • Diving Into Specifics: SE Mistakes and Account Rep Dynamics
  • Exploring Effective SE and Account Rep Relationships
  • Managing and highjacking Calls and Meetings
  • Feedback, Trust, and Sales Dynamics
  • Effective Communication and Handling Difficult Customers
  • Proof of Concept: Navigating Challenges and Solutions
  • Closing Thoughts: Trust, Communication, and Growth

Quotes:

“‘No agenda, no attenda.’  – Someone who attended a presentation of mine

‘We’re not a church, we’re a private company. We’re here to make money.’  – Wesley’s salesperson

 “Ever been chewed out for a meeting you weren’t even prepped for?” – Wesley

“POCs where deals go to die, cause nobody plans it right.” – Ramzi Marjaba

“It’s not necessarily a negative talking about what will not work in a POC.” – Ramzi Marjaba

“99 percent of the issues can be avoided through communication.” – Ramzi Marjaba

Links from the show:

Music on the show: Watchmaker’s Daughter by Reeder

Reeder's Site

 Challenging Perspectives and Learning from Professional Disagreements

Notes:

Sales is performance. It involves a lot of things usually associated with an artistic performance: preparation, practice, and competition.

My guest for today studied classical music before transitioning into sales engineering, but he still views his current role as an SE leader in a health IT company as a musical display of sorts. When he does a demo, he views it as a “performance of a lifetime.”

 

Josh Price is the Manager for Solutions Engineering at Trella Health, an IT services and consulting company based in Atlanta. In this episode, Josh joins the podcast to talk about transitioning from music to sales, the health IT industry, and the challenges of being an SE leader.

Key Takeaways:

  • How a Bachelor’s in Music helped Josh in his IT career
  • The stresses of a career in music
  • How Josh transitioned from being a musician to being a sales engineering leader
  • What Electronic Health Records (EHR) are
  • How to approach the “hard conversations” in sales
  • The experience of doubting yourself in your first few weeks in a sales role
  • The feedback Josh got from his management team while he was an account executive
  • How to figure out the 10% you love about your job and increase its percentage
  • How Josh’s view of sales changed after becoming a sales engineer
  • The difference between Health IT and other IT industries
  • The requirements for sales engineers working in the health industry
  • How healthcare software fits into the healthcare industry
  • The importance of understanding the healthcare industry if you are an SE working in it
  • The technical component of interoperability
  • Why Josh accepted the challenge of being an SE manager
  • Josh’s favorite part of sales
  • Josh’s superpowers
  • How to get better at receiving and giving feedback

Quotes:

When you’re thinking about demoing… you’re like a movie director or a chef, and you’re going and you’re putting this art out into the world. And then the sales reps that are working with you, your sales VPS that are working with you, they come back with a million different critiques. And you might have thought you put like the best piece of art out there. But somebody’s always got something to say. — Josh Price

 

I think we all can kind of relate to being brand new in a space and not knowing what the heck is going on. And that’s kind of what I felt. When I think about it now, I feel like I’ve come a very long way in my seven, eight years. But it doesn’t feel like there was any one moment that everything clicked. It’s just, at some point, I became a lot more confident, and I focused on what I knew. — Josh Price

 

We are given training as SEs or as salespeople. But I think of sales engineering and sales in general as sports in the business world. We perform more than we practice, whereas in every other sport or every other musician practices way more than they perform. So how can one feel confident about what they do if all they’re doing is mistakes, especially in the first few weeks? — Ramzi Marjiba

 

Project management is fun. But I find the problem with sales, in general, is that we have a million projects on the go at the same time, and each one has a million moving parts, with a million different people. — Ramzi Marjiba

 

When I’m interviewing people, I’m not worried about if they understand the architecture with which our platform sits on. I want them to be able to understand the product, the value props behind where the healthcare industry comes in, and how we can help them achieve whatever goal they’re trying to achieve. — Josh Price

 

When you have an interesting feature that you want to show or something that really is just going to wow the audience, don’t wait to show it at the end of the demo. Get in there and please show it because people will lose interest. And then 30 minutes later, you’ll be getting to that point and then people will have already lost interest. — Josh Price


You are doing people a disservice if you are not honest with them. — Josh Price

Links from the show:


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Music on the show: Watchmaker’s Daughter by Reeder

Reeder's Site