Be the change you want to see, even if you have to fight for it. That’s what this week’s guest Kirk Simon did. As a Sales Engineer at his company, he fought hard to reintroduce a proper discovery into this company’s sales process. We’ll look at someone who went from not knowing what Sales Engineering was before starting, to make waves across his company by his knowledge of the importance of proper discovery.
Show Notes:
Kirk’s path to Sales Engineering exemplifies the importance of transferable skills.
You don’t always need to have experience in the exact role of your next prospective role, so long as you have the skills and drive to do a lot of what the role requires, that can always learn the rest as you go – companies know this and will take chances on good people!
If you’re moving into a role that you don’t have much experience in, have an action plan to start learning the material you need to learn in the ways that best accommodate your learning style.
If you feel like an imposter in your role – try to add in some of your personality, or at least the things you like into it to really make it your own – you’ll have more fun along the way and will learn more as well.
- For example, if you’re a social person in a very technical role, make an effort to make it more social. Talk to the people around you more.
- Grow your network among other professionals at other companies doing the same things as you.
For those that are just starting to present to external audiences (or even internal in some cases), that anxious feeling of not thinking that you have as much to contribute to the conversation as your team expects is common – remember though that no one knows the entire solution as well as you do and that you’re there for a reason. If you weren’t valuable, you wouldn’t be there.
Keep practicing and this “imposter syndrome” feeling will become less and less present as time goes on.
The importance of a proper discovery cannot be understated.
The ability to demo to a customer’s specific needs as opposed to presenting a general pitch is always going to be more effective and will increase your demo to close ratios.
If you know things can be done better at your organization, make it so.
If your conviction for change is strong, fight for it.
Be the change you want to see.
Not So Fire Round
- What do you love about being a Sales Engineer?
- The variety of types of technology he gets to work with and learn about constantly in combination with a natural love of talking with people.
- What would you change?
- Wants more of a discovery process in his sales process (and he’s making it so).
- Books/Tools/Resources Kirk Recommends:
- We The Sales Engineers
- Skills with People by Les Giblin
- What Separates the Great SEs from the Rest?
- Those that are intrinsically motivated to do well are most suited to be great. You have to love what you do.
Some more links from the show:
