We The Sales Engineers: A Resource For Sales Engineers, By Sales Engineers

Were you ever asked, “Where do you want to be in 5 years?” I believe I’ve been asked once, in an interview, and I had no idea what I wanted to do now, let alone in 5 years. I have not been asked since.  John Simpson on the other hand talks to his SEs about career action planning. Not only where you want to be, but how to get there too.  And for sales engineers, there are many options for what to do next, including staying put. We cover that in this podcast. Show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show299

Many Sales Engineers are getting hit with layoffs, especially when there’s a new acquisition. This happened to our guest before he knew what Sales Engineering was, Jeff Dryall. But it did not happen once or twice. It's happened multiple times, and Jeff used it as an opportunity to identify a new challenge and go after them, including becoming a Sales Engineer.   Show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show298

Most SEs have an aversion to sales, which is why many have been very hesitant to enter the SE world. But as soon as we learn more about it, we understand that SEing is about solving problems which as techies, is what we want. The same goes for our guest today. Chris Snyder is the first SE within his organization and he’s been thriving at it due to the support that he has, and the ability to get creative. show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show297    

Having someone who worked on the procurement side, the vendor side, and the value-added reseller side in a condensed period allows us to ask many questions and get a holistic view of these different roles.    Our guest, Wesley Bellman has that exact experience in addition to a few more, so we get to see the similarities of working in procurement and how they interacted with VARs.    shownotes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show296

We all have different paths into sales engineering. Some fell into it, and some fought for it. And once we get there, we find that not all sales engineering roles are created equal. Some require SEs to simply demo all day, and others have SEs on sight working to help an end user debug an issue they ran into. But all of them will have the SE deal with a salesperson. Our guest today is Ryan Krueger who will tell us about his path to sales engineering and the challenges he faced to get there, and once he was an SE.   Show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show295

As I watch my kids in their activities, I can tell what they are good at, great at, and what needs work. For professionals, who don’t have their parents watching their every move, every technique and reaction, we have to figure that out for ourselves.   My conversation with Jeff Perry is all about that. Jeff is a leadership and engineering coach. He takes me through some exercises to find my genius zone and uncover some self-limiting beliefs that I may have. show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show294

A few weeks ago a discussion started on LinkedIn about vendors providing pricing on their web page. Damian Tomasino was for (with nuance), and John Care was against (also with nuance).  So I thought it would be best to jump on a call with Damian and John to discuss their initial thoughts and the nuances of it.  In this chat, we dig into their insightful opinions on this “controversial” topic, the evolution of the sales engineer's role, and the need for improved collaboration amongst sales engineers, account executives, and marketing teams.  Show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show293

All sales engineers watching this show have been through the recruiting process in the past. Some have had great experiences, and some have been ghosted. It is hard. But looking through the other end of the process, SE Managers and Directors have to recruit and make decisions that can either greatly improve the SE team, or bad behavior can permeate throughout.   Along with my guest Co-host, John Hodgson, we interview Jeff Margolese and David Schultz, both great SE leaders with different backgrounds and experiences as we discuss the best process to recruit SEs.  Show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show292

We've talked about moving into sales in the past. How to prepare for it, and what to do once we get there. The discussion with Mike today is similar, but he shares his own experiences. Why he wanted to move? What it was like once he was in that role and what did he learn?   Show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show291

Mohamad has an interesting story where he had to solve multiple problems in his life from leaving Egypt to the Gulf and then coming to the USA. From finding jobs that suit him, to learning on the job to do it.   Shownotes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show290

Account Planning is something that Salespeople are responsible for. Many Sales Engineers try to stay away from that as it’s boring and many salespeople don’t come up with a good plan. However, in this video, I make the case why some Sales Engineers should be involved. Here are the questions that we will answer today:   What is an Account Plan? Who is responsible for the account plan? Why should SEs care about having a good account plan? Who would not participate in creating one?   And finally, how to Account Plan? Show Notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show289

Are there any more secrets in this world? Actually, I’m sure there is, so let’s narrow it down to what we do. Are there any more secrets to Sales Engineering? There are many out there posting, teaching, and sharing their information.   Fortunately, yes there are still some secrets. Some are hiding in plain sight, and some that we actually need to dig and research to highlight them. Today’s guest Aileen McNabb helps with that today!   Aileen has been on the podcast before (show 155), but if you don’t know here, she is a former SE Leader, and now she is a coach and author who just published her first of what hopefully be many books, one of which she will discuss here today. shownotes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show288

This week I chatted with Nate Broome from CaptivateIQ to discuss his career, his challenges, and what he is doing today at CaptivateIQ to build a great sales team. Show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show287  

Technology changes on what seems like to be a daily basis. How we sell has not changed in ages. Sure, they slap a new name and tweak a couple of terms, but the process of selling remains the same. SPIN Selling, Solution Selling, Challenge Sale, etc. But after covid, the PreSales role specifically has had to change. Those who see it coming can prepare, others will be left as Sales Support.   Today’s guest is Paul Harris, Principle Solution Architect at Loftware. We talked about his interesting journey, where he had to make tough decisions, after being pushed into things he had to get out of. We also talked about the evolution of sales engineering, what it was like before the pandemic vs now, and where Paul thinks it will be in the coming years.   

Many individuals are looking for a job, and there are many common complaints. “No one is responding to me”, “I’m being ghosted” etc.   In this episode, Ramzi discussed his thoughts about the job search, some rules, and how you can go about securing your next job. This is true whether you’re looking to break into Sales Engineering, or you’ve been doing this for many years.  

As Sales Engineers, our job is complex, but it’s very hard to do if we don’t stay on top of our learning. Therefore a great skill that we need to develop is continuous learning. Or even more importantly the skill to set time aside to do continuous learning or to learn on the fly!    Today’s podcast is an interview with Max Van Burke, Director of pre-sales at Pluralsight for EMEA. EMEA stands for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. We will cover the topic of continuous learning, how Max tackles it, and what he expects his team to do as well.   And If you're not familiar with Pluralsight, it is a learning website that owns Cloud Guru that I’ve been using on my AWS journey! show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show284

  Sales Engineering looks different in different companies. It looks different in the same company selling to different customers. And being able to service all different customer sizes is a skill that not many people have. Some organizations look for specific SEs with experience working with specific customers mainly since Sales Engineers method of working is very dependent on who they have worked with in the past.    And that is part of the discussion I have with Mohamed Barkhad today, a Customer Engineer at Google Cloud who has been a Sales Engineer for close to 10 years. We discuss how he shifted between roles and customers, how he shifted industries as well and how he learned to have tough conversations. Shownotes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show283

Startup Founders act as Salespeople, sales engineers, product managers, and many other roles. There lies the problem because some who have no sales experience make many mistakes in the sales process, and those without presales experience make more mistakes in the presales process.   Show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show282

One of the most important tasks that sales engineers need to do is practice their trade, and yet this is one of the most overlooked. Today, we discuss what it means to practice to be fully prepared, what we need to practice, and how we can go about it.   Show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show281

Today we talk to Cathryn Prudence, an SE Manager from Calgary Canada. We discuss what Calgary is trying to do to become a tech hub, but most of our focus will be on hiring Sales Engineers from unorthodox backgrounds due to some limitations. Show notes at https://wethesalesengineers.com/show280