Clarifying the difference between demoing vs a product walkthrough for Sales Engineers

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Clarifying the difference between demoing vs a product walkthrough for Sales Engineers

Starting Q1 2020 as the VP of North America Presales has come with a lot of new challenges to solve for. One of those challenges revolves around educating the sales team on how to engage with Presales. One of the questions that I ask when presenting at a sales team meeting is “Does anyone know the difference between a demo vs a product walkthrough?”. What I have observed is that the sales teams see these two types of engagements as the same thing.

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How do I go from good to great?

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How do I go from good to great?

There are a lot of ways to become a solid sales engineer especially with how critical this role is becoming in technology sales.  However, I have seen few that are able to cross the chasm to become an indispensable partner to the sales team.   I mentioned in my previous post, "Five ways Sales Engineers can make an impact at the end of a quarter” that to make an impact of a deal you will need to be a trusted advisor to the sales team by taking ownership of the deal as well as helping them identify risk early. 

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Creating linearity for your next sales opportunity

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Creating linearity for your next sales opportunity

I mentioned in my previous post “Five ways Sales Engineers can make an impact at the end of a quarter” that one of the ways pre-sales teams can impact an opportunity is by partnering with the account executive to create linearity in closing an opportunity.  This concept of linearity is centered around developing a complete sequence of events for when a customer plans to launch with your platform.

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Getting up-to-speed with Sales Engineering (my list of resources)

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Getting up-to-speed with Sales Engineering (my list of resources)

A few of my customers and my brother-in-law have reached out to me about wanting to make a career change into sales engineering and asked me for recommendations on how to get started.  Unfortunately, there isn’t a quick way to get-up-to speed as the role involve both a technical and sales acumen.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I transitioned into sales engineering by becoming an expert with a specific software platform and presenting at user forums. 

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Tips on how SE can work with an Account Executive for the first time

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Tips on how SE can work with an Account Executive for the first time

Working with a new account manager when joining a company can be scary. Every time I've joined, this has been one my biggest fears when meeting the sales rep. When meeting the sales rep for the first time, I start to ask myself many questions such as "how long as he been a sales rep?”, “has he/she sold in this space before?” and “will he/she see me as a trusted advisory or just another resource”.

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