What do Sales Engineers actually do?

Every time I attend a social networking event whether it’s for an industry meetup, a client event or night out with my wife, I always get asked the question “What do you do for a living?”.  Usually, I start out with my standard answer which is that I work in pre-sales for a technology company.  This normally leads to the following response, “Oh, how interesting” which loosely translates to “I’m still not exactly sure what you do” .  As I continue to elaborate telling them its sometimes referred to as sales engineering, the typical follow up question is something around what type of engineering is that related to.  Bottom line - presales is a bit undefined in the industry and it’s very common for me to have to explain what does a sales engineer does day to day.  For those of you that are in the field, what I really want to say is, “we make the sales team look good by making the product do extraordinary things” but instead I normally default to, “we partner with the sales team to help guide prospects and buyers in understanding all the capabilities the product has to offer”.  This usually does the trick.

Another way to explain what a Sales Engineer does is the following: Sales Engineers take complex technological platforms or solutions and paint pictures for how they can help solve a business problem.  They help create value and a vision for what the product could be for a prospect or customer.  We learn to master our client’s emotional connection to a challenge they have and help guide them to see how the product could be the solution.  Sales Engineers can make products stretch beyond what it was originally designed to do and have an acute sense of what the customer actually needs to be successful.  Sales Engineers are a cross breed between a product manager, salesperson, and software developer, always working between the customer and the product to find a blend between the two that can help them meet in the middle.  

I believe that the Sales Engineer function is an important part of a sales cycle.  Many salespeople that I have worked with have conveyed how critical my activities have been and if it weren’t for those activities, the deal would never closed.  Another way to put it, we are the technical talent behind the deal that makes sure nothing derails the deal, including product positioning, architecting a solution, vision painting, proof of concept and so much more.  I know I am biased since I am in presales however, I am curious to know what you guys think?  How would you describe presales to someone who never heard of it before?  And do you agree that pre-sales are important in a sales cycle?