Age of the Sales Engineer!!

Age of the Sales Engineer!!

The world and the role of a Sales Engineer have come of age. When I first started off as a sales engineer in 2000, the responsibilities were not clearly defined and the he or she was often abused with unclear responsibilities. Off late, businesses are beginning to understand with the ever growing complexity of technology, the importance of an SE and what role they could play in increasing the bottom line. But the question is, do all the necessary parties understand what is a Sales Engineer? In the past 8 years I have worked with companies that had processes defined and had a clear understanding of what a sales engineer must do (although they were never called an SE) and in companies where no one had a clue as to who is an SE, except for the SE manager. I think it is vital for the SE manager to clearly state the responsibilities and set the expectations, to the Sales executives. This actually sets expectations about the sales folks and creates an atmosphere for a winning team. What I noticed when the boundaries are not clearly defined, the expectations and work load varies depending on who you work with from the sales team.

By no means do I intend to create a rift between the sales engineer and the sales executives. Every SE joining any company must understand the processes and the responsibilities. How can you do that? Besides talking to an SE manager, make sure you have conversations with the sales team that you would be working with and what expectations do they have! Try to streamline the processes (if they don’t already exist) so that you are doing the same kind of work irrespective of the sales executive you are working with(who said business processes are just for technology…use it to for the SE world too)…..do that…everyone’s happy and the work will be more fun and will win you more deals…..

Finally, What does it take to be successful as a Sales Engineer. I have mentioned a few of them below which I think are absolutely essential:

1. Establish if you are going to be in a Service Oriented Industry or Product Oriented Industry and stick to it!
2. Know your product or technology…..very well…Comprehend it well.
3. Develop the skill to relate with people.
4. Know what your prospect or customer wants…..What are the pain points.
5. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes to develop a solution – irrespective of service oriented or product oriented. Always remember, our job is to provide the best to the customer to relieve pain points…..
6. Learn to match technology/Services to business problems or as I call it pain points…
7. Always….Always work out an ROI for the customer (the best selling point ever from a technical stand point).
8. Learn to work amicably with the sales team --- Absolutely Important!!!!
9. Do not hesitate to involve Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to answer any product related questions or design the best solution.

In Parting, a reminder of a Sales Engineer’s roots:

A salesman was demonstrating unbreakable combs in a department store. He was impressing the people who stopped by to look by putting the comb through all sorts of torture and stress. Finally to impress even the skeptics in the crowd, he bent the comb completely in half, and it snapped with a loud crack. Without missing a beat, he bravely held up both halves of the 'unbreakable' comb for everyone to see and said, "And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what an unbreakable comb looks like on the inside." :-)