Mastering Technical Sales - Sales Engineer Guidebook

Learning about Mastering Technical Sales? If yes, then this book is a must read!!! Mastering Technical Sales by John Care and Aron Bohlig covers the full spectrum of what Sales Engineers need to know in order to be successful in their technical deals. It starts by covering fundamental concepts around:

-Qualifying Leads
-Determining Go/No Go strategies for RFPs
-Needs Analysis Tactics
-Delivering the Perfect Pitch
-How to Avoid 'Dash to Demo'
-Remote Demonstration Tips
-Objection Handling
-Branding
-Channel Selling with Partners
-Hiring SE Talent
-Time Management & Metrics

This book is a must-have in any Sales Engineer or SE Managers collection!!!

The Evolving Sales Engineer - Sales Engineer Manager Book

For Sales Engineer Managers, who are looking to expand their knowledge on new techniques and tactics to bring their Sales Engineers to the next level, then I would suggest the following book, The Evolving Sales Engineer. Key Concepts include:

-How to pick talented SEs
-Coaching Tactics
-Managing Office Politics between Account Managers/SEs

The author Edward Levine has a great grasp of the challenging world of Sales Engineering.
I would suggest this book to both SE Managers and SEs alike
Good reading!!!

Sales Engineer Resume Tips

Sales Engineer resumes should allow highlight a Sales Engineer's most significant deal accomplishments. For example, ensure that you highlight your top 3 deals with associated dollar amounts. Your resume should also include quota attainment for the team that you have supported, assuming it is greater than 85%+. You probably want to highlight your largest win that was a competitive takeaway, and ideally use a competitive marketshare leader or well known vendor. Highlight in your resume an example of a win with a creative solution that was non-conventional. Ensure that you include a hobbiessection in your resume, as many good SE Managers are looking for well-rounded SEs. It also helps to list out any competitive sports you have played or competitions that you many have participated in. Everyone is looking for an SE who has a successful track record of winning

Sales Engineers and Researching

When researching your prospect and trying to figure out what they do, which industry they are in, who is their competition, researching their financials etc...etc...etc...I usually need to open up a bunch of browser windows/tabs and I am constantly switching between one another. So here is a good site that helps out the multi-tasker in all SEs. Check out: http://www.googlegooglegooglegoogle.com/
It will allow you to perform multiple searches and see the results all in one window.

Sales Engineer Interview Questions

Looking for sales engineer interview questions to help you prep for an interview? Well, here are somes of the ones that I like to use for SE candidates.

-Describe your biggest opportunity that you ever worked on that closed? What was your role and how did you positively impact the decision?
-Describe your biggest opportunity that you have lost to the competition? What would have you done differently (if anything) during the sales cycle?
-Describe your pre-qualification checklist that you ask your sales rep for prior to demo'ing?
-Describe how Sales Engineers get engaged from a process standpoint at your organization?
-Describe an opportunity that you won which required you to quarterback and orchestrate resources from many cross-departmental groups to help progress a deal to closed status?
-Describe your greatest competitive win

Now, after screening and interviewing a candidate for product/industry knowledge and fit, I ALWAYS have them come in person and do a demo to me in role play as a prospect. I have them present something that they are comfortable demo'ing. This a where you see exactly how much value props and traps they inject into their presentation, not to mention how effectively they are able to handle objections. Look over for my next update of useful Sales Engineer interview questions.

Sample Test Data for Sales Engineers

Gathering sample test data for SEs has been difficult as there is not much sample test data available out on the internet for your specific prospect within a certain industry without significant costs or timely manual data manipulation involved. In performing some research, I have come across a great product (SAAS based also) that may help Sales Engineers build out a more realistic dataset for a demonstration by extracting selective prospect information that can be used in building out a realistic dataset for a delivering a prospect's solution demo. So, you are probably wondering, what type of tool is this, since it will significantly cut down my demo prep time and improve the quality of my demo solution, and thus increase my conversion ratio...which means more $$$ in your pocket...

SO, here it is...Check out a product called Mozenda (http://www.mozenda.com/), it allows you to call a website and then run an agent against a category page parsing out relavant details as well as drilling into individual item pages to parse out key attributes such as title, description, price etc...

It is a great tool for building out item/SKU lists that can be easily exported out into standard formats, such as .csv. Great tool! Give it a shot as they have a free 14 day trial.

* Remember, always check with the prospect first to confirm it is ok to use extract sample data from their website for your demonstration and respect appropriate copyright laws..Good Luck!

SE Tips - Lose The Techno Talk

Most Sales Engineers are proud of the technical knowledge, that they love to interject it into their sales opportunities whenever possible...The risk here is that the SE maybe the only one who understands the techno talk, leaving the key decision makers at a prospect feeling isolated and for lack of a better word, dumb. The SE leaves the demo feeling that they nailed the demo by throwing in technology terms and acronyms...BUT the key decision maker is left feeling this solution is much too technical for them and typically decides to opt for another vendor's solution...So remember the KISS principle even when selling technology solutions as the decision always comes back to which solution better solves our business pains and process inefficiences...

Sales Engineering Selling Books

Often most Sales Engineers do a great job learning their product/solution, and can articulate the importance of a feature from a benefit perspective, and most attempt to lay down some competitive traps...But why is it that some SEs are not looking to work on improving their raw sales skillsets. For instance, Sales Engineers need to know multiple techniques to handle functionality objections in a non-defensive manner... Remember, the word sales comes before engineering in Sales Engineer :)

So for those of you looking to sharpen your sales skills, I would like to recommend a good read, SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham offers techniques to probe by asking additional questions around the situation, problems, implications and needs. It is a great reference book for any newer SE or a seasoned veteran SE...Enjoy

Sales Engineer Interview Prep

With tougher economic times, getting an interview for a Sales Engineer position is becoming more scarce, so to make sure you are multi-threaded, consider the following suggestions to make the most our of your opportunity.

All good Sales Engineers know their YTD attainment for the sales team they were supporting as well as their revenue influence or revenue assisted metrics...Ensure you know where you stack rank vs your colleagues...Also, ensure that you have a collection of top 3 deals that you worked on that you can leverage to answer common questions around thinking outside of the box, biggest competitive win, going above and beyond to getting a deal done etc..etc..etc..

You also need to have some situational examples of deals you have won by using non-conventional methods, for example: setting up wired up, establishing a trust advisor role to gain access to the selection committee criteria etc..etc... Most SE just demo, but the SE who thinks outside the box improves their conversion ratio by setting up an effective plan of attack prior to demoing...Good luck on prepping for your interview...

Importance of Good SE Discovery

Most Sales Engineers are great at demoing, but the execution of effective discovery sessions is an area that Sales Engineers should ensure they are always fine tuning...The equation is simple the more that you know up front that you are able to collect during discovery session, the more effective the actual demo event will be, due to unique differentiation of your solution vs your competition...I compare it to a lawyer...The amount of time a good lawyer spends researching, asking questions, validating assumptions, and coming up with an effective game plan, significantly out-weights the time spent that the lawyer actually states his case in front of the judge in the courtroom... The battle many times is won or lost even before the actual demo event happens...Try to spend more time in the discovery phase, and you will see that you will often reduce the amount of time you spend in the demo phase...Good luck!

Sales Engineer Selling Skills

Many Sales Engineers feel that their responsibility is to only cover off the functional/technical requirements for a prospect's solution. True, but the buck does not stop here, it is important for Sales Engineers to also work on their sales skillset as well. Some of the best Sales Engineers that I have worked with are not the most technical in nature, but they can really spin challenging prospects questions or traps into 'non-No' answers. Tactics like pausing, paraphrasing, probing, spinning all are good strategies that need to be practiced by Sales Engineers to address difficult questions. We have even assembled a list of difficult questions that SEs need to learn to master. Often Sales Engineers maybe presenting/demo'ing 80%-90% of the time during a presentation, that means that the actual sales rep is only 'selling' approximately 10% of time, so have your SEs working prepping their demos and their selling skills

SEs and References

Many Sales Engineers believe references are the responsibility of the sales rep, so having a variety of reference stories is considering overkill by many sales engineers... I disagree, it is extremely important to be able to tell a RELEVANT reference story to your prospect.

You should have your success stories segmented by: 1) Industry/Vertical 2) Functionality/Scope 3) Company Size 4) Geographic Location and 5) Competitive Wins. I have seen savvy prospect in the prospect specifically ask for a reference during a demo, it was something to the effect of "Who else is using your software in our industry segment, will an employee count equal to or larger than use within 100 miles of our headquarters?" And of course, the questions was directed to the Sales Engineer...Ugh!...What a great way to kill a good demo, ah yes, and turn on the music as the Sales Engineer begins to dance to the Reference Dance Shuffle. Spend a few minutes, learning your competitive wins/success stories and you will see your conversion ratios increase!!!!

Handling Traps for Sales Engineers

So, you like to plant competitive sales traps against your competition, sure...most good Sales Engineers do! Next question....so, do you like it when your competition plants traps for you??? Most SEs HATE it when it happens, BUT great Sales Engineers love competitive traps against them..... Say that again?!? YES, great Sales Engineers luv it when the competition tries to launch a competitive trap for them...

Why you ask? Simple....Think of this sports analogy, take an NFL cornerback who's sole responsibility is making sure that the quarterback and wide receiver don't connect for a pass completion. So all cornerbacks try to stop this from happening, BUT great cornerbacks ANTICIPATE the quarterback's pass ('trap' in the sales world), so when the pass is delivered a great cornerback is so well prepared to counter that they usually are there to pick off the pass and transition to an offensive threat in which the other team is not usually prepared for.

So ensure you work on your responses to common traps, so that you are prepared to transition from a defensive position with confidence, your prospect will appreciate your knowledge and increase your trust advisor status with them. So, use competitive trap defense in conjunction with offensive trap positioning, and your conversion rate will increase...Guaranteed!

Organization for Sales Engineers

So you are a Sales Engineer, and 40 hours a week doesn't give you nearly enough time between detailed discovery calls, demo prep, demos, whiteboarding, RFPs, SOW, updating notes etc.... But wait, if you remove the time spent on entering notes into your CRM system, then SE life would be perfect....well maybe not perfect, BUT you would regain a couple hours a week.

So if this sounds interesting to you as a Sales Engineer interested in improving your organizational skills and time management skills, then you too should look into Jott. Yes, Jott.com allows you to call a number and summarize your demo notes, follow-ups and or key informational just by talking out loud. Jott does the rest and transposes your message into an text and send an email... Voila...You're done and no forgeting or rekeying in your notes into your CRM system. Jott away!!!

Setting Effective Sales Traps

To set an effective sales trap, often the sales rep replies on the sales engineer to do so, and the sales engineer believes that is the responsibility of the rep...So sadly enough, the net result is that no one plants any effective traps. Now, I am not talking about Mud Slinging (although that has it's place only in very specific situations), I am referring setting effective sales traps.

I will call out one of the more successful traps that I have used numerous times with high success. This is only one of many effective methods, but it is the simplest to implement without many steps. The process is very easy, yet elegant and is delivered in a discreet way. When delivered correctly, your prospect will feel that you have genuine interest in their needs first and at the same time you are laying down your trap framework.

Here it goes:
Assumption: Your company is first to demo over your competition. The approach is different when your company is responding to traps set by your competiton who have already demo'ed
Step 1: When you have a significant competitive feature that trumps your competition, as a sales engineer you can Set The Landscape for the trap...This must be done in a POSITIVE 3rd perspective for the need for the feature. For example, Gartner/Forrester/IDS say that by 2011 the need for feature x will have grown by 200%.
Step 2: Next, compliment your competitor on how they have chosen to implement this feature...Yes, I did say COMPLIMENT, BUT spin it with a comment, something like Vendor A has a pretty good Feature X for certain situations, but there approach varies from our we architected ours...
Step 3: Now, list our why your company has selected their approach to how they designed that feature which is unique AND more relevant to prospects key business requirements and business pains
Step 4: This is where the call-to-action for the TRAP comes into play...Proactively invite them to do further research on it, perhaps suggest they reach out to the other vendors they are considering to bring it up as a point of discussion.

This easy to apply sales tactic for setting traps is highly effective when you have the delivery down pat. The genuine interest in looking out for the prospects best interest is paramount, as it will help to solidify you role as a trusted advisor in their solution making process...Good luck!

SEs - Video Tape Your Dry Runs

All Sales Engineers every 3 to 6 months should always go under the microscope, for a self-humbling experience of being video taped during a dry run of their demonstration. I know...I know...Everyone is thinking, I have been doing this for the last 15 years, I know it all, why should I tape myself when I already know it all and have done it all. Seasoned Sales Engineers sometimes form bad habits, often unknown to them, which may hind a deal in the future. It was not until I saw myself demo'ing on video earlier on in my career, that I realized how often I would finish my prospects questions without letting them finish their train of thought...Video has no hidden agendas, so it always provides you with a different perspective and always you to fine tune small imperfections in your game.
Remember, Sales Engineers are a unique breed, many are often defensive about there skills being critiqued by others , so this is an easy way for an IMPARTIAL assessment on your demo delivery. Remember, it will only help you in the long run and the pocketbook!!!

Inside Based Software Sales Engineers

If you are an inside software Sales Engineer, and are looking to get an edge over your competition, below are 2 quick tips to outsmart your competition's SEs.

Firstly, since inside Sales Engineers lose the benefit of seeing their prospects reactions, it is EXTREMELY important, to make use of frequent Named Open Probes...What do I mean?? Hopefully this sounds familar, "John, tell me more if you feel that Feature X that I have just demonstrated does not address your business requirement Y..." This keeps your prospect engaged, attentive, and does not allow them to mentally go to 'another place' during your demo.

Secondly, you must be able to effectively utilize a variety of Web Based Tools for capturing screenshots, mapping out process flows/systems architecture, communicating with your sales team real time, whiteboarding etc...Check out my Tools Category on this blog for more info... Without the use of these tools, your competition will already be a step ahead of you...

SEs Gathering Non Functional Requirements

So you have your prospect's business process flows captured, test data uploaded, key business drivers documented...So you should be ready to go into demo prep phase, RIGHT?...Well, almost...don't forget asking your prospect about the non-functional side of the business. Most software Sales Engineers know that we should be asking all of the 'ability' questions, but often we forget, and sometimes these areas tie back tighter to the executive's key business requirements.

You know the ones I am talking about, like: availability, scalability, reliability, security, etc...

Knowing your companies strengthens in these areas can allow you to plant effective traps for your competition, even if they have a stronger point-solution than yours!!! The SE who you are competiting with at the well-known competitor will probably forget to do so. Give it a shot!!!

SEs Leaving Competitive Traps

It is truly amazing that most Sales Engineers know their competition's product stack inside and outside, backwards and forwards...Why is it then that many senior SEs do not plant effective competitive traps in their deals. They all 'know' they should, but they often forget to do so.....Sure, it takes time to strategically plan out how to set a trap up, work on your delivery of the trap, and then have an appropriate 'call to action' for your prospect to follow-up on that trap. Yet, many SEs get lazy and forget to do so.

BUT, isn't that what you competition is doing to you already?!? Think to yourself, how many times have I had to answer that loaded question of, "How do you compare your solution to vendor x?" Most SEs (the good ones...) can answer this in a heartbeat in their sleep, but too many times discussing competitive landscapes is very reactive, instead of being PROACTIVE.

Here's what I mean, unfortunately many SEs only answer a planted question, and it is ONLY then that they begin their offense on the competition, which truly comes across as mud-slinging the other vendors as it is typically not well planned out and comes across only as a retaliation to the original question...

Being a seasoned Sales Engineer, keep a cool head, and plan your PROACTIVE competitive attacks/traps carefully as you normally do your REACTIVE competitive replies and you too will increase your close ratio!!!

Book Review for Sales Engineers

A great book for Sales Engineers who are demo'ing software solutions is Demonstrating to Win! by Robert Riefstafl

This book will allow any SE to quickly learn differentiating skills to perform a winning demonstration. It highlights the pre-work required prior to the actual demonstration, namely what the book refers to as The Discovery Process... It also discusses 'bridging' a prospect requirements to your software solution, team demonstrating, engaging your prospect, and demo crimes that should be avoided.

Give the book a read and let me know what think!!!

Organizing Data for Sales Engineers 101

As all good Sales Engineers know, we all receive and collect tonnes of useful data....I am talking about prospect requirement docs, screenshots, reports, product management roadmaps, product feature lists, competitive landscapes docs, etc...etc...etc.... The list may actually go on forever ;) The key is to figure out what is the best way to organize all of this data to allow it to be extremely useful when it is needed most. So one of the best tools that is mandatory for all SEs is Google Desktop (http://desktop.google.com). This tool allows you to perform full text search over your email, files, music, photos, chats, Gmail, web pages that you've viewed.

It is a great tool that indexes you content accurately. Give it try!!!

Tips for a Sales Engineering Interview

If you are considering a move from consulting or development into the world of pre-sales consulting/engineering, and you are not certain of how to prepare for your interview and you are looking for some tips, hopefully this post can help you out. A logical starting point is to figure out how have you positioned or upsold additional functional in the past, such modules, consulting time, or training etc in your past engagements... A sales engineering manager is less concerned with if you delivered your projects on time and budget (although those are important attributes) or if you know 50 different developments languages and design patterns. Instead they are more concerned if you are able to 'position' (ie: sell) your unique value to an organization during pre-sales cycles based on your technical/solution crafting skills.

So here are my basic SE interviewing tips for folks considering entering into the sales consulting world for the first time, so that you can be better prepared before you jump into the line of fire of a bunch of Sales Engineering interview questions. So be prepared to discuss:

-Real life client examples of how you solved a business problem using technology solutions
-The business value that your technical/software solution has solved in business terms
-Your most complex solution/implementation and how you were able to grow future business based on your relationship with your customer
-Examples of how you were able to successful convey a technical process to a standard business user
-Examples of when you had to effectively present to C-level executives/business decision makers to successfully position your solution
-How you have been able to solve a business problem by thinking outside-of-the-box
-Details of how you were able to come up with a solution to a business problem quickly off-the-cuff

If you are already a Sales Engineer, the tips I provide would vary significantly, so stay tuned for a follow-up post on that...Good luck on the interview!

A Sales Engineer's Pre-Game Warm Up

It is amazing how often you can increase your demo close ratio, by increasing your prep. Often veteran Sales Engineers have the mindset that they are being able to jump into a deal on a moments notice, and then expect to knock it out of the park without much prep each and every time…Although this is often a gut reaction of senior SEs, it is important to always revert back to the number one principle of doing as much up-front prep as possible. Every Sales Engineer has there own pre-game checklist - or at least the good ones do ;) So, here is my abbreviated checklist:

-Collect all the Key Business Requirements/Key Business Drivers
-Understand business/technical pains and the results/consequences of these pains
-Visually map out your prospects current environment and to-be environments
-Confirm the audience for the demo, their roles, pains, level of influence etc…
-Personalize the dataset that you are going to use against your competition...Get test data, get verticalized sample data, edit your SQL statements, grab some test data off your prospects website directly...

I know…create test data?!?...I don’t have time for that! I hear you, but sometimes that will be the difference of the unique wow factor for your prospects. Remember, the SE at your competition might be creating test data for their solution, and that might be the difference whether or not you get the business…A great saying we had at a previous SE shop was, “See your business in our software…”, not sure who to quote for coming up with that one, but it was great nonetheless.

Ok…Back to the list...

-Confirm your plan of attack and demo flows with your Sales Rep/AM/AE
-Confirm your agenda and timeframes with your prospect/coach/partner/consultant
-Setup effective traps with your rep ahead of time (Avoid the 'off-the-cuff stuff'...)
-Dry-run your presentation/demo internally and/or with your coach at the prospect

Remember, just like a champion fighter, the battle/demo is almost always won or lost based on the training/demo prep one does ahead of time... So don't forget to 'hit the gym' before your next demo!

Web Based Diagramming Tool

For most Sales Engineers (both Software and Hardware based), currently mapping out current architectures/infrastructures can be a challenging task...Now add on top of that not having the ability to easily map out these environments while you are on the phone with the prospect makes it that much more difficult..For those of you with HUGE budgets to buy the latest and greatests to assist in your SEs sales cycles, this post may not be so useful for you.

But for the rest of us, if you want an easy to use, web based (I love the SAAS model) tool, that allows you to map out environments, do straight forward Flow Chart, E/R, Network, UML, BPM flows, and sequence diagrams to name a few, then it is worth a shot to testdrive Gliffy (http://www.gliffy.com/). This drag and drop tool allows you to version your diagrams, snap to grid, full formatting, image upload, web image searching and a bunch of other great features. Setup a free test account and play around with it...If you like it, the price is very affordable for what you get and it will enable your Sales Engineer to better capture their prospect's requirements...Give it a try!