4/30/2009

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!!!!

4/28/2009

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!