I’ve had a lot of great conversations about pre-sales engineering recently, specifically around how sales engineers and sales reps work best together. One thing I’ve learned over the past five years is that every sales rep is different. They each bring their own set of experiences and have unique strengths and weaknesses. What’s worked best for me and my reps is when I can let the sales rep do what they’re best at and I adapt to their style. This requires a lot of versatility from the sales engineer, but I think it makes the job a lot more fun and also makes the team more successful.
Some reps are great at building relationships with customers and navigating the customer organization to help our champion get the solution they need quicker, while being weak at public speaking and explaining the technology even at a high level. In these situations, I basically run the show at customer meetings: delivering the corporate pitch, demos, solutioning, and answering the deep technical questions.
Some reps are really smooth presenters and love talking about all the ways our customers are getting value from our products. In these situations, the rep is more front-and-center during the beginning of the meeting but as the conversation gets more technical, I step in and take on a more focused role as the trusted technical advisor and expert.
In all of these working relationships, the important thing is that there’s a sense of partnership and teamwork between the sales rep, sales development rep, and the sales engineer. We work together, adapting to each other’s strengths, towards the goal of making the customer successful by giving them the solution they need to achieve their objectives.
The situations that have been frustrating are when one member of the team insists on taking on responsibilities they’re not well suited towards or that another member of the team can do better. Or when one member of the team is pigeonholed into specific tasks and responsibilities.
A great sales organization is one where everyone works together as a team — one where the sales engineer and sales development rep are equal partners (NOT support staff) to the sales rep. I reject the notion of thinking about sales reps as the sales engineers’ “customer”; this sets up a relationship where the sales engineer does whatever the sales rep tells them to do, whether that’s just being the “demo jockey” or there to just answer technical questions. It’s demoralizing for the sales engineer and it undervalues what they can bring to the customer engagement.
As a business grows, there’s often a push to standardize methodologies, processes, and roles/responsibilities. Some of that is certainly necessary but it’s important to ensure it provides room for individuals with a variety of skill sets and experiences to do what they do best and work strategically with their team, adapting to each other’s strengths, to achieve a shared goal. A great team works together, wins together, and has fun together!
