Creating Our Own Pre-Sales Engineers

What does an industry-leading technology solutions provider do in a job market where pre-sales engineers are in high demand and low supply? Create their own! At least that was the hypothesis.

In the fall of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, that's exactly what systems integrator powerhouse World Wide Technology set out to do. In late 2020, on the recommendation of my manager at the time, Director of Engineering Chris Black, VP/CTO Tony Berg called to run the idea by me. He described what he and Matt Horner, EVP Global Sales envisioned at a high level. He finished the conversation by saying, "do you want to be the guy to take this on?" With an element of naivete, I said "Let me think about it…..yes!" You see, I have always found a way to incorporate teaching, training, and mentoring into every role that I've ever held dating back to my time in the Air Force some 30 years ago. It's a passion that I've always had and now I get to do it for a living!

Okay, I know that I've committed, where do I start? How do you create something out of nothing? Especially something so potentially critical to the growth of the company and something so personal as teaching the next generation of presales engineers everything they need to know to be a productive and successful member of a sales team at a premier systems integrator whose vision is to be the best technology solutions provider in the world. No pressure, right?

How hard could it be? After all, I've been a pre-sales engineer, account manager, and systems engineering manager over the last 25 years at powerhouses like Sirius, Cisco, Presidio, and WWT. I know what they need to know. I know what to teach them. But do I know how to teach them? That's the big question. How do I take what I know and turn it into something that can be consumed by those early in their career or those eager to change careers and become pre-sales engineers? Not to mention the other questions like, where will we find the candidates? How long should the training be? What should the curriculum look like? How in the world are we going to do this in a virtual environment? How will we measure success? And a dozen other equally important questions.

As I pondered these questions over a couple of months and as I began to tackle them one by one, I hit something of a wall. Like I imagine a writer does when they get "writer's block". I was stuck on the curriculum. What should the content be? What should the sequence be? What tools and resources should I use? What should we call this program? I had a million ideas bouncing around in my head. I just couldn't seem to organize them. I needed a way to logically show what I was thinking. I turned to a tool that my colleague and WWT Sales Enablement Manager, David Schenberg had introduced me to called Mural. Mural gave me a way to place everything that was in my head onto a canvas that can be viewed on one page. So, one Saturday afternoon, without the usual workday distractions, and after some intense focus I broke the "writer's block". I finally had what I was thinking down on "paper".

I couldn't wait for Monday to get here so I could finally lay out my plan to my manager, Senior Director of Systems Engineering, David Kramer. It felt so satisfying to hear him say "I love it. Let's do it". At that point, he got out of my way and said just tell me what you need and how I can help you. That's exactly what I needed to hear. Dave has created a grand vision for our Field Enablement Team that includes this program and many others. His vision and leadership have been critical. I knew he was committed to this endeavor when he told me "We're going to change lives with this program Guy". More about that in a future article.

The next few months consisted of formalizing the curriculum, creating, and documenting processes, recruiting, vetting, and hiring candidates for our first cohort, and preparing for a June 2021 start date. I solicited a lot of advice from leaders, colleagues, and friends. I had a lot of help! We slowly began to share the plans for the program across the company. Without much effort, quality candidates began to emerge. By May 2021 we had narrowed the field of candidates and hired all the individuals who would comprise Cohort 1. We ended up with a very diverse group of high-potential talent who had demonstrated great aptitude to learn what we have to teach. This cohort consists of true early in career individuals who had just a month earlier graduated from college, as well as some change in career professionals desiring to shift their focus to technology, and a few who are advancing their careers, already have some foundation in technology. We welcomed the challenge to adjust our teaching to accommodate all three of these profiles. It has proven to be challenging but rewarding.

Cohort 1 did indeed begin the program now formally known as the Associate CSE Development Program in June 2021. They are currently in month 10 of the 12-month program and we couldn't be more pleased with how well they are doing.

Once we got Cohort 1 off the ground, the next challenge became how to manage this very immersive, high touch, instructor-led, program, a full-time job on its own, and begin the process all over again in preparation for Cohort 2 which was to begin in Jan 2022. Help came in the form of my colleague and fellow engineering manager, John Walden. I was relieved that Dave had found a seasoned and successful engineering manager to come alongside me in this effort. John turned out to be exactly what the doctor ordered. In no time he was up to speed and running hard to try and figure out just what the heck I had cobbled together and to prepare to recruit, vet, hire, and eventually begin training Cohort 2. Cohort 2 did indeed begin the program in Jan 2022 with 12 associates plus one "Hiring Our Heroes" fellow from our Public Sector segment. John has his hands full, but Cohort 2 is doing very well as they make their way thru Month 2 of the program.

While John and I are experts in our field with decades of experience, neither of us are formally trained in the field of education. We are both self-aware enough to realize that we could use some help in this regard if we are truly going to build a world-class development program that adheres to techniques and best practices found in the world of formal education. Faced with this dilemma, David said "let's hire a schoolteacher". Boom, that's exactly what we did. In comes Ashley Schrage, our new Program Manager who has a master's degree in educational technology and design. Exactly what we need to put a professional wrapper on this program! Ashley was a 3rd Grade teacher which also equips her nicely to deal with me and John on a daily basis!

So here we are, two cohorts in flight and already recruiting and interviewing for Cohort 3 to begin in July 2022. When Cohort 1 completes the program at the end of May 2022, they will have demonstrated competency in telling the WWT story and key differentiators, navigating the vast resources available to them at WWT including the Digital Platform and Advanced Technology Center, completed the Associate Sales Development Program, attained numerous OEM accreditations and at least one industry-recognized certification, experienced seven months of on-the-job training with a sales team, and completed a program capstone.?

Upon completion of the program, they will become Associate Consulting Systems Engineers and members of a sales team somewhere in the country. At that point, we'll truly be able to look back and see if the hypothesis that we can "create our own pre-sales engineers" has proven to be true. Stay tuned to find out.

If you are interested in learning more about the Associate CSE Development Program, please visit our landing page at?https://www.wwt.com/developing-the-next-generation-consulting-systems-engineer?