Made your quota last year? Thank your Sales Engineer

One of my favorite actors growing up was Rodney Dangerfield. He was outrageous, hilarious, and the creator of the one of the greatest quotes ever, “I get no respect.”  Over the past 20 years, I have had the pleasure of working with some of the finest Sales Engineers in the world.  There are tech savvy engineers, and then there are the sales engineers that have both the technology and sales savviness.  If you have been lucky enough to have worked with the latter, then there is a good chance you hit your quota and have been to a President’s Club trip. 

Selling has changed a bit over the past 20 years. Oh sure, the basic fundamentals still exist and you still have to be great at relationships and understanding sales cycles.  However, I have found that the role of the sales engineer has had as much to do with sales success as the sales rep themselves.  Imagine being a software sales person and walking into a room full of IT people and having to not only present your demo, but also having to answer two hours of tech questions.  Sound a bit scary?  It should.  Most of the IT world has no interest in speaking to the sales rep anymore.  They want to speak to someone “like them.” 

The SE has to know an exhausting amount of information for any one particular presentation. Think of what we ask from them.  We rely on them for things such as infrastructure knowledge, hosting options, functionality deep dives, demoing, and pre-presentation mockups.  In other words, we would most likely be lost without them.  A great SE can hold the room long enough to captivate attendees and make them forget the sales person is even in the room.  They are like surgeons gently weaving their way through an incision and getting to the things that matter the most. 

So, if you work with a great SE, please make sure you thank them for the job they are doing and the money you are probably making. Make sure they don’t feel the way Mr. Dangerfield felt all those years of his life.  In the end, they all deserve respect.