I want to take a couple of minutes to recognize the unsung heroes of technology sales. They usually have the title of Solution Architect, Sales Engineer, or Systems Engineer. Regardless of their label, they are the critical link between sales organizations and customers.
And they deserve our heartfelt thanks.
Sales Engineers are responsible for a lot of the hard, grinding work that needs to get done to move the sales process forward:
- Conducting deep dives on your own technologies to understand capabilities
- Creating technical presentations for customer meetings
- Collaborating with customers to understand their current environment and technical requirements
- Creating very specific content for RFPs
- Writing detailed deliverables for Statements of Work
- Becoming trusted advisors to clients
- Researching alternative solutions to propose the best recommendations for our customers
- Demoing solutions and managing POCs that (sometimes) work
In a nutshell, Sales Engineers provide high value for customers and critical differentiation from competitors.
Much of this work can’t be done during regular business hours, so evenings and family time are sacrificed to keep the business moving forward. Did you get an email from a Sales Engineer at 2AM? It’s not a problem with the email server. That’s when the work got done.
While the salesperson oftentimes gets the glory for attaining their goals for the year, those goals would be rarely achievable without the support and partnership of their technical peers. Every top salesperson understands that and builds a strong relationship with the Sales Engineers that can best support their customers. They know how to help them and support them in any way they can.
I have been fortunate to have worked with some great Sales Engineers in my career. To those of you that might be reading this, THANK YOU for all your efforts and for making us sales people look good.
Tech Companies – please note: in an increasingly competitive market, Sales Engineers can make the difference between success and failure. Invest in these critical roles, compensate them fairly, provide them the training that they need, and give them the accolades and recognition that they deserve.
If you don’t, your competition will.
