We The Sales Engineers: A Resource for Sales Engineers, by Sales Engineers
Episodes
#134 Upgrade Your Career Through a Side Hustle
09 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Brömme and Jan-Erik Jank are presales professionals and leaders with a passion for technology, people, and leadership. They are also hosts of the...
#133 8 Questions to Ask Yourself for a Better Resume
02 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When someone is writing their resume, the most common thing is to just write down what their role entails, however, the focus should be more about wha...
#132 The Basics of The Proof of Concept
26 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Tony Matos drops in to discuss what is a proof of concept, when we use it, and how we can put ourselves in a position to win the deal...
#131 From a GoFor to Proactively Helping Customer
19 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
SEs are an underutilized resource. One major obstacle we need to overcome is going from a GoFor to proactively help customers, which adds value for ou...
#130 A Crazy Path Into Sales Engineering
12 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
James Kaikis is a solutions engineering leader at SalesForce and co-founder of the Presales Collective. He has spent most of his presales career in st...
#129 Keeping up with an Insanely Changing Sales World
05 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
One of the first books that helped me become a better Sales Engineer and made me change the way I did my demos, it was Demonstrating to Win, and we’...
#128 Optimizing Your Resume in a Competitive World
28 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with Dr. Amanda Rico to discuss how you can effectively leverage your resume and LinkedIn profiles to build your online presence, stand ou...
#127 How a Sales Engineer Raised Funds to start Vivun
21 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s episode, we chat with Matthew Darrow, who has spent a huge chunk of his career as a Sales Engineer before starting his own company. It wa...
#126 Knowing Your Career Destination and Reverse Engineering the Path
14 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s podcast, we get to see how having a background in pre-sales can be beneficial in leading a startup or founding your own company. Join me ...
#125 The Similarities Between Sales Engineering and Being a CEO of a Startup
07 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Jeroen Corthout shares his perspective on building a startup – from leaving his secure job as an Account Manager to leading his own...
#124 No Sales Engineer Left Behind
31 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Since the start of the lockdown, many people were effected through a loss of job. We started #NoSELeftBehind initiative to help SE highlight their str...
#123 The Basics Of Personal Branding
24 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Do you need personal branding as a Sales engineer? Our guest today gives us enough compelling reason to believe so. Join us in our conversation as Wil...
#122 Digging Deep into a Great Sales Engineer and Account Executive Relationship
17 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How can Sales Engineers improve their relationship with their partner in sales, and vice versa? We've got Rob Curley and Steve Foster on the podcast t...
#121 From Accidental SE to the Founder of We The SEs
10 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week’s episode is quite interesting because Benny and I take a backseat from hosting while Akshat Srivastava of SENY “picks my brain” and m...
#120 6 Ways to Increase your Influence In your Company
03 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast, we’ve had the pleasure of conducting a live webinar with our guest, Freddy Mangum, who is not a sales engineer (he’s in the C-sui...
#119 Other-Centered Selling
27 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Scott Cassidy is the VP of Aslan Training & Development, a sales company that’s been around since 1996, specializing in helping inside sales reps, s...
#118 The Creativity of Sales Engineering
20 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As Sales Engineers, we often focus on the process – learning how to get better at sales, qualifications, discovery skills, demos, but rarely do we a...
#117 Show Your Value: From an Extra Body to Solution Architect Manager
13 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Figuring out your career path as a sales engineer is not a walk in the park. Sometimes it takes a lot of pivoting and perhaps even forging your own to...
#116 A Song of Fire and Gold
06 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Rob Falcone is the author of Just F*ing Demo, and he joins us on the show to discuss his history, how he got to Sales Engineering and then Director of...
#115 How Leaders can Help Their SEs Progress
29 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A leader can make a huge difference in someone’s career. Leaders can take an active role in pushing a Sales Engineer forward to achieve their goal, ...
#114 Serving your Sales Engineers
22 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Shore drops by to discuss how SE Managers can coach their teams to build better relationships with their Account Managers, hold them accountable,...
#113 Becoming a Technology Evangelist
15 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re good at your job, you get to write your own ticket. Have you heard of that? Well, we’ve got proof. Mark Green discusses how he got to be...
#112 Avoiding being a Demo Jockey
08 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Some Sales Engineers get a bad rep. SEs are demo jockeys, SEs are not motivated to sell since they have a high base. Sometimes SEs are thought of as a...
#111 Following Your Interest into Specialization
01 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Gee started his career in software design, more specifically DevOps. He has now come to support DevOps as a Specialized SE for his organization. This ...
#110 The Unspoken Aspects of Sales Engineering
25 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Are Sales Engineers limited in terms of function to Discovery calls, demos and Proof of concepts? There are so many other things we do that no one eve...
#109 Why Sales Engineers Should Move to Sales
18 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tucker Snedeker started his corporate career as a Sales Engineer. After 10 years he moved into Sales. We discuss why he did the move, and why he enjoy...
The 3 + 1 Rules of Sales Engineering Leadership
11 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
SE Manager is viewed as a first line manager, in charge of the care and feeding of SEs that report to them, it’s a position.
#107 Fighting for the Discovery Call
04 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"You Miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Michael Jordan - I think What do you do if you are being left out important pieces of the sales process?...
#106 Storytelling to Speed up Sales Cycles
27 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Feedback can be hard to take but it’s important to remember that you will always be biased towards yourself. Trust others to have your best intere...
#105 Making an Impact as a Global SE Leader
20 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Are leaders born or bred? For today, this doesn’t matter, what matters is that if you are a leader currently, or you think you may want to be a lead...
#104 A New Challenge Everyday
13 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Facing new challenges can be scary, but if you know you want to face it, then face it, and you’ll be better for it. Today’s show has a relativel...
#103 It's All in the Pudding
06 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Like a fine wine or an aged cheese, some things require time before they achieve greatness. Vik Arya, CEO and Co-Founder of Pudding.app, has had many ...
#102 Selling to a Very Technical Audience
30 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Trevor Lancon joins this week’s show to share his insights on selling to an extremely technical audience - an audience that’s expected to be more ...
#101 Moving from the Dark Side
23 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Career paths for technical folks going into sales is Sales Engineering and then Sales. Matt took a different route where he started off as a Salespers...
#100 Cast A Big Shadow!
16 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Centennial Show. Show 100. This one is a special one, bringing together three behemoths in Sales Engineering leadership to speak about Sales Eng...
#99 The Importance of Discovery
09 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In order to deliver the best demo, the best presentation, the best value to any customer/prospect, you have to know what they want. The way to find ...
#98 Enabling Sales Enablement
02 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nathan Fierley is the Senior Director of Sales Engineering at Bigtincan, a company that empowers sales organizations through sales enablement to prov...
#97 Inspiring Fierce Loyalty
24 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Liz Whitaker-Freitas is a Sales Engineering Manager at Splunk, one of the leaders in managing and interpreting big data for organizations in today’s...
#96 Inch Deep, a Mile Wide: a Generalist's Story
17 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Bryan Young is an experienced SE who works for Cisco, one of the largest technology conglomerates in the world. Today we cover some of the unique pers...
#95- The 6 Habits of Highly Effective Sales Engineers
10 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Chris White is an accomplished author, trainer, coach, teacher and Sales Engineering leader. He penned “The Six Habits of Highly Effective Sales E...
#94 Launching your Career as a Sales Engineer
03 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Description: Starting as a Sales Engineer is a daunting task. There is not a manual, and in many cases, there is no mentoring. You are supposed to fig...
#93 What not to Say in a Demo
27 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There are a lot of things that are said during demos, some are canned, some are improvised, but all are always geared to get you and your audience in ...
#92 Putting Yourself in Positions to Move Ahead.
20 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Many Salespeople have their origins in being Sales Engineers first including our guest, Ricardo Guzman. Drawing on how he was treated as a Sales Engin...
The Diversity of Role of Sales Engineers
13 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Bini, my cohost, just started reading Mastering Technical Sales by John Care. We wanted to discuss a bit about it, and discuss the diversity in the ro...
#90 Why Do We Demo?
06 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Demonstrations are the keystone foundation of a Sales Engineer’s Career. Some SEs demo on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Some companies actually ...
#89 Working on a Lean Sales Engineering Team
30 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Working for a company that provides fremium products to consumers as well as a paid product to business can be tricky. We discuss how do SEs use it to...
#88 Conversations on the Forums
23 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Folks are having great conversations on We The Sales Engineers Forums. Join in!
#87 Sales Engineering and Leadership
16 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sales Engineering is a weird role, you can get SE of the quarter today and be let go the next. But you can bounce back and become the Global Director ...
#86 Network Neighborhood: What is a Sales Engineer?
09 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
what it’s like to be a sales engineer. What’s the job description? How is a sales engineer compensated? What do IT engineers on the buying side of...
#85 Top 10 Mistakes I see in Resumes
02 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Resumes are needed to grab attention, and it is our responsibility to make as easy as possible for the recruiter or hiring manager to understand wha...
#84 The Effects of a Great SE Manager
25 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sid works for a Value Added Reseller, and that is one of the topics that we discuss, so stay tuned if you are curious about that topic since it is rar...
#83 Take a Step Back to Move Forward
18 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes it’s important to take a step back before you move forward. And that is exactly what Marwan did. He took a look at himself and decided he ...
#82 Sales Engineering Enablement - The SE Toolkit
11 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Sales Engineer is not an island. Contrary to popular belief, we need a lot of people behind us to be successful. From Product Managers to support ...
#81 Sales and Sales Engineering Skill Overlap
04 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There is so much that Salespeople and Sales Engineers do that are common. We both have to work with customers, although what we do with the customers ...
#80 Internship Connections Can Lead to Jobs
28 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
University is a good place to start preparing for someone’s career. The best way to do that is through co-op or internships. That was a major part o...
#79 Preparing for SE Interviews
21 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Some Sales Engineers move jobs every couple of years, others once in a blue moon. So what do we need to do in order to be ready for all the different ...
#78 From India to the US- Becoming a Sales Engineer
14 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
As a fresh new SE, Pravin still remembers vividly the reasons he wanted to become an SE, and the process he went through to become one. He was rejecte...
#77 Learning from Salespeople
07 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How many Sales Engineers look at their Salesperson during a customer call and think, I can do that job better than he can. But is that all there is to...
#76 Prerequisites to Negotiating a Salary
30 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Negotiating a Salary starts with the first meeting, however before the salary is agreed upon with the hiring manager, there are a few prerequisites ne...
#75 25 years of passionate sales engineering
23 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How can a human being remain passionate about what they are doing for 25 years? Not only that, how can they keep learning. Technology is moving at a b...
#74 Creating a New Dream Role
16 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
As Sales Engineers, we should be putting ourselves out there. That is what Sly did with his youtube channel, and he was able to create a new role at a...
#73 The 6 Road Warrior Energy Habits
09 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sales Engineers travel all the time, and in many cases, our health is not really an important aspect that we think about when we do. This interview is...
#72 Preparing For Customer Conferences
02 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John White just got back from VMworld. So I decided to completely exhaust him and talk about customer conferences. Since this was a live session we we...
#71 Transferable Skills, from Business Owner to Sales Engineer
26 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sales Engineering encompasses so many different facets of a business. We have to know technology, be able to explain that to customers in an engaging ...
#70 Being the Number 1 SE at a Startup
19 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Pena went from a customer, where he advocated for his vendor, to being a Sr. Director of Sales Engineering at a Startup. He was the number 1 SE th...
#69 Who Wants to be a Leader
12 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Leadership is not a one-way street. You can lead up the team, or down the team. That is one topic I discuss with Stephen Morse. The second topic we di...
#68 The Perfect Demo Environment
05 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Product demonstrations are more than just product demonstrations. In order to truly show the product, the perfect environment is needed. Show notes...
#67 Sales Engineers, CEOs, and Mentors
29 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How do Sales Engineers go into sales operations and come out as CEOs? What are some of the things that SEs do that help them prepare to become CEOs? G...
#66 Why Start Sales Engineers of New York
22 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sales Engineers and Account Managers don't always see eye to eye, and the best way to improve that relationship is to learn how others do it. That is ...
#65 Sales Engineers Interview Process
15 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What is the SE interview process? I’ve had several interviews for sales engineering jobs, especially when I wanted to move on from my last role. The...
#64 Sales Engineering Skills that Mold the Greatest SEs
08 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There isn't a single quality that is what makes or breaks a great sales engineer. There is also not one action that will push a Sales Engineer into gr...
#63 Key Account Planning for Sales Engineers
01 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Key account planning is something that Sales Engineers should be participating in more often for a multitude of reasons. This l be discussed in this e...
#62 Working with and for Value Added Resellers
24 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Working for a Value Added Reseller is very different than working for a Vendor. That is why I wanted to have Moni Assi on the show as he has worked fo...
#60 Accidental Sales Engineer to Company Owner
10 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Don Carmichael, owner of WinningSkills.com and I have a conversation about presales, qualifications of a presales engineer, and the different customer...
#59 Sales Engineers will be Uncomfortable
03 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
If Sales Engineers are comfortable, that means they might be missing some aspects of the job. Being uncomfortable is normal, and there are many differ...
#58 Sales Engineering Skills that No One Talks About
27 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sales Engineers need to have many different skills. Many of them are known, demonstrations, speaking, and technologically. However, here's a list of s...
#57 How Sales Engineers can help in Negotiation
20 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Negotiation is not really part of the Sales Engineer's daily requirement, but as my manager says, every meeting with the customer is a negotiation, so...
#56 The Intangibles of Sales Engineering
13 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There are some well-known attributes that Sales Engineers do on a day to day basis. There are also some that go above and beyond - I call them "The In...
#55 How Can Sales Engineers Get Better at Humor?
06 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Humor is such an essential part of Sales Engineering, getting people to connect with you, entertaining while presenting or demoing. I discuss how we c...
#54 Great Discovery Leads to Great Demos!
29 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Lots of demos are useless due to the fact that a proper discovery was not conducted. That is why Peter Cohan and I dig deep on that subject and you ge...
#53 Achieving Success as a Sales Engineer
22 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Differentiating your product/services from the competition, achieving success as Sales Engineers, obtaining soft skills, and coming up with Career goa...
#52 Building Your Career
15 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A short podcast discussing taking control of one's career and some steps to help figure out the career path and the next steps. I go through my own ex...
#51 Location, Family, and Organizations affecting Decisions
08 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Is 2 years too much to study the market before making the next career move? Not if you like what you do. My guest, Craig Waters, tells me about his de...
#50 What is a Customer Success Engineer?
01 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How and why did Bill go from Support Engineer to Sales Engineer to a Gload Customer Success Leader? What is Customer Success? Bill also talks about hi...
#49 Discovery and Demonstration Role Play
25 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
I spent some time with Peter Cohan where I performed a short discovery for X.AI followed by a demonstration. In this episode, you will hear Peter crit...
#48 RFPs,Building Relationships Remotely and Demonstrations
18 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How does a Sales Engineer build a relationship with a customer when they are not geographically co-located? And what makes a demonstration great? Thes...
#47 How Sales Engineers and Account Managers can Work Together
11 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Art started his career as a Mechanical Engineer and worked his way up to own his own company. This means I get to ask him some questions about how Mec...
#46 How to Move from Product Management to Sales Engineering
04 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How does a non-technical person get a job as a Product Manager the then move into Sales Engineering or Sales Engineering Management? This is something...
#45 10 Mistakes I've done as a Sales Engineer
25 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
People make mistakes and so do Sales Engineers. Here are 10 mistakes I've done as a Sales Engineer, and what I've learned from them.
#44 Career Path to Sales Engineering and Beyond with Salim Manji
18 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss Salim's career path from graduating university to Sales Engineering and beyond.
#43 Pitching, Whiteboarding and Storytelling with Mark the Joy Machine Green
11 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
My discussion with Mark included whiteboarding instead of presenting, pitching instead of demoing, and storytelling as a means to show the value of a ...
#42 How to Demonstrate Software so People Buy It with Brian Geery
04 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Interview with Brian Geery to discuss what makes a good demonstration, how can the account manager be involved, and creating demonstration checklists
#41 New and Experienced Perspective of Sales Engineers
28 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Nick Korte and John White discuss their career path into sales engineering, changes in perspective since starting, soft skills and more
#40 Service Providers have Sales Engineers too with Nilesh Solanki
21 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss Nilesh's path to Sales Engineering, how his previous jobs help him with the SE role, overlay sales, training, and demonstration.
#39 From Discovery to Demo with Julie Hansen
14 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Julie Hansen and I discuss what is needed from Sales Engineers before a demonstration, some tips on how to perform the demonstration and what it shoul...
#38 Partners, Account Managers and Sales Engineering with Thomas Bieser
07 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Interview with Thomas Bieser where we discuss working with partners, account managers, the proper discovery, MEDDIC and more.
#37 Lifetime Achievement Goal Setting
31 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Goal Setting is something we do not generally do as Sales Engineers, so I discuss the method of goal setting that has worked for me.
#36 The Pros and Cons of Sales Engineering
24 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I discuss the pros and cons of the sales engineering role.
#35 Telling Stories with Rui Lamy
17 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
With over 15 years of experience as a Sales Engineer, Rui discusses his role as a channel Sales Engineer supporting customers world wide, as well as d...
#34 Sales Engineer Straight out University with Jappreet Bath
10 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Juppreet Bath has been a Sales Engineer for many years now, we discuss how he got the job out of university, commodities vs solution sales, Proof of c...