On May 28th, we had the pleasure of hosting John Care. For those not yet familiar, John is managing director of Mastering Technical Sales, author of two books on the subject – with a third on the way – and has been on both sides of the management desk as a C-level exec and sales engineer. He has built the SE organizations of some of the biggest names, from Oracle to HP.
John presented a fascinating look at both the current and future states of sales engineering, and the ways you can ensure your job is not automated out of existence. And one of the first questions he answered was right to the point – will the role exist in five years?
“Will the #SalesEngineer role still exist in 2024? That depends on what your customers think.” –@PreSalesMTS #presales #salesengineer #webinar
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
Simply put, Care noted, it depends on how your customers think about you. As a follow up to this question, he discussed a survey done over a three year period asking customers and vendors who they valued the most throughout the technology purchasing process. Here is what he found:
SEs have proven to provide the most value consistently according to customers @PreSalesMTS #presales #salesengineer #webinar pic.twitter.com/dC7uARSJIb
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
So, based on this research, sales engineers are valued much higher than any other position in the organization.
Next came the small and big predictions that John shared with the audience.
There are quite a few of these, so I will just lay it out in our Twitter thread:
And now some predictions from @PreSalesMTS #presales #salesengineer #webinar
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
“The roles of the #salesengineer and #accountmanager will overlap even more going forward” –@PreSalesMTS
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
“The low-end of the job will become automated such as RFIs, RFPs and the like” –@PreSalesMTS
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
“The low-end of the job will become automated such as RFIs, RFPs and the like” –@PreSalesMTS
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
“Demos will be more automated and even personalized as well as PoCs” –@PreSalesMTS
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
“SEs won’t get automated out of existence” –@PreSalesMTS
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
“Demos will become much more experiential for the customer” –@PreSalesMTS
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
“More trials and evaluations with zero vendor interaction” –@PreSalesMTS
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
“Knowing the customer and trust will really make the difference” –@PreSalesMTS
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
“SE value will lie in architecture and complex interactions which will not be automated for a long time yet” –@PreSalesMTS
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
“Laptops will be a thing of the past with technologies like holographic projections, AR and VR” –@PreSalesMTS
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
“We will see the death of cold calling” –@PreSalesMTS
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
Of course, the full webinar has the details of each prediction, so you should definitely watch it.
Moving forward from there, John goes on to talk about what you, the solution architect, need to do in order to continue in an upward trajectory and climb the corporate ladder. He points to specific talents sales engineers must have such as being great at demos and POCs, helping others, and building relationships with senior management.
“The rockstar SE helps other part of the organization get better” –@PreSalesMTS #salesengineer #presales #technicalsales #webinar
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
“SEs have to be able to explain both the technical and business stuff” –@PreSalesMTS #salesengineer #presales #technicalsales #webinar
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
“Make sure you’re communicating with higher management consistently” –@PreSalesMTS #salesengineer #presales #technicalsales #webinar pic.twitter.com/WgcY49lEw9
— CloudShare (@CloudShare) May 28, 2019
And, of course, as is true with just about anything in life, sales engineers must be able to adapt to new conditions, anticipate, and lead change in the organization. Put it all together and you have a recipe for ensuring you will continue to have a job and potentially make your way to senior management.
We ended the webinar with a great demo of CloudShare that dove into how sales engineers would create a demo or PoC environment to show off their product.
So, if you want to watch the complete webinar on-demand, just go ahead and click this link!
See you at our next webinar!
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