being techno-geeks, coming across as a regular person who just happens to excel with technology can be a major benefit. Since most salespeople, which we are generalizing here, are relatively social, you can accomplish a lot by sharing just a little about yourself. Add in asking for help or advice, particularly on building a relationship with a new

Your inbox should not dictate your actions. Even if you are an SE in a large consulting company’s RFP factory environment, you still have opportunities to get in front of the tasks instead of reacting to them. Intimacy. This is the most critical factor in the sales-presales relationship and often the one most neglected. Getting to know your sales c

Discovery is all about the customer. Most sales techniques, nine-block models, and process flowcharts teach you how to control the customer and the conversation. However, no customer wants to be controlled. So let the conversation go where the customer wants it to, and gently give it a nudge now and again. For the SE, this is probably the most crit

Discovery is not an event but a constant process. Although we Sales Engineers like to place Discovery early in the sales cycle (because it prevents big problems later), we should have the attitude that we are always in Discovery mode. That said, Discovery is usually the #1 place where there is friction between the SE and the salesperson. Many organ

Chapter 9 – And What Do Sales Think About This? Initially, not that much! This is a classic situation of taking some short-term pain to obtain some significant longer-term gains. However, there is no question that sales-oriented issues and concerns arise during the initial phases of a T/A program. Section 3 will examine some of the implementation i

CASE STUDY – THE TEACHER'S STORY My beloved wife, Allison, taught Fifth Grade students – which to readers outside the U.S. means 10-11-year-old children. I’ve found that over the years, I have learnt a lot from studying what she studies – notably when she received her Master’s degree. One of the modules in a Classroom Management workshop was about

Understandable comes from overcoming The Curse Of Knowledge[8]. This is a situation when you live and breathe the use and application of your product/solution/service every single working day. In many cases, this is all new to your customer, or they have cursory knowledge. Please don’t assume they know as much as you think they should.

you say, “did I make that clear?” The first version puts pressure on the student to say that they didn’t understand, whilst the second version puts pressure on the teacher for not clearly explaining. It’s a minor point, but when I implemented this in my workshops some 10-12 years ago and suggested the technique to my other instructors, we noted a s

The instant you explicitly try to sell something, transparently apply a marketing spin on an issue or even go sales-like by directly asking about budget or timelines, that trust may disappear.