Clarifying the difference between demoing vs a product walkthrough for Sales Engineers

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Clarifying the difference between demoing vs a product walkthrough for Sales Engineers

Starting Q1 2020 as the VP of North America Presales has come with a lot of new challenges to solve for. One of those challenges revolves around educating the sales team on how to engage with Presales. One of the questions that I ask when presenting at a sales team meeting is “Does anyone know the difference between a demo vs a product walkthrough?”. What I have observed is that the sales teams see these two types of engagements as the same thing.

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Reflecting 2019 and Looking ahead into 2020

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Reflecting 2019 and Looking ahead into 2020

Last year was the launch of my new blog - http://samuelpena.com with the mission to help you become everyone’s favorite Presales engineer. Since the launch, I have released 19 blog posts and have had over 1k unique visitors. Thank you so much for everyone who read, commented and gave feedback on my posts. I am so grateful to have this platform and the opportunity to keep building in 2020.

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Five Roles to consider After Sales Engineering

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Five Roles to consider After Sales Engineering

Sales engineering is a fun and exciting role in software sales however it does come with a significant level of stress and a potentially unpredictable work schedule (e.g. traveling, late night hours, fire drills, and constantly needing to learn new skills or tools).  I have worked with plenty of people who – when the craziness of Q4 hits - start to question if they want to sign up for another year of this craziness.  In my opinion sales engineering is one of the best roles that prepares you to move into a number of different roles within the company. 

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Pitfalls seen when transitioning from professional services to sales engineering

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Pitfalls seen when transitioning from professional services to sales engineering

Recently, I was interviewing a candidate that has a professional services background and during the Q&A portion of the interview, the candidate asked me one question that helped inspire me to write this blog post. The questions was “what do I need to work on to make the transition into sales engineering?”.

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How do I go from good to great?

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How do I go from good to great?

There are a lot of ways to become a solid sales engineer especially with how critical this role is becoming in technology sales.  However, I have seen few that are able to cross the chasm to become an indispensable partner to the sales team.   I mentioned in my previous post, "Five ways Sales Engineers can make an impact at the end of a quarter” that to make an impact of a deal you will need to be a trusted advisor to the sales team by taking ownership of the deal as well as helping them identify risk early. 

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