Since the launch of NAASE about 2 ½ years ago, we have published several articles and interviews about what is important for a Sales Engineer. These were all guest writers and speakers, many being experts and authors in the industry.
Today I wanted to offer a similar but more personal take on this subject. I want to share what I believe are the most key elements of a quality sales engineer. This is from my own experience. I had been a SE for several years, and currently hold a role titled Director of Industry Development & Technical Services.
Without further ado, these are what I believe 90% of top-notch SE’s have in common:
Honesty: There is the old stereotype of the salesperson that lies and will say ANYTHING to get the sale (and get a commission). Today’s B2B sales and also the sales engineer should be a 180 degree turnaround from that image. Tell the truth- even if it may harm the potential of a sale for you that day. SE’s are respected (widely) for giving accurate and relatively (?) unbiased information to their clients and prospects. If that erodes, then the SE position is fairly useless.
Analyze and question your own product (or service, software, etc) in the same way your prospects would.
Don’t assume, and don’t trust anything (within reason): I like the old adage, “Trust- but verify”. This includes even collateral and other items that are given to you by your company. Sometimes there are outright mistakes that are marketed or transmitted. If you are in front of a client or prospect, it is YOUR reputation also on the line – not just the firm.
Know the details, specifications, and benefits of your competitor’s product or service BETTER than your client or prospect does. There is nothing worse than being blindsided when at a sales/business meeting by a prospect who brings up and touts some “unicorn” that you’ve never heard of- and you have no response for. In this light, always be CURIOUS about your market.
Swift and direct communication is critical. We all know this, but it bears repeating: Clients and prospects expect your response to their question or inquiry immediately. If you do not respond the same business day, you are in trouble. Respond even if your initial response doesn’t fully answer their technical question.
Follow up and DO WHAT YOU SAY: This is opposite that other old stereotype- that salespeople will say anything upfront to get a sale, but afterwards don’t follow up and don’t actually help the client. This is where SE’s need to integrate themselves with the business issues of their clients.
There are of course a few other instrumental points to being a good sales engineer or technical salesperson. However, these listed have always done well by me, and I thought were worth noting directly.
This article was written by NAASE Vice President, Ken Lambert.
Summertime in business can be a little bit quieter than normal, and the same has been true recently for NAASE. That said, we shortly will be announcing much of our Autumn (and Winter) event schedule. We also will be sharing some key information on how the NAASE membership is actually made up- and which sectors are represented in the Association.
As I sit writing this update, I do wonder how the market for SE’s in general (in the USA) will develop over the remainder of 2022 and into the new year. There are certainly some conflicting dynamics.
(Walking cautiously into a new market….)
I’m not an economist, so these are just my personal observations and opinions.
Overall, there is no question that there are more SE’s today than there were 10 years ago. Or 5 years ago. Interest and use of SE’s has been trending up for some time. More companies are expanding their SE departments, and many other companies who never employed an SE or a Presales Consultant have now hired their first one. And this is true across many different sectors. More C-suites see the real and clear value of the SE to their bottom line and their revenue success.
All that said, we may be nearing some sort of temporary ceiling on new SE hires- or at least on SE compensation increases. We do hope that SE layoffs are kept to a minimum, if applicable. SE’s are not exempt from the concerns of the broader economy, and we all can see that many companies and sectors are having some trouble here in August 2022. Year-to-date, the NASDAQ is down 21%, and the S&P 500 is down 14%. Companies are having to make some tough choices, and they are looking at headcount and compensation. And let’s face it, sales engineers are not “cheap”, with an average salary of approximately $120,000. They are generally allocated to overhead as opposed to an Account Executive/ Account Manager whose pay is often directly tied to sales/receivables. Thus, CFO’s are looking at their SE numbers.
Though we are seeing continued high inflation, and a rather stagnant economy, we do hope and expect that the trends that were well evident from 2018- 2021 in the sales engineering space will still continue onward and upwards in due time. Corporations now more than ever are looking to become more efficient, to innovate, and to partner with their clients and their prospects. Sales engineers are uniquely qualified to help accomplish all of those goals.
Best of luck for the remainder of the summer, and as we look to Q4 in the near future!
Recently NAASE hosted a Members-Only ZOOM Forum with noted SE speaker and consultant, John Care. (For members who might have missed it, please request our recording of the call.) There was some great information and advice packed into this 1 hour presentation and meeting, and we thank John for that.
John and his company, Mastering Technical Sales, have conducted some great research into the true value of sales engineers, and also what specifically a client or prospect wants out of their vendor or trusted advisor.
In their list of what customers really want, they provide a ranking of the survey results. #1 is “someone who understands my business”. Having deep technical knowledge is way down at #5.
And what kind of value does a sales engineer bring to the table? This graph says it all:
As you can see by this chart from MTS- the “Technical Team” (which includes the sales engineer, presales, and the technical salesperson) provides the most value to the client/prospect. In fact, they would much rather interact with you than with your company’s CEO or COO, etc.
Know your worth, and also know that right now it is a fairly “hot” market for SE’s out there in the USA that might be looking for a switch. We talked about that a bit also, on our ZOOM call.
For more information on MTS, please visit: https://www.masteringtechnicalsales.com/ .
It’s no secret that time is money when it comes to sales. Every extra minute spent on the phone or grabbing lunch with a potential customer adds to your bottom line so it’s crucial to maximize those efforts.
Unfortunately, sales comes with a mountain of busy work that has to be accomplished to make money. Things like checking and responding to emails, drafting proposals, nurturing your pipeline, and scheduling appointments can quickly eat up hours a day, but the good news is, they don’t have to!
We’ve got four tools that could save you hours of time each week and get you back to the things you enjoy doing – like selling!
Setting aside time to triage your inbox is arguably one of the most hated but important tasks for any sales professional. If you don’t do it regularly, important deals, documents, and updates are lost, but staying on top of your inbox requires time that most sales pros just don’t have.
Shortwave is an email client that integrates directly with Gmail, making sign-up a breeze. You’ll never drop the ball again with Shortwave’s three simple triage actions that help you manage every email in your inbox. Decide if the email is important and pin it to the top of your inbox to take quick action on, snooze the email to show back up at a specific day/time when you will be able to handle the issue, or mark the email as done, removing it from your inbox so you can focus on the tasks at hand.
Shortwave also offers a handful of other features to streamline your email workflow. Control who triggers push notifications so you can prioritize important correspondences, see when teammates or co-workers are online for quick responses, and enjoy automatic organization with bundles and categories like calendar invites and promos that make your inbox easier to understand at a glance. Bonus: the ability to drag & drop and reorder emails lets you turn your inbox into the to-do list it actually is.
Shortwave is offering 3 months of their standard plan (usually $9 per month) totally free to NAASE members by using promo code NAASE.
Even in 2022, the power of physically marketing to potential customers like sending some swag or direct mail is more effective than ever—but who has time to order, package, and send off items as they are needed?
Stay on top of your offline marketing by using Postal.io. With plans starting at just $19 a month, you can take advantage of this platform to send out one-off gifts to customers or upload an entire list for a mailer marketing campaign. The platform is easy to use and doesn’t require a long setup process to get started.
Customers expect a certain level of professionalism when it comes to proposals and contracts, so the document you created in Microsoft Word in 2001 just won’t cut it anymore. Something more custom often takes time that you just don’t have – Qwilr can fix that!
Qwilr creates beautiful templated proposals, contracts, one-pagers, and more, so all you have to do is enter in basic specifications for a particular deal, and out pops beautiful materials you will be proud to share. Qwilr also offers an Enterprise level, allowing the entire sales team to have access to the same templates for uniformity across the entire team.
A sales professional’s calendar is one of the most essential parts of their business. Without those meetings, you won’t have customers, and without those customers…well you get the picture.
Calendly easily integrates with your calendar, allowing customers and co-workers to select times that you set as available. Create custom events with buffers in between every call to ensure you have plenty of time to prepare, set custom times for those calls, and automatically generate links to your preferred communication tool like Zoom or Google Meet.
Gone are the days of email threads going back and forth to find a time that works for both participants. Calendly streamlines the entire process!
For more information about this article you can visit shortwave
You get a sense of which results matter most and how to achieve them
Most PreSales leaders have the experience and intuition to understand generally what problems their team is facing, but having the data to back those claims up significantly raises the strategic profile of the team.
However, the first place people tend to look is at how much time the PreSales team is spending on activities rather than what outcomes are being achieved. Gathering data on the latter is much more powerful because it lets you determine whether or not the team is doing the right things.
Each of the answers to those questions reveals whether the thing being done (i.e. POCs, solution design, post-sales handoffs) has a significant and positive impact on your team’s success.
Time is ultimately a secondary measure here. Understanding that the PreSales team spent X number of hours attached to deals or doing POCs is helpful for gauging the level of effort required to perform certain work, but doesn’t necessarily indicate whether it’s making a difference.
If you want to secure the technical win in a deal, mapping out a sample of the various outcomes and activities required to get there might look something like this:
Outcomes and deliverables describe results, and how impactful they might be. Activities show how much effort is required to get there.
You’re able to think outside of the box of your existing systems
“The most damaging phrase in the language is, ‘We’ve always done it this way!'”
—Rear Admiral Grace Hopper
It’s something that happens all the time when trying to sell to prospects. Many potential customers simply do nothing about the pain that they’re facing or resort to workarounds, convinced that there isn’t any better option.
Brett and Oliver both stressed that you shouldn’t take what you do today and try to make it better by simply putting it into a new system or platform. If a new technology solution is being implemented, you can use the rollout as an opportunity to introduce and scale process changes based on the ideal end state.
It’s easier to secure buy-in and resources when you focus on outcomes
Everyone knows that a solid business case helps secure the budget needed to get deals done. Describing what your team needs in purely technological terms isn’t a good way to convince people that what you want is valuable.
As Oliver explained, it was absolutely critical that conversations with Elastic’s leadership (in Product and Customer Success) about the value of a PreSales platform centered around the outcomes for each of them:
Sales wished to identify how the go-to-market team could sell more successfully across various regions, segments, and business areas.
Product was keen to better understand the commercial impact of requested product enhancements and how to prioritize them.
Customer Success wanted a more comprehensive look at what the Solutions Architecture team worked on with customers during evaluations, so as to successfully build upon those efforts.
Showing the kinds of answers that they could get resulted in broader agreement that a PreSales platform was a great thing for the company to have. Focusing on the outcomes other departments can expect from your team helps build consensus across the organization.
If you’re interested in hearing more about how Elastic’s PreSales team uses Hero by Vivun® to create transformational outcomes across multiple departments, read the full story here.
This summary article written with permission of an MTS client. We altered a few peripheral facts to preserve anonymity, but otherwise “it is what it is”. This is also likely to be somewhat controversial, and MTS was certainly involved in the postmortem fact gathering. Those facts are why my client decided it was worth publishing – to save other SE executives the pain and heartache that his organization suffered. As they say in the US, “your personal mileage may vary.”
During early 2017, an external Management Consulting organization was tasked with reviewing and optimizing the sales and presales operations of the European – Middle East – Africa (EMEA) Region. This resulted in many excellent tactical and operational recommendations and two key organizational structural recommendations that greatly affected the presales team.
Specifically:
Increase the average span-of-control of sales leaders
Eliminate the local and regional SE leadership
This led to the consolidation of personnel under the auspices of either country managers (for larger markets) or Regional Sales VPs for smaller cross-country markets (such as the Nordics). The primary drivers of this reorganization were financial and industry best practices. As noted later, neither proved to be the case. The modified organization lasted for 15 months and was then reorganized back to something that resembled the previous structure.
2. Financial Benefits:
Twelve SE Manager (SEM) positions were released. Two SEMs gained positions within Product Management, Three filled open headcount as Senior Architects / Subject Matter Experts, Two became Country Managers and Five left the company. The top EMEA SE leader joined a major competitor, as did three of the other SEMs. Assuming full credit for the twelve positions and that existing open headcount was filled, the gross fully burdened savings amounted to €4,000,000.
2. Best Practices:
In researching best practices of other large technical presales teams, both inside and outside of our immediate market, we were unable to find any organizations that conformed to the consultant’s recommendations. The list of references we spoke with was lengthy, including companies with SE teams sized from 40 to over 400 individuals.
THE NEGATIVES:
1. We estimate the entire reorganization effort cost us 12% of revenue growth and a 32% reduction in viable pipeline.
2. SE Turnover increased from single digits to almost 25%. That included 8 identified high potential SE performers.
3. #1 reason cited in exit interviews was “no prospects of career progression/promotion”
4. #2 reason cited in exit interviews was “sales manager had no understanding of the position or requirements.”
5. The loss of the SE VP and three hi-po’s to one of our prime competitors cost at least 4 transactions of > €100,000 monthly recurring revenue.
6. Country managers were unwilling to release their technical resources to help other regions. Resulting in multiple deals slipping from each quarter and a definite, but not fully quantifiable decrease in win rate. Most notably in heavy Proof Of Concept deals.
7. After expressing initial support for the change, account executives noted they were unable to get the right people at the right time due to country/region resource allocation.
8. Product training time for SE’s decreased from 5 days/quarter to 2.7 days/quarter due to sales being unwilling to release time for such training. Caused a 0.8 decrease (on a 0-10 scale) in technical readiness over 12 months.
9. Partner satisfaction decreased by 17 NPS points due to reduction in enablement, support and general technical sales coaching. (Partner SE’s were reassigned to direct transactions)
ANONYMIZED SUMMARY:
HIGH LEVEL POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES OF ELIMINATING THE SE LEADERSHIP POSITIONS AND HAVING FIELD SE’s REPORT DIRECTLY TO SALES MANAGERS/COUNTRY MANAGERS (EMEA ONLY)
In the words of our client. “Please tell others about this. It should never happen again. If anyone, including high-priced consultants, should ever question the value of first-line presales management then the extreme case study is to examine what happens when the position entirely disappears. It is a disaster!”
“It is the province of knowledge to speak. And it is the privilege of wisdom to listen” Oliver Wendell Holmes
This article is written by John Care, Managing Director of Mastering Technical Sales. For more information on this and other Sales Engineering topics visit the website at www.masteringtechnicalsales.com.
On January 19, 2022, Alex and Anatoly Agulyansky introduced their product Priz Guru (www.priz.guru) in a webinar to a group of engineer experts and the NAASE.
The co-founders of the innovation and design platform, who happen to be father and son, created a tool which helps organize design and creative thinking and problem-solving processes.
Each innovation and problem-solving process is handled as an individual project with its very own fingerprint in which the user is forced to consider a case over and over again.
In the overall process, the problem is put forth first. Only in a second step, ideas and solutions are sought and analyzed by various scientific tools, all collectively accessible on one platform. The platform itself can be operated either online based or installed on premise, if desired.
The core question “Why do ideas die or do not get realized?” (as happens to approximately 80% of problem-solving ideas and innovations) marks the backbone of the application.
“Problem solving as a science”.
Knowing about the variety of possible blockers, the platform offers a toolbox of best-in-class scientific design and creative thinking tools (e.g. Round Robin Ranking, 5+ Why’s, Cause and Effect Chain (CEC), etc.) and streamlines the overall documentation by collecting all steps and the evolution of each case individually.
Priz’ innovation and problem solution processes incorporate the personal workspace as well as teamwork spaces, allowing easy access to the projects at hand.
Asked for the main value, the creators highlight the enhanced process of an engineering solution or innovation- which can be presented to the manager.
Another highlight is the extraordinary safety and security of the platform, safeguarding proof of ownership and copyrights. Priz Guru grants privacy of all innovation data and thoughts which has been attested by an audit. The owners do not have access whatsoever to any data on this platform.
As co-founders seek further growth and adaption to the users’ needs, exchanging thoughts to further enhance the platform with the expert group proved helpful.
NAASE members are eligible for a discount off PRIZ GURU monthly subscription fees. Inquire for more details.
**This article was written by NAASE Volunteer, Constanze Koch
(This article submitted by PRIZ GURU)– We are excited to announce a recent release of an additional Creative Thinking Tool in PRIZ online innovation platform, Urgency – Importance Matrix (UIM). This tool is built to help you to avoid mistakes, save time in managing tasks priority and make decisions.
The new tool is a practical instrument for task priority management. Urgency – Important Matrix is most effective in conjunction with Roun – Robin Ranking (RRR).
Here, we are going to describe our vision on the Urgency and Importance classification and also to propose a practical tool for effective management of task priority using the Urgency – Importance Matrix (UIM) tool.
Let’s start with the TASK definition. Do we understand what TASK means? What is a TASK? Try to imagine that you are working in front of your computer already for a couple of hours and you are willing to grab a cup of coffee. Please think and answer: Go to the cafeteria and drink coffee – is it a TASK? Or another scenario: Invite your colleague to the cafeteria and spend some time drinking coffee together – is this a TASK? Another scenario: your manager invited you to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee – would this be a TASK? Do you feel the difference between different scenarios of the same action – drink coffee? Sure you do.
Now try to define which one is TASK out of the following:
Find the root cause of the failure
Fetch and analyze data
Visit Irish pub with friends
Visit a doctor
Watch a movie…
Did you find TASKS?
You can find a lot of information about TASK definition, but we choose what we like best, the definition provided by Cambridge Dictionary: “Task is a piece of work to be done, especially one done regularly, unwillingly, something unpleasant or with difficulty.” Excellent definition. It directs us to a very trivial statement: “TASK is something that we do not want to do. We do not want, but we have to.”
Eisenhower’s decision matrix is based on very clear and effective concepts:
If everything is urgent, then everything loses its urgency.
If everything is important then nothing is most important.
The matrix is shown below:
Urgency and Importance are the axes of the chat. There is no continuous gradation of the axes, just binary separation: “yes” or “no”, “Urgent” or “Not Urgent”, “Important” or “Not Important”.
The Right top field corresponds to “Urgent & Important” tasks. Tasks that are Urgent and Important at the same time will fall into this category. For example, addressing safety or quality issues. These tasks receive the highest priority: “Do First”.
The left top field corresponds to “Important & Not Urgent” tasks. For example, projects aiming to improve production yield, reduce cost or improve the reliability of the product. According to UIM, all tasks that fall into this category are getting priority: “Do Later”.
The right bottom field corresponds to “Urgent & Not Important” tasks. For example, participate in a meeting where you are not a decision-maker. It is urgent because the meeting is scheduled to start in 30 minutes, but the importance is zero since you cannot impact the decision-making process. UIM recommends delegating such tasks – “Delegate”.
The left bottom field corresponds to “Not Urgent & Not Important” tasks. For example, some tasks that are not impacting your current status or the status of your activity at work. Such as analyzing daylight saving impact on some production parameters. Simply drop such tasks, eliminate the tasks or the projects that fall into this category – “Eliminate”.
Do what’s important
Both top quadrants are important and have to be completed. Please take into account that “Do First” tasks are typically short term tasks, while “Do Later” are related to the long term tasks. Do not mix them. In case you are a manager distributing the tasks, do not assign short term and long term tasks to the same people. The tasks are very different, and their successful completion depends on the ability of the people to complete a certain type of task. A manager has to define who is more suitable for short term tasks and who for long term tasks. In the first case, for short term tasks, a manager has to seek “firefighters,” people that totally dedicated to a final goal to reduce the harm by any means. Long term tasks are typically performance improvement projects, should be completed by “chessplayer”. There is a very small risk of their mistake, but they spent a lot of time searching for the best move and the best solution.
Do not mix the tasks and assign them to the relevant people.
Do not waste time and resources on Not Important tasks?
There is no real customer for Not Important Tasks, no one needs the results, no one is ready to “pay” for completed tasks that are Not Important. Do not waste time on tasks that fell into two bottom quadrants. Do not attend anything that is not important.
How to assign Urgency and Importance?
How do you classify a task? How can you define if the task is important or not important, urgent or not urgent? How to normalize and standardize the process of urgency and importance assessment?
All tasks are originating from a flaw. No flaw – no tasks.
Urgency
Urgency level is related to an expectation. The flaw that results in expected harm cannot lead to urgent tasks, while any unexpected harm should be treated as urgent due to its uncertainty:
For example, we all know that even an excellent and very expensive car is not ideal. All the moving parts of the car wear out; therefore a periodic technical service is required. Known ahead of time, scheduled and expected technical service is a task, but this task cannot be urgent. This is a typical Not Urgent task.
An example of unexpected harm could be a noise that suddenly appeared in the car engine. We need to bring the car to the service as soon as possible to reduce the possible impact. This task is not scheduled (unexpected) and should be treated as an Urgent task.
Importance
The importance is related to cost. The higher the cost of harm the higher the Importance.
A noise in the car’s engine might be high-cost harm compared to a small scratch on the car door. Therefore Low-cost harm is not important, while high-cost harm should be treated as an Important task.
Urgency and Importance assessment rules are summarized in the table below:
UIM is an excellent tool for tasks priority management, but how to use it? Should we use a pen and paper? How do we keep the information, how do we continue working on the prioritization of the tasks?
We created a UIM tool for your convenience right into ONLINE PLATFORM.
Have you ever been in a situation where while discussing different solutions for a problem, you and your group is trying to solve, people finding all kind of reasons why something is impossible or extremely difficult? The arguments might sound like “It’s very difficult”, “This solution is very expensive”, “It’s not going to work!”, or even “This is a stupid idea!” I am pretty certain you have. This phenomenon, and many more, are part of Psychological Inertia.
Now, let’s dive into the details.
Definition
I always like to start with the plain and dry definition. Unfortunately, Cambridge dictionary does not have this definition, so I’ll have to default to Wikipedia:
Psychological inertia is the tendency to maintain the status-quo (or default option) unless compelled by a psychological motive to intervene or reject this. … Psychological inertia has also seen to be relevant in areas of health, crime and within the workplace.
Now, this is a lot of words in one long sentence. I personally had to reread it multiple times to actually understand what it means, and frankly, without having the background on the subject, I am not sure if I ever could get it correctly and interpret it to the real-life experience.
I’ll try to explain what does it mean in my view based on our experience and real-life events and examples.
It can’t be done!
For the matter of this article, “It can’t be done” is the same as “It is too expensive”, “extremely difficult”, or any other way to say that some idea is not good enough. I want to come back and expand on the same example I described at the very beginning.
Many times throughout my career, I’ve seen myself and others getting stuck on various reasons why not to evaluate a solution, why not experiment with an idea, and so on. Some might call it excuses or laziness, but the reality is, we don’t really want to do or try something that we don’t believe in.
So, unless there is some outside force, an additional push that can prove us wrong, we will resist a proposed solution we don’t believe in until the end of days.
Unwillingness to explore something we don’t believe in is part of psychological inertia.
Professional experience:
When we first started to present the idea of problem-solving tools to other people and tried explaining what are they good for, the majority (and many still to this day) were very skeptical about it. Here are a couple of arguments we were getting:
What’s wrong what how people solve problems today?
How can you create tools that help me solve problems? it’s all coming from my experience!
If I have a problem that I am stuck with, I’ll hire a professional!
Note: I want to highlight that this skepticism is also caused by psychological inertia. It’s just another version of “It can’t be done because I don’t believe in it!”
Back to Professional Experience…
For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume that the cloud below is the entire, currently available, and continuously growing knowledge and experience.
The experience of our engineers, John, Maria and Bob, are marked with different shapes and colors. Well, of course, they do have different experiences, right? And some of their knowledge overlaps. Great!
The solutions that we are searching for are marked with red dots. If you noticed, one of the solutions falls well within the existing experience of our great engineers. But what about the two others? This is exactly the point where the team starts scratching their heads, searching the web, and trying to come up with different ideas for how to solve this particular problem. It is important to say though, that when they do provide a solution outside of their expertise, for the most part, these are not easily accepted. Why? Again, because people are generally don’t accept what they don’t believe in, what they don’t understand, and what they didn’t experience themselves.
Another point to make, it takes awful a lot of time to provide solutions that fall outside of our expertise. One might say: “Of course it takes more time, to do it, you have to learn something new and, ultimately, expand your experience!” And it is not going to be wrong. Nevertheless, there is another reason – psychological inertia. We are naturally seeking solutions within our experience.
Same as in the previous part, unless there is an outside force that will push us, it is hard to look outside of our own experience. Without such force, the only team’s chance is a lot of trial and error and some luck.
Difficulty in search for solutions outside of our own experience is caused by psychological inertia.
The comfort zone
In order to get out there and start digging into the unknown, we need to leave our comfort zone. It is easier said than done. There is a reason why the comfort zone is called the comfort zone. It is comfortable to stay there, easier to operate, it does not require any additional effort to be in the comfort zone. That’s understandable. To get out of it, we have to learn something new, try things we never did before; we need to invest in real work to do so. But we, as humans, are pretty lazy, aren’t we?
An average person will always choose the path of least resistance. But there is a catch… the choice will be out all the options within the available knowledge of that person. There very well might be another, even easier path, which is simply not yet explored. However, to explore that path, one will have to get out of his comfort zone.
Difficulty to break out of our comfort zone to search for better solutions is caused by psychological inertia.
But humanity is always progressing!
I can probably endlessly continue with examples and what our psychological inertia causes. In general, it will all be the same, from a different angle. I do want to switch gears a bit.
Many people we presented our solution to told us: “But humanity is always progressing without any special tools!”. For that, I will answer: “That is simply not true!”. And here is why.
Certainly, humanity IS progressing and IS innovating all the time. Some individuals did and doing it exceptionally well. Take Nikola Tesla as an example. His brain was probably exploding with ideas, he was virtually living outside of his comfort zone all the time. Let’s just say, he was not wired as most of us. Many other notable geniuses are/were thinking differently. They are geniuses for a reason!
An average human being also innovates. But here I want to ask how much effort and how long it takes. Countless examples of innovations that look trivial today, originally took many many years to be discovered and developed, even though the technology already existed (look up the history of a suitcase on wheels – it took over 10 years from the original version to the first accepted once that people actually used).
Regardless of how we innovate and generate ideas, in order to do it faster, we must use some sort of systematic approach. Whatever that approach is. Without that, all we have is the time waiting for revelation.
Any systematic approach to problem-solving helps to break out of psychological inertia.
Acceptance
Before I wrap up, I want to answer the second question in the title of this article: “What is wrong with us?”.
The simplest answer for that is: “Nothing!”. We are just being humans. This is how we are wired and how we think. Try reading more about psychological inertia, you’ll see that this phenomenon is not well understood, including the reasons for it. And to understand that is not the purpose of this article, it will not solve any problem for us as innovators. Breaking out of psychological inertia WILL solve a lot of problems!
Ironically, to break out of psychological inertia, we need to accept that we need help with it. And this, within itself, is bound by psychological inertia. The faster we accept this fact, the faster we can start improving our thinking and become more creative innovators.
Breaking out of pattern
Now, that we accepted our faith, let’s start changing it.
Several tools and methodologies exist for that. The simplest is a pen and paper or a whiteboard. Some more sophisticated include different charting tools, idea management tools, project management tools, and so on.
PRIZ Innovation Platform is the only SaaS tool specifically built for one purpose only; to help engineers break out of pattern – out of psychological inertia. At its core, it offers various problem-solving tools. And as a reminder, innovation is a solution for somebody’s problem.
For more information about this article visit there website:
You are a Solutions Engineer of an aspiring software company. You have a mature product and stabilized your position in the market. Your customers get bigger; you start selling to enterprises. Things are running smoothly.
Imagine that, at some point in your journey, your iPhone vibrates. It’s your manager.
“We decided to launch our first key account. You did a brilliant job over the last year. We want you to be the lead SE for that account. What you say?”
You nod. You don’t know what that means. But it sounds great. Positive. “Yes! That’s amazing. When do I start?”
This blog is about what happens after you say yes.
First things first: What is Key Account Management (KAM)?
Let’s start with what KAM is not. KAM is not just managing a larger account. KAM is its own microcosmos in sales. With own rules, own particularities, and own challenges for SEs.
BCG defines KAM as “an enterprise-wide initiative to develop strategic relationships with a limited number of customers in order to achieve long-term, sustained, significant, and measurable business value for both customers and the provider”.
What does that mean?
KAs are enterprise-wide: key accounts are served by an inner circle of named professionals (the core team) that usually comprise sales, presales, and customer success. Often, the core team is dedicated to this single key account exclusively.
An extended team supports the core team. The colleagues work on more than just this account. For example, specialized SEs or AEs that focus on specific products. The extended team can also comprise functions like professional services, marketing, and partner management.
KAs are strategic: there is the vision to develop a fruitful long-term relationship with this particular customer. In other words, the key account team shall grow revenue on this account in breadth and depth, leveraging a multi-year plan. Members of a key account core team usually stay on the account for several years.
KAs are special: there are only a few Key Accounts in a company. They are connected to a great revenue upside, an existing executive relationship, a first installed-based – and a significant quota.
Why Key Accounts?
The impact of key accounts on a company’s top-line is significant: McKinsey found that KAs contribute “30 to 50 percent of revenue and margin” for many companies. How so? Obviously, it’s less costly to sell to existing customers than acquire new ones. That is especially true in our as-a-service world, where we focus on customer lifetime value (LTV), and the lion’s share of revenue is generated after a first contract a closed.
KAs are special because they provide even more revenue upside. Maybe because you just cover a small portion of their addressable business or are set for further growth, you could both help them realize and benefit from yourself.
Retaining large accounts and keeping them engaged is another goal of KAM. Just maintaining such accounts is an opportunity missed. Instead, such relationships are to be strengthened and intensified. Equally important is addressing the negative risk of such large customers taking their business elsewhere.
In fact, a Gallup study found the following benefits of an engaged KA customer:
Sales experience matters. As every SE knows: knowing your customer impacts sales success. Knowing their industry, their business, their language. Especially knowing their people, the pains of their daily work, and your product’s potential value, which might lift that burden. McKinsey argues that sales experience is of even greater importance to your customers than they admit: sales CX drives 31% of a buying decision.
Key account management is the way to professionalize a company’s enterprise business. Done right, it can be a massive driver for growth.
What does KAM mean for you?
Back to our scenario at the beginning. You accepted the role of Key Account SE. You now have an idea about what KAM is and why it’s essential.
How is your work going to differ from your previous SE role?
Higher expectations. Since the nature of KAs is to generate significantly more revenue than regular accounts, the sales team carries a respectively higher quota. Higher expectations apply to any type of work to be delivered.
More stakeholders to satisfy. You will have more colleagues being interested in your account: specialized AEs that would like to sell their specific product to your customer; your senior management that would like to meet customer executives and need to see the needle moving; partners that seek insights from your and would like to team up; many customer stakeholders from various IT and business domains to which you need to connect.
More orchestration, less doing. You will face many opportunities running in parallel on your KA. You will not be able to support all of them yourself. Like the specialized SEs, you enable your colleagues to drive their specific opportunities on your account as well as they can. That means you need to onboard them to the account by explaining the structure, context, strategy, and customer key players. You coach them on what jargon to use, what customer references to avoid, how to deal with specific contacts.
More strategic, less transactional. It has been your job to help close deals. Transactions. Now it’s different. Your job is to deeply understand your client’s strategy and your KA Manager’s account vision and sales strategy on a KA. Your job is also to craft a technology and innovation strategy that substantiates the sales strategy aligned with your customer’s strategy. Think of yourself as the account CTO. Such an integrated strategy will lead to a prioritization scheme. All initiatives, opportunities, and activities are matched against that scheme. Everything you do has to support the account vision as prioritized in your system.
More cross-functional activities. There is no “it’s not my job” on a key account. You will find yourself digging for a lead, presenting a pure sales pitch, researching a support fix for customer success, and supporting marketing activities. Think of a KA as a start-up.
Longer sales cycles. On KAs, the average sales cycle takes three times as long as on regular accounts, according to Gartner. Often, this is by design. Because you want to identify, discover, and address the unconsidered needs of your customer. Work with multiple stakeholders, educate them, generate demand that might end in a direct sale. This way of selling takes time.
Fewer guardrails. As you discover strategic initiatives and unconsidered needs of your customer, you will meet many people along the way. The way you work is not facilitated by procurement anymore. You build relationships, deliver insights, earn trust. You put pieces of information together, get an idea where you could add value, work with sales to generate an opportunity. There is no script, no blueprint. Start exploring!
More buyer roles involved in the decision process. There is no single decision-maker to convince, no single meeting you have to rock to get the order form signed. You will iteratively work with more and more senior executives from multiple domains (usual suspects: IT and line of business). Each set of new faces will require discovery, due diligence, preparation.
If you take the role of a Key Account SE, your job will be much different. To look further at what you can do to take this opportunity to pivot to the next level of your SEcheck part 2 of this article:
(this is a continuation of the Part 1 Blog article, also on NAASE.)
(1) Research:
Get yourself into a position to be valuable to your customer. Get an expert. Soak in knowledge about their industry: competitive landscape, trends, economics. Are there industry certifications and learning paths you can take?
Analyze their quarterly reports to understand precisely where they earn money and where they spend it. What are strategic initiatives they announce to their shareholders?
Build a strong network in all directions. As a core team member, you will work closely with your AEs. Set up a series of regular calls with your colleagues in the core team and the extended team.
(3) Set your Standards:
You will have to achieve goals through the work of others. Specialized SEs, partners, and further functional colleagues might support you going forward. Feel accountable for the quality of work they deliver.
Define the quality standards of presales customer interactions. Any demo, presentation, and prototype should be of consistently high quality. Others might be responsible for the delivery. You determine, govern and execute the preparation lifecycle: from planning, over dry-runs, to presentation and debriefing.
That usually means: take the standards from your broader organization and settle more quality on top.
Your role as a Key Account SE includes complementing your AE colleagues. Develop your relationships with customer contacts to build trust and exchange insights with the customer.
Identify and select with sales those contacts that you are going to cover. Build a stakeholder matrix. Whom are you going to build a rapport with, why, and how will you do that?
specifies your KAM’s multi-year vision for the account,
includes strategies to realize the vision,
and lists prioritized tactics to operationalize those strategies.
Develop yourself into a strong sparring partner for your sales counterparts. Help them identify opportunities from your technological point of view: where are they to today, how do they compare against industry benchmarks, and what can you help your customer grow?
Craft and contribute your technology strategy to the account plan. You might want to work with capability maps: what do they have today, what do they need short-/ mid-/ long-term, what can you bring them?
It takes a village to serve a key account. Think of your company as a pool of skills, knowledge, and experience you can leverage to succeed in your key account.
Introduce the people to the account you need to get a job done in quality. Scout for internal talent, build a relationship with them. Seize the opportunity if it presents itself: get those talents in, coach them to be successful, and celebrate them.
Think of your account as your own company; operate it so that everyone loves working for it.
After everything you have read so far, you might wonder whether the job as Key Account SE is worth the effort. Can I really make a difference on this big ship account?
Yes, you can.
Gartner found that the likelihood to grow a Key Account is the highest when the KAM team embraces a strong focus on discovering, visualizing, and demonstrating value to the customer. That is your sweet spot.
Your AEs need you.
To build trusted relationships only you can build with your consulting attitude.
To identify opportunities only you can see with your technical expertise.
To discover customer pain only you can dig out to with your presales methodologies.
To make innovation tangible in a way only you can deliver with your demo skills.
Consider this your opportunity to take the next step in your #SEvolution.
I’ve worked in both situations. Sometimes as an SE I worked exclusively, or close to exclusively with one salesperson (AE). I’ve also worked with different AEs depending on industry or geography. I’ve liked both.
I struggled with the 1:1 only because I just didn’t connect with the AE’s style. But even then, over time we learned to work well and efficiently together.
I was an SE in the software industry. I watched my husband work in a 1:1 team arrangement in the medical diagnostic equipment industry. He was the AE. He worked with one SE. They were a strong team who were friendly as well as efficient. For them, it seemed to work perfectly.
I didn’t like working with different AEs all the time. Didn’t hate it but it was hard to establish an efficient cadence.
So what are the pros and cons?
1:1
1:Several
Efficiency You get to know each other and develop shortcuts
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More deals to work Especially important in areas like Canada with less ability to segment market due to population
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Creativity Working with different people should naturally bring new & approaches that could be lost in getting used to doing things the same way.
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Need for rapport Always important. But with 1:1 more critical.
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What do you think? tell us in comments below.
Special Thanks to Aileen McNabb for writing this article, for more information related to this article you can visit her website: https://mustangppd.com/
