The 30-second elevator test: how sales engineers build executive presence

It’s a few minutes before 9 AM. You step into the elevator and press the “close door” button. Just as the door begins to close, a hand stops it, and in walks the sales leader for your entire region.

What do you do?

Most sales engineers would say a polite “good morning” and go back to staring at their phone. But a few people would strike up a conversation that may go something like this:

You: “Good morning, Ms. Johnson.”

Sales leader: “Good morning…uh, sorry I can’t remember your name…”

You: “I’m Jake Brodsky, the SE on the Alpha Machines account. Anna, our account exec, and I have just closed that huge expansion deal with them. That deal alone puts the whole region over its yearly revenue goal.”

Sales leader: “Oh wow, that’s you! Congratulations, great work by you and Anna, Jake!”

You: “My pleasure! Do you mind if I grab some time with you to brief you on the details and my ideas on how to help other account teams in the region bring their deals across the finish line?”

Sales leader: “Not at all, Jake. I’d love to hear your ideas! Book some time directly with my PA, Julien. Talk soon, Jake!”

This conversation is executive presence in a nutshell. If you care about career development, being recognized as someone who contributes to the business and being rewarded for your work, the ability to demonstrate executive presence is a must-have skill.

But getting there will take some time and practice.

Who am I?

Let’s start learning executive presence by answering this simple question. Obviously, you’re a sales engineer, a solutions engineer or a solutions architect; there are many names for this job. That alone causes confusion, right? Saying just your job title will likely not make things any clearer.

So, how do you introduce yourself to people at work?

Try answering the question “Who am I?” before reading on. Keep your answer to one or two sentences. You’ll be surprised to see that it’s not easy at all.

Did you say: “I’m Jake, a technical expert for product XYZ and I support the sales reps in my company”?

Or did you perhaps say: “I’m Jake, I sell product XYZ as a technical expert and drive sales revenue for my company”?

If you said either of these, or something close – good job, both are true! The sales engineer job sits at the intersection of tech and sales.

However, with a sales leader or an executive, only the second answer demonstrates executive presence. It talks about revenue, which is what they care about.

There’s nothing wrong with saying you’re a technical person. In fact, with an engineering team you should lead with it.

So which answer do you lead with? That depends on who you’re talking to!

Knowing your audience is a major part of executive presence.

What is executive presence, and what skills does it take?

Most definitions of executive presence talk about gravitas, confident communication and how you carry yourself. Those matter, but for a sales engineer it comes down to something simpler: framing your work in terms of what the other person cares about, and making sure they see it. 

The first skill is knowing your audience. This shouldn’t be new to you: it’s also the first rule of sales.

You can’t know each person in advance, but most people’s jobs fit a persona you can learn about: the sales rep, the sales leader, the product engineer, the engineering lead, the marketer, the executive, the founder.

Take the sales persona. What does a sales rep care about? The deals they’ve committed to this quarter, and how to close them. Their commission depends on it, and their manager is pressing them to hit their number. That manager is measured on the same deals, and so is everyone above them, all the way up to the company leadership.

You see where this is going: sales cares about money. So demonstrating executive presence to sales means helping sales get that money. It’s not about how technically proficient you are, it’s not about making great demos. It’s about making sure the deals move, the customer signs and the sales team (you included) earns its commission.

The same approach works for every other persona. Marketing, for example, may be measured on event and webinar attendance and on the leads they generate for sales. Help them hit those numbers, and you have presence with marketing.

Your goal is for them to think the following about you: “This is a person who can help me reach my goals. I want to work with this person.”

Learn what they care about and learn their language

Now, learning what someone at work cares about is a great first step. But it’s not enough. You also have to speak their language. You need to adopt some of the abbreviations and lingo they use, in order to sound credible to them. How do you do that?

Remember those boring all-hands meetings or calls that you “listen” to by putting them on low volume and moving the window to another screen, while you work on whatever is on your main screen (the “important work”)?

Yeah, those calls. You need to listen carefully to those calls. Because that’s where you learn what they care about specifically (their exact goals that you can quote later) and they express that in their lingo. Those calls are basically: “Jake, listen up, here’s what I care about.” You’re Jake in this story. You’re already in these calls, so it costs you no extra time. Just pay attention.

Talk the talk but also walk the walk

OK, now you know your personas and you know their language. You’ve even rehearsed some of these situations: in the elevator, at the company restaurant, in a customer’s lobby while you’re waiting for the meeting to start, at the airport gate while waiting to board the same plane, at a company off-site.

And what if you don’t have a record-breaking deal to talk about? Most days you won’t. Then talk about what you’re working on and who it helps: “I’m Jake, the SE on Alpha Machines. We’re halfway through the proof of concept, and it’s on track to close this quarter.” Or ask a question: “What’s the one thing you’d like SEs in the region to do more of this quarter?” A good question shows as much presence as a good answer, and you learn what the leader cares about.

How you say it matters as much as what you say. Keep it short: two or three sentences, then stop. Speak calmly, don’t rush to fill a silence, and listen more than you talk. And if you disagree with an exec, say so, politely and with a reason. Executives remember the people who tell them the truth.

So you can talk the talk. But can you walk the walk?

What does this mean? Simply put, a big part of executive presence is taking initiative. You know how you’re full of ideas about how the “management” could improve things at the company? If only they would listen to someone smart like you!

Well, there’s your chance. Put the idea on paper in the format and the language that the executive will understand, keep it short (they have a hundred priorities and no time for tiny details), and book a meeting. Follow up after the meeting and stay on top of it. That’s what Jake should bring to Ms. Johnson: one page, in her language, on how other account teams could close their deals faster.

Most companies claim to have “flat hierarchies” or an “open-door policy”. Here’s what that means: you can book time with executives through their PA (personal assistant) and make sure the subject of the meeting and a few bullet points are in there.

Things may happen or not happen, some improvement may come out of that or not, but you’ve demonstrated executive presence with that leader. And you’ve also learned a ton from them, for the next time.

Executive presence in front of the customer

So far we’ve talked about leaders in your own company. But for a sales engineer, executive presence is tested most often in front of the customer’s executives: the CIO who joins the last ten minutes of your demo, or the CFO who asks one blunt question in the final meeting.

The same rules apply. Know what they care about: the CIO cares about risk, cost and how fast they see value; the CFO cares about the return. Speak their language: nobody in that room wants a tour of features, they want to hear what improves for their business. When the CIO walks in, stop the demo and sum up in two sentences what you’ve shown and why it matters to them.

And when you get a question you can’t answer, say so: “I don’t know. I’ll get you the answer by Thursday.” Then do it. Calm and honest will beat clever every time.

Do and talk about what you do

In school, the teacher noticed your good work and praised you for it. Early in your career, your manager probably did the same.

Here’s the hard truth: that stops once you’re no longer a kid or a young professional. At work, you will not be promoted just for doing good work.

The key is to do good work (including executive presence) and talk about it!

So next time you have a team meeting or you meet an exec in a lobby, talk about not just what they care about in their language but also about the good work you do to help them get to their goals.

You went the extra mile to do something? Present it like you’ve just invented sliced bread and praise yourself (because no one else will do it!). Just name the people who did it with you, the way Jake named Anna in the elevator. Sharing credit makes the praise believable, and it’s executive presence too.

It feels fake, like cheating, but it’s not. It’s just corporate life. A big part of good work is talking about it.

If you go back to that conversation in the elevator, it has all those elements: knowing what the exec cares about, talking about what you do in their language (closing deals), and showing how good your work is (bringing the region over the finish line), while giving Anna her share of the credit.

Congrats, you’re getting the hang of executive presence! Keep practicing until it becomes second nature.

Start this week: write your two-sentence “Who am I?” intro for three personas you work with, say a sales leader, a marketer and an engineering lead. Then try one out at your next allhands, or in the next elevator ride.