Sales Engineer Training

Sales engineers want to implement, their company's products and services, as a solution to customer requirements. They collect customer information regarding what they want to do and what will be required to make it happen. Then, present their company's solutions through slides, diagrams, white boarding, and demonstrations. Sometimes, to get into the door, they respond to RFPs (request for proposals) with descriptions of their companies abilities to deliver a solution.

Training needs:

• A sample system to demo. Often, applications can run in a virtual machine (VM) on a laptop. Or, access pre-configured systems via the internet.
• Enough administration skills to manage the demo: start, stop, and monitor the applications.
• Draw solution component architecture diagrams. Example components: web application, application server, and database servers mapped onto sufficiently powered hardware running over an adequate secure network.
• Methods to calculate hardware and software requirements to handle the customer needs. Example: the amount hardware to run the software required to satisfy the customer solution's users.
• They work with account sales representatives to work out pricing.

When a customer asks, "Can your product do this and that," the sales engineer's answer should be positive as it usually comes down to consultant (or developer) time and hardware. It is the sales person responsibility to negotiate the cost.
On the post-sales side, sales engineers may co-ordinate implementations and support the completion of production implementation planning. Their pre-sales training and personnel skills experience will get them through this stage. Their job is get the project moving and hand off implementation and support issues to their appropriate colleagues.

Sales engineers make the sale, hand off to the others for implementation, then move on to next sales engagement.

As a product manager of a small team, I enhanced my product to fit the customer needs. To demo it, I posted the application solution on the internet, then contacted my customer contact and did a demonstration. He arranged a meeting on his side with a VP, operations, and users, everyone required to make a decision. The loved the idea, bought into and I worked with my development to implement the solution. On another sales call, instead of me demonstrating the product, I had the potential customer's tech person use the online application to demonstrate the capabilities and the ease which their users would get started using the product. This meant that their tech person recommended the product during our phone call.

As a sales engineer, I thought of creative ways to get customers involved. Example, to sell my web site training materials, I enhanced the course to include the JavaScript programming skills required to program the basics of Google Maps. This was a real attention getter with the sales team, who felt it was good product to help them with further sales. Students in other countries loved learning the secrets of California's Silicon Valley's developers.