Mastering the Art of Sales Engineering E-Book

Jeffrey Silver

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 722

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Sales engineers often need to balance their technical expertise with the soft skills needed to close deals and build lasting client relationships. This book provides a framework for both senior engineers seeking professional growth and individuals just starting their sales engineering careers.
This book draws from the authors’ extensive experience in this industry and as leaders in top high-tech companies, offering real-world insights and life lessons applicable to this specialized and in-demand industry. You’ll pick up the core disciplines a successful sales engineer should exemplify, along with mastering practical, day-to-day operational aspects. Within these chapters, you will learn the roles and responsibilities of a sales engineer, as well as adjacent roles within a sales team. You’ll also develop the skills needed to navigate complex sales cycles and exceed traditional expectations. This book covers various key aspects of sales engineering, including mastering communication techniques, navigating complex meetings, managing customer expectations, understanding legal matters, and handling administrative tasks.
By the end of this book, you’ll have acquired advanced knowledge to excel as a world-class sales engineer and become a valuable member of your organization’s broader team.

Leseprobe

Mastering the Art of Sales Engineering

Develop essential skills and gain valuable insights for high-tech sales engineering success

Jeffrey Silver

Jason Mar-Tang

Mastering the Art of Sales Engineering

Copyright © 2024 Packt Publishing

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First published: September 2024

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Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-83588-096-8

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To my wife, Dianne, who has been by my side during the entire journey. Also, to Jessie, my wonderful daughter. And finally, to my son, Ryan, who is taking the baton from me. You will do great things in the industry!

– Jeffrey Silver

To my parents, Jackson and Michele, whose hard work, dedication, and support allowed me to pursue every opportunity in front of me.

–Jason Mar-Tang

Foreword

The Sales Engineering job is the best job there is! I can’t count the number of times I’ve said this (with gratitude) over the years. But not everyone can do it as it takes a unique set of skills. Sales Engineering is a job focused on solving problems and creating a vision of possibilities. It requires someone who can marry technical savvy with engaging presentation skills. A Sales Engineer (SE) must be a strong partner and have a team attitude. The SE must not only work with a sales organization but also with every part of a tech company. Being an SE is not about the individual – it’s not a loner sport. It is a job that demands constant education and development, as every customer environment is different. And yet, it is a role in which these skills drive big results. It is a job with rewards far beyond just the pay. Every day an SE can be a superhero.

When I was young in the tech world, I didn’t even know that being an SE could be a career choice. A lot of SEs tell the same story. Many SEs come to it from backgrounds where they weren’t necessarily focused on a technical selling career. Actually, it seems that there are few Sales Engineers who have a traditional CompSci education and IT background. I started work in the high-tech software world as an inside sales rep. I found I was naturally technical, but that I had a very communicative, customer-focused side as well. I met the pre-sales engineer for our inside sales team, and I remember walking up to him and saying, “You have the coolest job in this company, and I want to do this role!” Luckily, the company invested in me and put me on the path to being an SE. But the path for being an SE, managing SEs, and leading SE organizations hasn’t always been clear and straightforward.

Most people start the SE journey like me, by becoming a technical expert on a product. Very quickly (like the first time we must demo in front of a customer), we find that there are myriad other skills required to excel as an SE. We learn a lot of these skills by observing others and through trial and error. But, until now, there hasn’t really been a guide that helps SEs prepare and grow in the role or as an organization. When Jeff and Jay first talked to me about this book, my first thought was “Thank goodness! This is necessary.” I was thrilled they were putting this guide together.

As I was thinking about the impact this book could have, I reminisced about my early career. I thought about how once, after a long day of customer meetings, my sales partner and I had a conversation over dinner about what really differentiated the best SEs. Ultimately, he said that the most important asset an SE should have is accountability, or, the ability to do what they say they are going to do. So much of the SE job is about creating trust and being credible. An SE must not only know their subject area of technology but also understand the customer and stay loyal to their needs. The best SEs put themselves in a customer’s shoes and understand the problem from their perspective. When focusing on solving a customer problem, a keen SE will remember that the ultimate solution is often not the way the customer initially envisions it. The key skill of the SE here is the ability to understand the intention behind the customer’s request. SEs should always be looking for the reason why behind the customer inquiries. And then, of course, they execute, follow through, communicate clearly, and make that sale.

When I look back at Jeff’s and Jay’s careers, I’ve seen them exhibit these skills in abundance. And I have seen them, over and over, guide their customers to solve key business problems. They have always understood the key concept of getting to the why of what the customer is asking. Moreover, both have moved through their careers inspiring, coaching, and managing others to be great SEs. They both have a great perspective, and we are fortunate to learn from their vast experience in this book.

Here you will find inspiration and education about the world of Sales Engineers, and perhaps it will lead you to “the best job there is”. One last bit of advice to all the aspiring SEs – do the right thing for your customer, and everything will work out for the best! Enjoy the book! Enjoy the journey!

Michael Huckaby

Vice President of Sales Engineering

Phosphorus Cybersecurity

Contributors

About the authors

Jeffrey Silver has been involved in the network security industry for over 25 years. After earning his CISSP, he became a founding member and officer of the Delaware ISC2 Chapter. Currently, he serves as an adjunct professor teaching cybersecurity and is passionate about building a culture of mentoring young security professionals in our industry. A strong advocate of building cyber collaboration with law enforcement, Jeff is a graduate of the FBI Citizens Academy and a member of InfraGard. He currently lives in Newark, Delaware with his wife and two children and outside of the technology industry is active in his church and local community.

Jason Mar-Tang has been in the IT industry for over 17 years, with over 14 years of cybersecurity sales engineer experience. He earned his CISSP in 2014 and CCSP in 2023. He has spent years engineering different defensive cybersecurity solutions for clients of all verticals. After spending years with blue team defensive technologies, he has shifted to the offensive side of security, now advising attacker-led strategies for clients across the United States and Latin America. Additionally, he has led a team of engineers in North and South America since 2022. He now works strategically with clients and communities as a field CISO, a cyber evangelist; his expertise is noted in publications, podcasts, and presentations across the cyber industry.

About the reviewer

Ben Smith is an information security and risk management expert, most recently serving for more than a decade as field chief technology officer with RSA Security, the world’s oldest cybersecurity brand. He holds industry certifications in information security (CCISO and CISSP), risk management (CRISC), and privacy (CIPT). He is an acknowledged contributor to NIST SP 1800-1, -3, and -7; and he chairs the non-profit Cybersecurity Canon Project, the authoritative bookshelf for the information security community. He is a patent holder, a published contributor of four of the 97 Things Every Information Security Professional Should Know and previously served as a corporate representative to the U.S. government’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) as well as an invited mentor supporting the MACH37 cybersecurity accelerator program. Smith has presented internationally at cybersecurity events sponsored by Gartner, FS-ISAC, SANS, IANS, CERT/SEI, RSA Conference, Black Hat, ISSA, (ISC)2, ISACA, Infosecurity, BSides, ASIS, InfraGard, HTCIA, SecureWorld, ISMG, SC Media, SIRA, RMA, IIA, MWCA, ICI, and other organizations.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Understanding the High-Tech Sales Industry

1

Types of Organizations That Employ Sales Engineers

Large vendors offering a full product suite

Small vendors offering one specific solution

Channel partners and resellers

Selling services

Hybrid organization

Summary

2

Typical Sales Roles and Sales Processes

The core team

Account executives

Sales development representatives

District managers

SE managers

The extended team

Product managers

Marketing team

Post-sales team

Technical support team

Basic sales process

Sales team events

QBR

Sales kick-off

President’s Club

Breaking into the industry

Summary

3

The Sales Engineer

Introduction to general SE operations

Discovery

Preparing for the discovery call

Product demonstrations

Preparing for the product demonstration

PoC fundamentals

Additional sales cycle considerations for the SE

Win wire

Request for proposals

Request for information

Security questionnaire

Closing fundamentals for the SE

Summary

4

Types of Sales Engineer Roles

Generalist SE

Strategic account SE

Federal SE

SLED SE

Channel SE

SE product specialist

Field operational distinctions

Corporate operational distinctions

Evangelist/Principal

Summary

Part 2: Necessary Soft Skills

5

General Soft Skills

Time management fundamentals

Tactical time management

Strategic time management

Bringing it all together

Internal relationship dynamics and call cadence

Weekly SE team call

1-on-1 with your SE manager

1-on-1 with each of your AEs

1-on-1 with marketing

Squirrel Club

Data organization

Directory file structure

Going on the hunt for information

Email organization

People information

Note-taking

Email crafting

Coachability/Adaptability

Ownership

Summary

6

Client-Facing Soft Skills

Customer relationship fundamentals

Preparation

Reading the office and/or cubicle

Reading a conference room

Bridging collaboration points

Foundational meeting dynamics

Foundational customer-facing meeting principles

Storytelling expression

Dealing with a hostile customer in a meeting

Dealing with silence in a meeting

International considerations

SE-only customer-facing meetings

Additional client-facing considerations

OPSEC in public settings

Bad, complex situations

Dynamics with the AE

Advanced note-taking fundamentals for the SE

Proofs of concept

Product upgrades

Technical note next steps

Elicitation techniques

Provocative statement

Provocative statement and quid pro quo

Provocative statement and naivete

Bracketing techniques

Elicitation wrap-up and key points for the SE

Summary

7

Mastering Yourself andHelping Others

Internal professional development for the SE

Brand building concepts and defining exotics

Administering a wiki or lab environment

White paper creation for the broader SE team

Working with the PM team on a special project

Internal technical training

Assisting teammates in need

Trip to the regional office

Trip to HQ

External professional development for the SE

Certifications

Training classes

Blogs, magazines, and books

Professional organizations

Conferences

Social media

SE mentoring fundamentals

Initial structure and steps

Keeping on track

Relationship building

Exotics and risk

Handling authority as an SE

Confidentiality as a mentor

Finding closure

Professional red flags for the SE

Dealing with difficult teammates professionally

Dealing with miscellaneous red flags

Professional red flag reflections

Summary

Part 3: Often Neglected Important Skills

8

Road Warrior Fundamentals

Corporate travel culture

Local travel

Your car as your mobile office

Road routine

Traffic

Local weather and driving

Expensing mileage

Public transit in the city

Your SE field bag

Regional and international travel

Travel vendor reward systems

Corporate credit cards versus personal credit cards

Airports

Rental cars

Hotels

Regional trains

International travel

Jet lag

Cybersecurity

Things to always bring

Maintaining work-life balance

Keeping up with lifestyle

Bringing significant others along

Final thoughts

Summary

9

Administration

Corporate mandatory requirements

Expense reporting

Required corporate training

Corporate-wide meetings

Requesting access to logical and physical assets

Company-issued hardware and software

Mobile phone and phone number

Physical and logical security by policy

Voluntary administrative tasks and benefits

Time off from work

Primary benefits

Employee stock purchase program

Educational opportunities

Secondary benefits offered to you through your organization

Summary

10

Compensation and Legal Considerations for the SE

Compensation and the SE

Sign-on bonus

On target earnings

Compensation split ratio

Commission basis (region, AE, or theater)

Accelerators

Draws and implications

Commission calculation

Sales performance incentive funds

Granted stock options

401(k) company matching

Understanding your (pay) earnings statement

SE annual performance appraisals

Legal considerations

Confidentiality agreement

Non-disparagement

Arbitration agreement

Business contracts

Competitive intelligence rules of engagement

Non-disclosure agreements

SE negligence

Separating from a company

Summary

11

Beyond the SE Role – SE Management

Command of the team

Establishing team culture

Assessment and coaching

Recruitment

SE recognition

Mentoring

Command of the business

Aligning the coverage model

Operational cadence

Quarterly business review involvement

Customer relationship management and analysis

Administrative

Thought leadership

Internal organization

Industry leadership

Community leadership

Summary

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

We are excited that you have chosen to use this book, Mastering the Art of Sales Engineering, as a tool to further your career! Whether you are a senior engineer looking to tighten your skills and best practices or you are looking to become a Sales Engineer (SE) one day and would like to better understand all the details behind this amazing career field, this book will help you achieve these goals.

In Part 1, we will define the various organizations that typically employ SEs as well as the various types of SE roles you can fill. We will help you explore what is a good fit for you based on your individual career goals as well as your personality distinctions and other personal attributes. We will then round that out by reviewing all the different people you will work with as an SE and the different roles they perform in relation to the larger organization and its mission.

Part 2 will dig into the core functions of an SE, and you will truly learn the key best practices and skills from our collective years of experience as field SEs. This will include not just general soft skills but also a very detailed follow-up on client-facing soft skills which will give you the framework to always advance your skill set forward towards being a world-class SE. We then close out Part 2 with an in-depth discussion of professional development topics so that you can grow strategically across your career journey.

Finally, in Part 3, we will dig into topics such as traveling best practices, and administrative and legal realities specifically for the SE. This section will truly help round out your SE experience and give you the tools you need to be successful. We will then conclude this book journey with a glimpse into the horizon as we discuss what promotion to an SE manager role might look like for you.

An SE analogy to ponder

So, what really makes being an SE so great, anyway? Well, like most things, being an SE is not for everyone! And, I will give you a good example to start with. If you are currently a network administrator, where the single most important thing for you is a role with administrator rights in a singular environment; where you can have a positive impact every day…being an SE is probably not for you. If you enjoy the technical aspect of your IT role, but would rather be in a barrel of rattlesnakes than engage in public speaking, especially in an environment where complex questions are being asked on the fly…being an SE is probably not for you!

And, why are high-quality SEs in such high demand? A lot of that can be answered with the goose analogy. A professional SE may not be the single most technical person in the room, but they are in fact VERY technically sharp. This is especially true in not just their product or service, but also in relation to the technical environments these products are a part of. Furthermore, the SE may not be the single most eloquent public speaker in the company, but they are, in fact, VERY dynamic presenters capable of taking complex technical concepts and relating them to their audience, whether technical or not. Finally, an SE may not be a Six Sigma-certified process manager, but world-class SEs are highly structured people who not only effectively manage their time with little supervision, but can also manage very complex PoC campaigns effectively, achieving their operational goals consistently. You see, the SE needs to be effective in multiple disciplines to be world-class. Being technical is important, but it is not nearly enough! Being a dynamic presenter is key to success, but that alone will not make someone an SE.

Flock of Canada geese flying over Great Salt lake, USA; Image by wirestock - Freepik.com

You see, the humble goose may not be the best swimmer, but the goose can in fact swim very well. Some say it does so effortlessly. Although it may not swim like a barracuda, the barracuda is always stuck in the water. They will be there forever, and in fact, leaving the water is literally a death sentence! The versatile goose, on the other hand, does not just walk away from the water’s edge at will…the goose at his pleasure… can fly! He can soar with the other flying creatures. In a similar fashion, this is what makes the SE such a versatile part of any organization, whether you are in a small start-up or you work for a large vendor in the industry. The SE brings a breadth of skills so valuable, all packed within a single person, and yes if you have that skill set or aptitude, you may find that the SE role will become a tremendously gratifying career experience.

If the following aspects excite you about the role…then being an SE very well may be for YOU!

You are excited about the fast-paced, customer-facing role in which you get to be the technical arm of a sales team.You like solving technical problems and designing solutions to overcome them.You enjoy public speaking and are passionate about articulating complex topics in a manner that both technical and non-technical people can understand.You are a self-starter and take initiative to accomplish tasks.You collaborate well with both non-technical teammates (account executives) and technical ones (fellow SEs).You have humility. Brilliant jerks never make for a world-class SE. In fact, people who align to this, should not be customer-facing at all!You are passionate about the technology your company offers.

So, if these aspects excite you, let’s turn our attention toward which group you are most closely aligned with in order to help you get the most out of the material.

Who this book is for

We realize that there will be a wide array of people picking up this book, and we would like to provide more specific details for each type of reader to help prepare you as you move through the chapters. This information will help you approach the material properly and view it through the lens that will help make you successful.

Students

If you are a Cybersecurity or Information Systems student within academia today and considering becoming an SE, I want to encourage you to really dig deep into the key concepts here so that you become familiar with what makes a great SE. You can then begin to take concrete actions to move yourself in that direction and build your résumé so that potential employers will see you as an attractive candidate.

Being an SE used to be fairly unattainable for a young professional coming out of college, but more and more organizations are seeing the value of an associate SE role, or basically, growing their own SEs internally. These programs are great for both an organization and an amazing opportunity for those so fortunate to be chosen to be part of them. Possibly the best example of this program today is at Palo Alto Networks, which has an SE academy. This is the most mature and comprehensive SE academy in the industry today. For those geeky enough, you can equate being selected to attend the very elite Palo SE Academy to getting selected to attend Starfleet Academy. However, there are other leading organizations in the market that hire young associate SEs and then develop their talents internally until they are ready for promotion to become a full SE.

IT professional

If you are an IT professional, whether an administrator, network engineer, analyst, or any other position in the field, this book will help you not only understand the environment and culture you will work within but also the best practices for you to be successful.

There are significant differences between being someone with administrator privileges in a single environment and being an SE. And given that, there are some very serious considerations to ponder before making the jump from the enterprise space to an SE role. For example, are you OK with giving up your administrator rights? Or is that an important value point for work to be meaningful to you? In addition, SEs work with many customers and will rarely be deeply immersed into all the aspects of one company’s environment. If this is something you would sorely miss, you will need to do a serious gut check before leaving your network engineering role.

On the other hand: Have you been working with a tool in your current role for quite some time? Are you certified in it? Do you feel the tool provides you and your team a lot of value? Do you think you could use your experience to help others in similar situations? Well, if you’ve answered yes, then reach out to that specific vendor and explore with them if the SE world may just be for you! There are certain skills you would need to learn along the way, but that is what this book is for.

Sales engineers

If you are currently working as an SE today and fairly new to the role, you can use this book to help focus on the key best practices that we lay out throughout the text. This book will truly help you move your career to the next level as an SE, and both you and your organization will benefit from your increased effectiveness as a well-rounded and more centered engineer.

Every organization will have its own culture and certainly before implementing new processes (from this book or any other source), make sure to collaborate with your SE teammates to get their thoughts. For example, after reading about our recommendations on how to conduct a proof of concept (PoC), you may decide to make changes to the way you run your own, and that would be great. Just remember, that even positive changes to a business process need to be collaborated properly for them to be well received. Even more importantly, ensure that you discuss with your manager any new process changes that you want to integrate into your current workflow. This will ensure that you are aligned with not only the business but also the strategic objectives of your SE organization.

Senior or principal sales engineers

If you are already a senior SE, have been in the field for many years, and have accumulated a great deal of experience, this book will serve as a professional development tool. You will most likely skip through the first section of this book, but I am sure you will gain insights and tips in the remaining sections. Even if reading through the content, you discover that the book is affirming best practices that you do today, there is still value in that. However, you will discover tips and best practices that you can incorporate into your day-to-day operation, making you even better than you are today. There is an ancient biblical saying: Iron sharpens iron. If you are well into your career as a senior SE, make sure that you align yourself with others like you. And, of course, the fact that you are reading this book is a sign that you really take your professional development seriously.

SE manager

For managers looking for ways to add to your existing culture, you will find Parts 2 and 3 the most impactful. For example, you may have recently inherited a team of good SEs, and yet some sloppy habits exist. Or perhaps there are no standard operating procedures for how to run a PoC or other operational functions. You can then begin to prioritize what changes come first, and methodically integrate the best practices we lay out here to your team. We recommend a methodical approach for good reason. It is easier for people to accept meaningful change a little at a time. If you give your SEs time to digest a couple of key changes each quarter, they will more readily adopt them successfully, and ultimately that makes for a positive culture change.

For managers who read this and want to use it as a professional development tool for their team, we recommend approaching this with a very focused perspective. In other words, asking your SEs to read this book before a given date will provide little value and in fact, could actually just cause resentment. SEs are typically very busy people and don’t take well to you heaping some nebulous assignment to their existing workload.

However, if you take one chapter at a time and follow up with a team call in which you ask one of your senior SEs to share a key point they got from the material, you will find the open conversation will begin to occur on the team call. Professional development for SEs can be tricky but does not need to be elusive. Stay focused on a specific area, have meaningful discussions, consider the feedback given to you… THEN implement any new best practices based on both the feedback and the concepts in this book.

You can really make a difference in not just your business operation, but also in the lives of the SEs that report to you. The SE manager role is one of the most challenging roles out there, and so much is riding on your performance. Unlike the SE, who is responsible for his specific business goals, you are responsible for both your region’s business goals and arguably as important…you are responsible for building up and helping your SEs be the best SEs they can be. Part of your success will be a legacy of professionals who will grow to become captains of the industry as their careers progress. You will know you were successful…when you see that they are successful!

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Types of Organizations That Employ Sales Engineers, specifically looks at the various organizations that hire and use sales engineers as well as the positives and negatives for each type of company.

Chapter 2, Typical Sales Roles and Sales Processes, explores the various roles on the sales engineer’s team, as well as the basic sales process and the best practices to consider.

Chapter 3, The Sales Engineer, goes into detail about the sales cycle fundamentals and specifically each part in relation to the sales engineer. You will learn best practices in this chapter that will help you with the core functions of the SE role.

Chapter 4, Types of Sales Engineer Roles, dives into all the different types of roles you can fill and explore within sales engineering, and it also discusses the benefits and pitfalls for each one.

Chapter 5, General Soft Skills, takes a deep look at the fundamental soft skills you will need to function as a world-class sales engineer as well as the best practices for each area.

Chapter 6, Client-Facing Soft Skills, builds on Chapter 5 and digs deep into specific soft skills and the best practices when client-facing.

Chapter 7, Mastering Yourself and Helping Others, will explore the world of professional development for the sales engineer and how it will not only help you but your team as well.

Chapter 8, Road Warrior Fundamentals, goes into significant detail in the realm of business traveling specifically as a sales engineer. In this chapter, a tremendous number of tips and best practices are given to make your business travel the best it can be.

Chapter 9, Administration, will cover the variety of administrative tasks you can expect to perform as a sales engineer and the best practices to help you move through these efficiently and effectively.

Chapter 10, Compensation and Legal Considerations for the SE, explores and discusses the details of compensation packages a sales engineer can expect in the industry. We then take a look at the types of legal documents and other legal considerations that a sales engineer may encounter.

Chapter 11, Beyond the SE Role – SE Management, concludes the journey by looking at the most common role successful SEs may consider as a career move at an organization looking to move them into a leadership role.

To get the most out of this book

Regardless of what your station in life is or the professional role you currently fill, you will get the most benefit and value if you take time to truly consider the best practices found within the pages of each chapter, and then honestly assess in comparison to both your current habits, skills, and career desires.

You do not need to come to the table with any prerequisites to benefit from this book, but we would encourage you to take an old-school approach, take notes in the margins, and highlight text that truly speaks to you. Because this book is not just something you read once, but very well will be referenced again as certain situations come up in your SE career, having these notes and highlights will benefit you. We truly hope you enjoy the journey!

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. Here is an example: “Audio/Visual setup: The conference room will most likely have a TV that you will hook up to.”

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

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Part 1:Understanding the High-Tech Sales Industry

The first part of the book defines the various organizations that typically employ Sales Engineers (SEs) as well as the various types of SE roles one can fill. We will help you explore what is a good fit for you based on your individual career goals as well as your personality distinctions and other personal attributes. We then round that out by reviewing all the different people you will work with as an SE and the different roles they perform in relation to the larger organization and its mission.

This part includes the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Types of Organizations That Employ Sales EngineersChapter 2, Typical Sales Roles and Sales ProcessesChapter 3, The Sales EngineerChapter 4, Types of Sales Engineer Roles

1

Types of Organizations That Employ Sales Engineers

In 1996, I joined an amazing high-technology company called Network General. We were a heady successful vendor based out of Silicon Valley that offered a leading protocol analyzer called the Network General Sniffer. It was a technically cool product and had a great reputation in the industry. For those familiar with Wireshark today, this was the original predecessor to that tool. In the mid-1990s, the Sniffer was truly a leading-edge troubleshooting tool that gave network engineers ground truth to what was truly going across the wire in their environment. Back then, the ability to do network troubleshooting was a well-sought-out skill, and those who were geeky enough to be able to look at packet trace files and identify network problems were not just esteemed; they were sort of revered. Unlike networks today, 25 years ago, as a network sales engineer (SE), you had to know more than just Ethernet. You had to be able to work with Token Ring and Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) topologies as well. For those of you who are new to the industry, these topologies are long gone!

We were a global company that touched both small and large businesses. We had customers in the Fortune 500 as well as governments across the federal level down to state and local agencies across the globe. Our sales teams were structured very well into small regional offices with clear-cut geographical territories. Each region had a district manager (DM), and regardless of our role, we all operated at the same office, which made for clean operational accountability. SEs were assigned to specific account executives (AEs) and were typically shared. I remember thinking I worked for some huge blockbuster company. We were unstoppable…we were the model of what success looks like. But, at the time, I was new to the industry and rather delusional about the realities of working in the high-technology vendor space.

Within a couple of years of working at Network General, the company was bought by McAfee, many people were let go, the entire positive culture was shattered, and we were now one product of many in a much larger and more complex organization that was going through deep power struggles and changes itself.

I ended up staying with the organization and crafting out a good portion of my career there, but that acquisition forever opened my eyes to the realities of working in the vendor space. As you craft your own journey as an SE, you will see your own story unfold. Hopefully, it will be one filled with many positive memories but understand that this is a fast-paced business with many twists and turns that you will experience along the way. If you are an associate SE or looking to break into the industry, this book will give you the vision to see both the calm, warm lagoons and the sometimes turbulent waters you may encounter along the way.

As you read through this chapter, the details will help illuminate the broader picture of life in the vendor space and can help you navigate your own career aligned with what type of organization is the best fit for you! If you speak to anyone who works in the high-technology vendor space, they will tell you what a wild ride it is, filled with many highs…and, yes, sometimes some lows. But all in all, it is a wonderful ride, and for the SE, it is a tremendously rewarding career.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

The difference between large companies and start-up companies for the SEWhat does the channel mean?What are selling services?What are hybrid organizations?

So, first, let’s take a look at the types of organizations that employ SEs today.

Large vendors offering a full product suite

I realize that the term large is debatable; however, for the sake of discussion, typical vendors that would fall into this category are Apple, Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Palo Alto, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, and Salesforce. Yes, there are others, and depending on where we draw the line would determine how many fit in this group. But for our purposes, we will focus more on what working for this type of vendor looks like versus who actually qualifies as one.

If you are looking to get hired by a large vendor, there are some significant benefits and also, of course, some negatives to consider as well. To start with, customers know who you are and you are always invited to the table when they are considering purchasing a technology solution. One of the best parts about being on a sales team for a large vendor is that your customer base truly knows what you are about. Even if they don’t use your products, when they invite you in to have a technology discussion, they are already familiar with you and your credibility as a respected solutions provider in the industry. This really matters and gives you, as an SE, an advantage over a small start-up. While your prospective customer is immediately focused on how the features in your solution will help them with their technology project, a competing start-up company has to first convince the customer that they are even worthy to be at the sales table. Never underestimate this advantage. It should also never be taken for granted. Being a large vendor does not even come close to guaranteeing you are awarded the business, but it does have a first foot-in-the-door benefit.

Another great value to the SE working at a large firm is that you have at your disposal a huge set of resources. Not only do you have a team of SEs who you can and will collaborate with on a regular basis, but you also have online resources such as an internal wiki or other SE-generated and -maintained repositories. There will also most likely be a formal education team behind the solution set, a sales enablement team that has the primary responsibility of ensuring that SEs have all the tools they need to do their job. This includes making sure they have a mature cloud environment lab with all the products built and functional with supporting third-party licenses. They will have produced lab documentation, and, in fact, official product documentation is typically (but not always) fairly well-created and mature. In essence, when you work for a large vendor, it may seem as though the entire company is aligned to support you and your AE…and that is because it IS aligned that way!

You will notice that larger vendors have a significant marketing engine. OK, they are not producing Super Bowl commercials. Actually, I think this has been done in the past by IBM and also CrowdStrike, but I digress! When we look at high-technology vendors, marketing efforts are sharply focused on a small subset of society…only those involved in purchasing technology solutions. TV ads are great when your buying audience is basically everybody. If you are selling trucks or beer…well, that is probably 90% of the Western world. With high-technology marketing, you are reaching a very small portion of the population, and so this is executed in a different manner in order to be effective. Large organizations typically will have an established brand. This should not be taken for granted, as marketing’s goal is to typically generate leads and accelerate the pipeline. These terms will be discussed in depth later on; however, you can think of it simply as a good marketing engine that will bring you work and, ultimately, business!

When considering whether a large vendor is the right place for you to work, you should also look at what type of SEs they employ. Most large organizations have both generalist and specialist SEs as well as much smaller operating regions regardless of the type of SE role you take on. Depending on your capacity for travel, this will make a difference to your overall quality of life. For a married SE who has two children at home, the idea of global travel may not be appealing. It certainly will not be appealing to his wife and kids …that is for certain! However, having these career options available without leaving your company is a very significant advantage and should not be overlooked when considering an employment opportunity.

In addition to the benefits already mentioned, maybe the most compelling is the wide breadth of technology available to you. Looking back on my career, this was one of the most valuable aspects I saw working for larger vendors. I loved that I could become technically deep in the product that I supported and also continue to learn about other products we sold that were in an adjacent technology space. Being able to cross-train with other like-minded SE counterparts was a great value-add and should be truly considered when weighing the differences between working for a small vendor and being part of a large company.

When I was with Network Associates (after they purchased Network General), we had a few primary product lines such as network troubleshooting, network security, and a help desk solution. These business lines were operated separately in many ways, sometimes referred to as silos. This was in the early 2000s and I saw that cybersecurity was emerging, so I wanted to learn more about it. I was in the network troubleshooting business vertical, but from an office perspective, all the SEs were in one physical area of the building. This was great as I had the opportunity to build relationships with the SEs tied to the security products. Being able to cross-train with them made it possible to approach my boss at the time and ask him to transfer me into the security business line. In a large vendor, these opportunities are there for those with the initiative.

At this point, you are probably wondering why you wouldn’t choose a large vendor! Well, it is not all roses and ice cream (is that even a thing?!). In my career, I did, in fact, choose to work for large vendors, and I have no regrets. I loved it! Well, I loved it most of the time. Still, let me share with you some of the potential negatives that come with larger organizations.

To start with, there are complex networks of people that you will have to get to know. I remember a colleague of mine at Cisco once shared with me that a critical component of competency working there was not just being technically sharp but really understanding WHO to go to for key pieces of information or to get a specific action taken care of for a customer. You really had to know who was who to be effective. Now, this may not be a negative after all, but if you are someone who perceives this as a drain, then a large organization may not be for you.

Another debatable challenge to factor in is operational management tools or customer relationship management (CRM) tools. Most, if not all, large vendors will use a centralized system for collecting data from the field, and SEs are responsible for documenting all their customer-facing activities. Some of these tools are less than intuitive and have been the source of much frustration for SEs. To be fair, these tools are typically custom-created specifically for the vendor you are working for, and upgrades, feature requests, and bug fixes are all part of the experience of using CRMs. Depending on the vendor, these centralized tools might be the sole source of not just activity reporting but also return merchandise authorizations (RMAs), requesting proof-of-concept (PoC) equipment or cloud space, as well as documenting feature requests and annotating current technical support customer cases. I have had quite a few colleagues who would get so frustrated in trying to do something with our CRM that they were going to throw their laptops out of the window and quit! These, of course, were just idle threats fueled by the depths of CRM frustration, but they were very real, I am sure, at the time. When you really need to get something documented and done…but you just can’t…well, as an SE, sometimes you just want to throw your laptop out the window and quit. Of course, this is why every vendor offers free coffee and snacks to staff at their offices!

Another phenomenon that I have heard during my years as an SE is the feeling that I don’t really make a difference here. It is the cog-in-the-wheel analogy that you may be feeling. For example: you go to a company event and you are one of thousands in the audience. I have to admit that I never personally felt this way working for large vendors, but I have known very talented and dynamic SEs who were valuable to the business and confided in me that they felt this way. Ultimately, they would leave to work for a smaller company where they felt they had greater influence on the organization and its success. This is an important point to consider for some people, and honestly, you truly need to be self-aware so that you don’t end up walking down the road of what I call successful disenchantment. As a professional, you need to not only be technically sharp but also you have to really take time to be honest with yourself. If you truly feel that your personality aligns in this way, I can assure you that you will be happier working for a smaller firm than a giant vendor. For an SE, success is certainly more than just making your quota. For most SEs, you need to feel that you make a positive difference for both your organization and the customers you serve. This intrinsic value point should be a factor for everyone who is looking to be an SE or for those SEs who are considering another company to work for.

Finally, one of the most frustrating, yet very real, operational scenarios that you will deal with periodically as an SE at a large vendor are political buying decisions. The idea of losing a prospect due to something other than the solution being considered is an anathema for the SE. Imagine you compete for the business and technically win the PoC, develop a great relationship with your technical champion at the customer site, and produce competitive pricing and terms…only to lose because the CEO is on the board of your competitor. Or that your customer has a legal purchase hold over your company because of a different product issue your company sells that has nothing to do with the team you are working with.

Working for a large vendor truly does have serious benefits, but as you can see, there are some negatives to consider as well. The important thing to understand as you consider your best fit is your personality and attributes in relation to what we shared here.

We will now compare this with the other side of the coin, the small vendor.

Small vendors offering one specific solution

On the other end of the spectrum is the Start-up. The term itself conjures up both dread for some SEs and the allure of striking gold for others! These are companies typically with a single product that gains investment funding from third-party investors gambling that this product will take off and the start-up will be acquired by a larger vendor or in other cases go public.

Start-ups may or may not offer a higher salary than a large vendor to attract top talent. However, the biggest allure for certain is the stock options. This is career gambling at its finest! And I do not mean that in a derogatory manner. I have known good SEs who have worked at start-up companies, and fundamentally there is nothing wrong with this option, as long as you understand all the risks and possible rewards.

In the best-case scenario, you work for a start-up, and over a year or so, the company does so well that another vendor acquires you and they have to pay out the stock options as part of the deal. Another scenario is that the annual revenue grows in a hockey stick-type fashion year over year. The growth goes so well that the company decides to file for an initial public offering (IPO) and go public! This payout can be hundreds of thousands of dollars to the SE, so you can see the allure.

In most cases, the start-up ultimately fails and you jump to another one, and a few years later…another one. Some SEs do not mind this jump every couple of years and, in fact, might relish it. There are other benefits to working for a small company, whether it is a start-up or a slightly larger vendor. You are a big fish in a small pond. You really have an opportunity to touch every aspect of the business and have direct influence over the direction of your product and, quite frankly, the whole company! You may speak with the CEO directly on a regular basis and discuss the strategic development of the solution you offer. For many SEs, this is seen as a very fulfilling work environment. As the business moves forward, you may have additional options to advance more quickly in your career. If you’re doing well, you may be able to join other teams or even, ideally, earn promotions or have the opportunity to lead your own team. These options will be discussed later in the book; however, for some, the perspective of being able to advance is another advantage of working for a smaller firm.

There is another aspect that comes with a start-up that needs to be articulated and considered. This is greater operational freedom. There are just fewer rules and boundaries. If there is an important sales call in Germany…and you want to go…you’re going! There is no dedicated European team that is responsible for that customer. If you want to do a ride along with the professional services engineer to a customer who just purchased your solution, you just go. If there is an important feature request that you believe is critical…you call the developer directly and talk it through. This is very empowering for some SEs who like this type of working environment.

So, that might sound really great, but believe me, there are some challenges that come with this territory as well. To start with, as I mentioned earlier, most start-ups fail. I’ve heard horror stories from colleagues who went to work for a start-up and ended up being on a business trip, only to find out their paycheck didn’t really make it on time, and after calling the CFO, finding out there is a “slight” delay to pay this week. And, when I say slight, it wasn’t just a few days.

Even for more stable start-ups, there is the grind of significant travel and very high workloads. You are building the plane as it flies. This means that there may not be any standard presentations or documents for you to reference. You want a presentation discussing the value proposition? You will be the one creating it! You want a frequently asked questions (FAQs) document created from discussions with your prospects? You may have to create that too. While this may be work that you’re not used to, this is also how you can influence the company at large. Your creativity and initiative will have a ripple effect for years to come.

While I don’t consider this a negative, many SEs are not ready for the pace and visibility that is inherent in a start-up. The business is moving FAST. It needs to. You may be called upon to do things that are not in your job description. Do you want the company to succeed? Then, the work needs to get done. You also will more than likely be working in a smaller team. This means both successes and failures are yours to own, for better or for worse. There is no coasting in smaller organizations, although that mindset is never good for a SE regardless of the company size.

As the company succeeds, there are only a few workers to do an exceeding amount of customer-facing travel while the company frantically goes on a hiring spree. This can result in a terrible work-life balance. We will touch on this topic in more detail later in the book, as it is a key component to the success of any SE. Finally, if everything works and the start-up is acquired or goes public, achieving its end strategy, you may be laid off immediately, or you may have a contractual obligation to stay for some amount of time based on the legal language of the buyout…one in which you are most likely not involved in making or even influencing. This can be an emotionally challenging time as you transition, one way or the other!

After the acquisition goes through, you may now be working for a very large vendor and dealing with the demoralizing reality of going from a key player in a small start-up’s success to one of many SEs in a large organization that has a multitude of solutions. This can be mentally tough to transition to if you truly enjoy working for small nimble companies.

So, as you can see, there are important distinctions that must be factored in before seeking out an SE role for a start-up company. However, if you feel this can be the environment that you would excel in, then there are great opportunities ahead for you!

Channel partners and resellers

The channel is an interesting concept that seems tightly interwoven into the vendor space and has been for decades. If you were to speak to different professionals in the industry, you would get wildly different views on the effectiveness of the channel, which makes it worth unwrapping the onion in this book. For the SE, it is important to understand why the channel exists so that when you hear negative stories from vendor SEs who have been in the business for a while, you will be able to place it in the perspective of a larger picture.

What is the channel anyway? In sales, you often have the option to buy directly from the vendor itself or buy through the channel, referred to as a value-added reseller (VAR). These companies typically offer a variety of different products and services. A customer can leverage a reseller such as this as a single point of contact for all business needs. As the business needs storage solutions, as well as firewalls, an identity tool, and some consulting to help the employees, they can do this through a trusted VAR whom they regularly do business with. This reseller will then engage specific vendors (many times, more than one) to help broker the business. A channel SE will often be a jack of all trades as they need to know the technical aspects of all solutions that the channel company is involved with. There is also a level of consultative knowledge that is often necessary because these solutions need to be architected together. This is a significant distinction between a vendor SE and a channel SE and a factor to consider when considering an SE role. As a channel SE, you really are asked to come to the table with a practitioner’s hat on and assist the customer with architecting multiple solutions together in their technology stack.

With that being stated, becoming a channel SE is a challenging and very rewarding career path. I know quite a few SEs who went this route and truly enjoyed it. In the same way a large vendor SE has access to great amounts of resources, a channel SE gets the breadth of working with a great number of vendors. This broad perspective and vendor neutrality can make them seen as a very valuable trusted resource to a customer who is truly unsure of what solution is best for them and might rely on the technical guidance and advice of their channel SE before deciding on a multi-million dollar purchase. That would be a rather rewarding position to be in as an SE.

So, what might make being in this role not so wonderful? To start with, in all practicality, you will most likely never go deep in any one vendor product as you simply are not driven by the business in this way. As a channel SE, you are going to partner with your vendor SE counterparts when there are requirements to dig deep into the technical minutiae of the solution set. There is simply not enough time in the day for you to become an expert in every vendor product that you support. You will either accept this or be frustrated, over time. As you consider different SE roles, you truly need to set expectations so that you avoid successful disenchantment. Imagine you become a channel SE, and you are doing a great job in the eyes of your sales team and your manager. Your AE loves you, your customers love you, your wife and kids love you…but you don’t love you. You are successful at work in everyone’s eyes and yet disenchanted at work because you are not doing what you love. This is a real phenomenon for the SE and one that, God willing, you will avoid by being self-aware and making career choices that align with your personality and goals.

There are great SE opportunities working for a channel partner, whether a small regional organization or a global channel organization. Once you weigh the positives and negatives compared to you and your career goals, you will be able to decide which options are the best fit.

Selling services

Many organizations build businesses on services alone. In the high-technology realm, they’re often referred to as managed security service providers (MSSPs). Think of it in this manner: car washing. Could you wash your own car? Sure, you could. You may even enjoy it. However, perhaps the time spent soaping, scrubbing, and waxing is better spent doing something else. So, instead of doing it yourself, you go to a car wash, pay a fee, and the car is washed for you. You didn’t buy a product; you bought a service. You might even pay a monthly subscription so that you can get your car washed as many times as you want! In this case, you’re buying a subscription service.

The term services is very broad and subjective. Typically, it refers to consultation that is not tied directly to a product. Selling services will be much more process-oriented. You may not get questions about what your product does or the features that it has. Instead, you will need to be able to articulate value on how your prospect’s processes will change and be all the better because of your specific service. In tech, there are many different services that can be an example of this. Consider security operations centers (SOCs