Transition from IT Pro to Sales Engineer: How?
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@MattKing said:
I think a sales engineer is more of a "fellow" type job and isn't something you can set out to do per-se, but that's very limited knowledge.
As a "fellow", I don't think that they are that close typically. But maybe. But I totally agree that it isn't something that you set out to do necessarily. It's a career that you fall into, not one that you target.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@MattKing said:
I think a sales engineer is more of a "fellow" type job and isn't something you can set out to do per-se, but that's very limited knowledge.
As a "fellow", I don't think that they are that close typically. But maybe. But I totally agree that it isn't something that you set out to do necessarily. It's a career that you fall into, not one that you target.
Oh of course, it was more just relating to the "falling into" job type, and not so much as where they relate on the totem pole.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
I refuse to maintain a facade, or lie. If I don't like something, I will say so. I would never work sales for a product I didn't believe in. I'll support something I don't like, and I won't tell the customer who has already purchased it that I don't like it. However, I would never be able to work sales for my current employer. I couldn't bring myself to try and sell it.
That's highly admirable and a great personality trait. It does not, however, point you down the path of sales. Sales, as you know from Staples, means selling what you are told to sell and not what is good for the customer. Even when you work for a company you believe in their current sales initiatives might not align with your values. You have to push the products they want you to push whether to support a failed product line, empty old stock, get interest going in a new line, etc. You might believe in it, you might hate it, you'll not get to pick and choose ahead of time.
Staples used to try to tell me what to sell. They VERY quickly gave up on that when they realized letting me do things my way resulted in happier customers and better sales. That being said, if we had clearance stock, or stuff we needed to move, I would alter my approach, on the basis that it still fit the customer's needs well. If it was a matter of preference, and Y was just as good as X, and I just normally preferred X, I'd push Y. But I never just sold something because we were out to meet a goal or were instructed to. When you put the customer first, and focus on meeting their needs over the goals of the company, you usually walk away meeting both. If you strive to fall into line perfectly with unrealistic corporate expectations, then you're going to lose both the sale for the company and the satisfaction of the customer.
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It's my goal to get to sales engineer. Now for what that will be, I don't know yet. But based on this thread, I'm realizing I'm not going to get there anytime in the next couple years, or even likely the next decade. For now, I work the helpdesk and work my way up the chain of support to get to engineer. I need to get that half nailed down first, and the sales portion will follow.
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One of the reasons that I like working for a non-reseller MSP is that I get to play the "sales engineer"-like role but I do so as a representative of the customer, not of the vendor. I love Dell's R720xd server, for example. But their VRTX is a joke, at least for use by the SMB market. If I was a Dell SE, I would be required to push the VRTX and to potentially push it even when it makes zero sense. I'd be required to sell the R720xd in conjunction with a silly 3-2-1 architecture.
But because I am with a non-reseller MSP that works for the customer, I get to recommend the R720xd when it makes sense and I get to warn about the VRTX to protect the customer. No matter what initiative Dell has going on, I am free to do the best thing for the customer. If Dell doesn't bring out a good server in the future, I have no reason to recommend any Dell at all.
(I'm using Dell as an example here because of the huge dynamic in how much the R720xd is great and the VRTX doesn't make sense for normal businesses and carries crazy risk that no one likes to talk about. I don't believe in recommending server vendors at all, no value in it. Recommend a category of them and specific models from each but let customers pick the vendor of choice.)
I get to do all of the sales engineering type stuff that SEs do but without the compromise to integrity necessary to be an actual sales engineer.
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@MattKing said:
Oh of course, it was more just relating to the "falling into" job type, and not so much as where they relate on the totem pole.
Oh gotcha, yes that makes sense.
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@ajstringham said:
Staples used to try to tell me what to sell. They VERY quickly gave up on that when they realized letting me do things my way resulted in happier customers and better sales.
I remember us having conversations where you were forced to sell completely awful, overly expensive solutions because it was what Staples stocked when there were cheap, reliable solutions that they could have picked up from Amazon that were far better.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
Staples used to try to tell me what to sell. They VERY quickly gave up on that when they realized letting me do things my way resulted in happier customers and better sales.
I remember us having conversations where you were forced to sell completely awful, overly expensive solutions because it was what Staples stocked when there were cheap, reliable solutions that they could have picked up from Amazon that were far better.
There were times I told people to pick stuff up on Amazon, but the compromise I won't make is in terms of a quality product. If Staples sold product X for $50, and it was $25 on Amazon, I didn't tell people that. However, if Staples said product X is the greatest thing since sliced bread and I have to sell it, but I knew it was crap, that was different. There were plenty of times I told people Amazon had product X cheaper and that we would price match it for them. They didn't like that, but I did it all the time. I always sought to get people the best products at the best prices. Staples said sell product X? If I didn't think it was a good product, I couldn't have cared less. I wouldn't sell it, and I made sure all my techs didn't sell it. Some didn't have my knowledge, and took Staples' word at face value. But I always preserved my own technical integrity. As my knowledge grew, that definition changed, which is inevitable.
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The example you're thinking of is Sophos, in their actual endpoint protection, for $90/PC/year. While I agree that the price is steep, think of the alternative. Sure, you can get Vipre for $15/PC/year. Webroot EP in a 5-user license is $25/PC/year. However, then the customer has to manage all the backend stuff. The $90/PC/year was in a small part for the product, but mostly for the management of the console. Your average home user pays a premium for business-level protection, without requiring any of the knowledge to manage it themselves. I still stand by that being a good value, albeit not the cheapest solution.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I get to do all of the sales engineering type stuff that SEs do but without the compromise to integrity necessary to be an actual sales engineer.
That has to be about one of the best jobs in the world! and yet you still have a day (or is it night) on wallstreet?
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@ajstringham said:
The example you're thinking of is Sophos, in their actual endpoint protection, for $90/PC/year. While I agree that the price is steep, think of the alternative. Sure, you can get Vipre for $15/PC/year. Webroot EP in a 5-user license is $25/PC/year. However, then the customer has to manage all the backend stuff. The $90/PC/year was in a small part for the product, but mostly for the management of the console. Your average home user pays a premium for business-level protection, without requiring any of the knowledge to manage it themselves. I still stand by that being a good value, albeit not the cheapest solution.
No, the example I was thinking of is when you had a farmer bury a cheap switch in the yard and run CAT5 and power underground between consumer routers rather than skipping all of that and saving a few hundred dollars and running fiber. We talked about it and how the farmer was getting screwed because Staples didn't sell the appropriate gear but he trusted you so you were able to sell him a ridiculous solution that I'm sure has shorted out and caused a fire by now. He lost money, wasted effort and took on actually electrical risk all to end up with an unstable, pointless solution when doing the right thing was super cheap and simple (and safe.)
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@Dashrender said:
That has to be about one of the best jobs in the world! and yet you still have a day (or is it night) on wallstreet?
I'm really a solutions architect. That's the broad category that lets me do those roles internally.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
The example you're thinking of is Sophos, in their actual endpoint protection, for $90/PC/year. While I agree that the price is steep, think of the alternative. Sure, you can get Vipre for $15/PC/year. Webroot EP in a 5-user license is $25/PC/year. However, then the customer has to manage all the backend stuff. The $90/PC/year was in a small part for the product, but mostly for the management of the console. Your average home user pays a premium for business-level protection, without requiring any of the knowledge to manage it themselves. I still stand by that being a good value, albeit not the cheapest solution.
No, the example I was thinking of is when you had a farmer bury a cheap switch in the yard and run CAT5 and power underground between consumer routers rather than skipping all of that and saving a few hundred dollars and running fiber. We talked about it and how the farmer was getting screwed because Staples didn't sell the appropriate gear but he trusted you so you were able to sell him a ridiculous solution that I'm sure has shorted out and caused a fire by now. He lost money, wasted effort and took on actually electrical risk all to end up with an unstable, pointless solution when doing the right thing was super cheap and simple (and safe.)
The solution was sound and worked. Fiber would have been an option, but you are right, it's nothing I would have been able to implement. However, when you talk about time, materials, and labor, I don't think it would have been cheaper, or easier.
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Wow. On My phone so I'll keep it short.
That's just crazy. I worked in Sales myself for about 2 & 1/2 years. I liked it though it wasn't normal retail sales. I worked with Follett Corporation we did sales to both Higher Education and K12. We made software (Density ILS among other things) and also found and recommended products for Higher Ed - Software solutions, online learning, laptops based on students tracks (Engineer laptops vs english student laptop need to be way different) We also dealt with textbooks and stuff.
Sales/And Sales Engineer were merged in our company. I was both. We had some just doing sales only but it wasn't that common. I think a lot of companies will or have merged the two. You generally get commission which is nice.
But the thing that concerns me is that you were recommend products that weren't the best solution. Heck even dangerous - potentially deadly and a liability to the company. You should never do that. If you don't have the best solution for them don't try to make one up customers will appreciate that. It will actually give you more business for your honesty if we didn't have the best solution for someone and someone else would have a better and/or cheaper solution for them we always refer them to that solution even when not our own. I believe it was Macy's that started doing sales like this, they would not sale a product they didn't believe was the right fit, infact they'd recommend another store that they knew probably had it to them. Just my two cents from a few years of sales (and lots of commission to prove it works).
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@ajstringham said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
The example you're thinking of is Sophos, in their actual endpoint protection, for $90/PC/year. While I agree that the price is steep, think of the alternative. Sure, you can get Vipre for $15/PC/year. Webroot EP in a 5-user license is $25/PC/year. However, then the customer has to manage all the backend stuff. The $90/PC/year was in a small part for the product, but mostly for the management of the console. Your average home user pays a premium for business-level protection, without requiring any of the knowledge to manage it themselves. I still stand by that being a good value, albeit not the cheapest solution.
No, the example I was thinking of is when you had a farmer bury a cheap switch in the yard and run CAT5 and power underground between consumer routers rather than skipping all of that and saving a few hundred dollars and running fiber. We talked about it and how the farmer was getting screwed because Staples didn't sell the appropriate gear but he trusted you so you were able to sell him a ridiculous solution that I'm sure has shorted out and caused a fire by now. He lost money, wasted effort and took on actually electrical risk all to end up with an unstable, pointless solution when doing the right thing was super cheap and simple (and safe.)
The solution was sound and worked. Fiber would have been an option, but you are right, it's nothing I would have been able to implement. However, when you talk about time, materials, and labor, I don't think it would have been cheaper, or easier.
There is nothing sound about that solution. It violates all kinds of NEC laws. Yeah UF rated power feeder can be directly buried but, no switch could be weather in some sort of box or not. It is not uncommon for this underground things to become breached with water overtime even if sealed. No big deal for an UF rated power feeder but it is for a expose device.
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@ajstringham said:
The solution was sound and worked. Fiber would have been an option, but you are right, it's nothing I would have been able to implement. However, when you talk about time, materials, and labor, I don't think it would have been cheaper, or easier.
At the time we determined that the fiber solution would have been about half the cost and a tiny fraction of the effort. All it required were very entry point unmanaged switches with the fiber options (Netgear Prosafe for example) and one fiber connection. You just plug it in. No power underground or anything like that.
Anyone could implement the fiber solution. Only a crazed electrician could do the "buried switch" approach.
The decision to do something expensive, complex, dangerous and fragile was based purely on the requirement to sell Staples products. The good of the customer definitely took a back seat in that case.
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We also discussed the even more standard solution of using wireless point to point. I can't remember why that was shot down but it was either because Staples didn't carry access points or because it was more expensive than the fiber solution.
But there were two solid solutions available that were turned down because Staples couldn't support them.
The wireless option would be just $185 today and only slightly more then and super simple. Way simpler than burying cable or electric and a switch.
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@DenisKelley said:
Too Bad grounding doesn't provide enough of a load on a circuit to trip a 15/20amp breaker . So you'll still get shocked or killed. 30mA is the deadly point. a GFCI will trip at 5mA (unless it's a modified 30mA)
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@ajstringham said:
So I started a thread over there talking about how I think that, in my career, I want to start working towards more of a sales role over my current straight IT role. I've gotten a lot of good feedback that helped me narrow it down. Sales engineer sounds like the best role for me right now. That being said, I feel like, in a lot of ways, I'm back to square one. I've only worked IT roles up to this point, and while that's essential for the job, I also need sales experience. I have some of that, but not at a business level.
A lot of people have told me that working for a big company allows good lateral growth. However, I can't see myself being a sales engineer where I am currently. Nothing against the company, just I can't see it.
All that being said, how would I make this transition? How would I get companies to give my resume a serious look, given my current experience? Would enlisting a recruiting firm to help me be a good idea? I'm not unhappy with my current job. However, I think I need to F5 my career.
Thanks!
A.J.A.J., I'm being as sincere as I can be here. So here goes. Apologies if it seems random......
I don't think you need to reboot your career. I think you need to reboot how you view your career, how you treat your career and how you grow in your career. I don't believe that you don't in some ways know what you are talking about, but I don't believe that you are really learning from past mistakes and growing from them.
Take for example right now. You have just been hired by a large company, into a position that others would sacrifice a lot just to have a Tier 1 job. You've complained vocally about them almost from the start. If it wasn't what you wanted to do or thought you wanted to do why did you take the job? Truth is man, if I were your hiring manager and I saw some of this stuff, you'd be out before the end of the business day. I wouldn't want someone on my team that wasn't 'all in' so to speak.
But back to where I was going with this. You have to take the opportunities that you are presented. They may not always be exactly what you dream of, but you have to make it something. I was told by my grandfather once that I needed to do EVERY JOB to the best of my ability, and OWN IT. Didn't matter if you were mopping a floor, delivering newspapers, sorting produce at a grocery store or stocking shelves at Wal-Mart. You do every job with excellence and own it. Nothing is ever beneath you.
This came from a guy who grew up during the Great Depression.
You have to leave a mark (not a bad one) on every job you do, no matter how meaningless it may seem to you at the time. Your current role is just as important as a Sales Engineer or Marketer's job is. You have to get that in your mindset and keep it there. Hard work and sacrifice does pay off.
I'm going to tell a little story that came from a family member who works for a large retailer. He had a cart pusher come to him one day and pretty much talk about how his position wasn't important and he didn't feel fulfilled. This family member sat them down and explained how their job really was important. He told him to come in early the next day and he had something for him and a special assigment. He handed him a hand tally counter that next morning and gave this cart pusher a simple set of instructions: Count every single cart that is retrieved from the lot for his entire 8 hour shift. The cart pusher did so. End of the 8 hour shift the total was over 300+ carts (was a slow day). He came back to this family member and reported the tally. This relative then grabbed the sales report for the day and had a few numbers circled that contained the total sales, and average transaction amount. He then explained to this cart pusher that every single one of those sales was over $40 and that his efforts that day helped ensure that those carts kept getting filled. The number was quite high, and he said you could see the "Ah ha" moment in the cart pusher's eyes. This guy ended up getting a raise because that parking lot from that moment on never had a cart one in it, left to bump cars and cause hazards as there was always a car inside ready to go for a customer. That cart pusher is now a manager, only about a year and half later and making triple what they were. This family member told me that ever since that day this former cart pusher has had a sense of purpose and treats every job like they own it and shows pride in what they do.
That's what you need to have more off right now, pride in what you do, not what you can or think you can do. You have to prove yourself better, and that means by starting from the bottom, working your way up and treating every position as important. IT ALSO means taking advice and mentoring from others, and not taking it to heart. You have to take criticism and grow from it. Learn from mistakes. It doesn't mean proving someone wrong or always proclaiming how great you are. You have to have some patience and goals. Your work quality proves that. Your attitude will show it. Be the best damn Tier 1 support rep that has ever been hired.
You might not agree with what I've said and that's fine. I'm being honest with you here. We have ALL been there A.J., your situation is not special. I'm frustrated with not being able to break in to enterprise IT, but you know what, I don't degrade my current employment or status. I still work hard and treat what I do with importance because to me, doing it right by the customer and the employer is the goal.
Take a step back for a moment, and breathe. Gain experience, be humble, and listen to those with the experience, because one day you are going to have to mentor someone just like yourself someday.
Be still, young grasshopper.
