“Well, Frank’s on his way out and Tom isn’t hitting his number. Just focus on Eric until they bring new folks in.*”
My first day on the job as a sales engineer was quite an education. Not just in the technology we sold, but the dirty little secret of sales engineering:
You pick the winners.
Highly technical products are sold in two directions. The AE and the SE enter at the same place in the organization.
It’s the AE’s job to work up, get as high as possible in the organization. What’s expensive or difficult for a manager is less so for a director and trivial for a C-level.
Meanwhile, the SE is there to work down, build the groundswell of support. Ideally finding more champions, but, at a minimum, eliminating enough objections so important ICs don’t trip up the deal.
For an enterprise deal, they’re both critically important, but the per-account the AE role is pretty bounded. While a deal may take a long time, the prospect only wants to spend so much of that time communicating with you.
By contrast, an SE could spend months on a single customer account. Perfecting the demo down to the pixel, building a proof of concept with production-ready code, advising the prospect on their technical architecture.
A good SE is like a free consultant and prospect communication is pull, rather than push.
Lastly, let’s talk about SE comp. While the AE has an individual number, SE span multiple AEs and thus have quotas tied to a group number: their team, region, even total sales comp at smaller orgs.
And, let’s face it, SE commissions aren’t great. One of my largest deals, $1m in alpha security hardware--I coded for months, drove hours back and forth with a 105 fever--I made $800.
All of these things lead to a mercenary mindset. As an SE, I wanted to spend every minute on the deals that were most likely to boost the team number.
That meant I would search for the:
- Best reps
- Biggest $
- Actual % to close
Eventually I learned to just ask the VP of Sales, “Which of these do we have to win?”
I picked winners, worked tirelessly for them, and those deals closed. My security startup has been acquired four times and they still talk about the heroics I put behind some of their best logos.
Did it have to be this way, though?
For every Tier 1 (great AE, huge deal, high likelihood) deal I went the extra mile for, how many Tier 2 deals did we lose? Let’s not even talk about 3, 4, corporate deals that could’ve grown to enterprise.
How much are companies leaving on the table due to SE headcount and comp constraints?
I think, with AI, we have an opportunity to empower sales teams like never before. I don’t think SEs and CROs need to pick winners and customers can get the product that actually works the best for them.
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* Names have been changed to protect the innocent. I once believed AEs failing at my company were bad AEs, but, with maturity, learned the importance of AE-product fit.
