What are a the hardest parts of a job as an Account Executive or Sales Representative? Conversely, what are the best parts of being a Sales Engineer?
- Real Customer Relationships
A lot of Sales Reps think that they have stronger and deeper relationships with their customers than what their customers actually think. While not true of all Account Executives, most complex Enterprise Software Sales Cycles are too complicated and technical in today’s age for many sales reps to really understand their customer’s business, their pain, and their business problems. They simply don’t know what questions to even ask to being to understand when it involves deeply technical details and architecture.
Solutions Engineers on the other hand bring real value even just in the conversations themselves. They bring a technical understanding of novel and new technology that is of genuine interest to technical buyers. They can understand the technical structure of the pain they are experiencing.
One more thing. Customers withhold information from Sales Reps because they feel that it could be used against later in negotiations. Customers love to share information with Sales Engineers because it usually results in them being helped in the end. Sales Engineers are helpers and being helpful is very fulfilling.
- Stability (job, income, and stress)
A lot of the stress related to being a Sale Rep is the unpredictability and general lack of stability in regards to keeping your job, your earning potential, and level of stress
It used to be true that sales reps had a year to produce which even in that sense seemed like a short leash. In today’s high tech and cyber security sales rep landscape, it’s not unheard of for reps to only be given two quarters, or even one quarter. Sales reps at EMC would be walked out the door after a poor Quarterly Business Review and lack of command of the business.
Sales Engineers, on the other hand, are not simply hired battering rams or relationship holders. Sales Engineers bring a technical acumen and skill set that goes beyond outcomes that cannot be controlled.
Speaking of outcomes that cannot be controlled. I realized towards the end of my time as a Sales Rep that this wasn’t really a career, at least not something you can depend on. Sales Reps are expected to deliver a number which is built on foundation of multiple different variables that simply cannot be controlled. Conversely, as a Sales Engineer you can always hone your craft by improving a demo or learning a new technical skill. These are hard skills that are not impacted by arbitrary customer decisions, the economy, or management changing your quota.
Lastly there is earning potential. Sure, we have all heard the stories of the crazy blowout years sales reps have, but what about next year when the goal posts are moved? Many CFO’s forecast only 40-50% of their reps to make quota. Think about that. The financial planners of the business are baking in your failure as a Sales Rep into their financial projections. With many reps on a 50-50 split (50% base 50% commission), it can be incredibly hard to make long term financial plans for you and your family.
As a Sales Engineer, the splits are usually somewhere around 80% base with 20% commission. Sure, you give up some upside but it allows you to actual take more risks in other areas of your life knowing that you have more financial stability in your day job.
- Purpose
It can sometimes feel like you are on a hamster wheel as an Account Executive or just another cog in a machine. As a Sales Engineer, you are solving real problems. The job as a Solutions Engineer is especially fulfilling and rewarding working in the Cyber Security industry when you are helping your customers (the Defenders) mitigate their risk of being breached or hacked (by the Attackers). The solution you are helping sell exists because it solves a problem and you are as close to that solution as possible INVITING your customers to realize that value together. How cool is that!? Once you have made enough money to pay your bills, making more seldom matches the meaning and significance that can be felt by seeing the impact your direct actions have made in your customers lives. The role as a Sales Engineer enables this type of deep meaning and lasting impact.
What do you think? Have you experienced any of these things in a role as an Account Executive or a Sales Engineer? Let me know in the comments.