What this book is and not is

"Most careers turn into sales jobs when you get senior enough" - Sam Altman, president of Y-Combinator.

I've been involved in the sales process since I was a junior engineer. My role back then included preparing demos, creating sales decks, and participating in sales presentations. Sometimes, I would just talk about one or two slides, but I was always part of it.

As I progressed in my career, the expectations on me grew. I needed to understand what customers really wanted, not just what they said. I had to figure out how to grab the interest of prospects and decide what to include or leave out in our presentations.

To learn more, I turned to books and courses. I have read some of the popular books on sales:

Almost all of the books I found were aimed at sales teams and salespeople. While they were great reads, they didn't quite help me with what I needed to do. So, I relied on trial and error, talked to the sales team, and took lots of notes on my experiences.

Over the past 15 years, I've been closely involved in sales, shaping conversations with prospects and figuring out how to convert leads. I've learned a lot, including some tough lessons from deals we lost. Throughout this journey, I kept detailed notes, and that's what you'll find in this book.

This book is essentially what I wish I had when I started as a sales engineer. It's written for my younger self, and I hope it helps you avoid the mistakes I made and excel in your role as a sales engineer.

What it is not

This book isn’t about the sales process, generating leads, or structuring sales compensation. There are plenty of other books that cover those topics, and they are mainly aimed at salespeople and sales teams.

Instead, this book focuses on engineers. While I interviewed sales teams and salespeople to understand their expectations of engineers in the sales process, the main audience here is engineers. The goal is to help engineers excel during sales calls so they can better support sales teams in closing big deals.

Sales teams will bring in the new prospects, but it’s up to the engineers to demonstrate to these prospects that they can deliver what the customer needs. This collaboration is crucial for the sales team to successfully close the deal.

This book is specifically for sales engineers, CTOs, and senior technical experts like VPs of Engineering or principal technical architects. It aims to prepare them for sales calls so they can perform effectively. That’s the main focus of this book.