Adam Freeman

Feedback is always a gift. If someone takes the time to give you feedback, it's normally because they want you to be better. Because they see you have growth and potential to develop. Understand that people rarely develop from positive feedback as much as they do from constructive critique. Always seek out honest and direct feedback. Take it as a gift and most importantly, create a plan or work with a mentor to develop in areas where feedback is highlighting areas for growth.

Whiteboarding is a totally underused skill in Sales Engineering. When articulating the benefits of intangible products such as software, we need to tap into a users creativity, and create a vision for the future. Whiteboarding is collaborative, engaging and promotes creativity, but most importantly, it creates a consensus when a whiteboard is shared by a group. Icons also help as the audience understand the vision, and are not so hung up on the acutal words used. Virtual whiteboarding can often create a very engaging remote meeting when deployed correctly and will give you an image you can export for your post meeting follow up.... or continue to ideate at your next meeting!

By utilising video in the sales cycle, you can get buyer intent data to ensure more robust forcasting accuracy. If a deal is really going to close, a prospect will spend a couple of minutes watching a video walking them through the deal and the business outcomes associated with purchase. They will also share with other key stakeholders. The view data is vital in an accurate forecasting and revenue close cycle.

Burnout can come out of nowhere. I’d always recommend a great mentor who can help you see perspective on the tasks you are facing, and assess which really move the needle. Drop the rest. Be high impact over busy. Other people’s priorities shouldn’t automatically become your priorities. Respect your own time and workload or nobody else will!

One of the greatest gifts you could give anyone is sales, let alone sales engineering or PreSales, would be for them to experience buying software. Anyone who’s bought software has an empathy for the buyer that others sellers don’t always have. When they communicate with the buyer, they communicate with sincerity, authenticity and empathy.

The purpose behind collecting feedback is often as important as the actual feedback you receive! I feel that when an organisation really understands why it wants feedback, a culture of embracing feedback is easier to cultivate. For example, asking for an out of 5 stars rating on your sales experience is a fairly generic feedback point. How about getting feedback at the end of the demo to get specific and actionable insights from your audience?