In Chapter 19 of Mastering Technical Sales, Aron and I talk about The U In Technical Sales. We focus upon your specific goals and objectives, your career, and how to maximize your personal brand. Not many Sales Engineers think about their personal brand and what that really means. Think about it for a second ..  if an outside consultant were to approach your peers, your manager and the salespeople you work with – how would they describe you? You would hope to hear words such as dedicated, committed and hard-working; these are descriptors – and not particularly unique. Would you be known as the SE like this one:  “that’s the guy/gal who can do <insert skills here>, won the big deal at <insert big customer here> and crushes the competition”?

Although you should only have a single brand – you can have multiple facets, depending upon who is looking – as long as they are all authentic versions of the truth. An example would be to have your boss view you as hard-working, always willing to take on new assignments and the go-to person for “x”, your peers view you as someone who is always willing to help out and as someone who shares their toys, the salespeople view you as someone who fights in the trenches with them, and senior level management view you as an SE who adopts innovation and change, is a winner and irreplaceable.

Finally, remember that this all needs to fit into your longer-term plans. Along the way you need to be acquiring skills, experience and a network of colleagues to help you reach those career (and life) goals.