BOOKS
“Life Happened Because I Turned The Pages”
There are a number of books I would recommend to be in the library of every Sales Engineer. Some are Pre-Sales specific, some deal with demos and presentations, and others are regular business books. Having these books in your library can only serve to make you a stronger, smarter, and more successful Sales Engineer. Although these are the English versions, many have been translated into other languages. Start reading!
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Download the Reading List in PDF format or Word format or click on any book cover below to visit Amazon.com (US)
The Sales (Engineer) Book Of The Month:
The Qualified Sales Leader
John McMahon
Every now and again, you read a book that just frustrates you. This is one of those books. It’s overly focused on the worst characteristics of an old-school sales rep and how to manage those individuals. So, yes – it does a decent job of banging home the basics and foundational skills of qualification and is useful for the first-time sales manager. However, it misses
1. Selling is team-based, not rep-based. Especially if you’re talking about Proof Of Concepts – where are the Sales Engineers, Professional Services, and Partner organizations?
2. There is a maniacal emphasis on pain, discovering pain, making it worse, etc. What about looking for gain (which drives > 20% of B2B deals) and learning about that as a differentiator?
3. The initial poor behaviors of the reps and sales managers are laughable. It’s a classic worst-case straw-man composite of every poor behavior you’ve ever seen in sales. You read it and say, “no one could be that dumb..” although you recognize attributes of almost every rep you have ever worked with.
So .. if you’re totally new to sales leadership and want to learn how it used to be done, it’s worth the read. You will pick up basic lingo, such as BANT and MEDDIC, and know how to do simple pipeline math. Good for the first-time sales leader or SE looking to transition into sales.
