October 25, 2022

1104: Sales Engineers — Engaging Stakeholders in the Buyer Journey with Garin Hess and John Cook

55 minutes

Garin Hess is the Founder and CEO at Consensus and John Cook is the Director of Demand Gen also at Consensus. They discuss the recently published

3rd Annual Sales Engineering Compensation and Workload Report on where presales and sales engineering stand today.

In particular, Garin and John highlight that buyers prefer interactions with sales engineers and that they spend less time engaging with vendors. They also go into detail on the role similarities and differences between SEs and sellers in buyer enablement, SE engagement with stakeholders, and SE compensation.

HIGHLIGHTS

The 3rd Annual Sales Engineering Compensation and Workload Report

Buyers prefer dealing with sales engineers vs their sales counterparts

Profile differences between SEs and sellers

The attributes of a top SE: Industry fluency, acumen, and selling skills

Measure the probability of success based on the buyer’s journey

QUOTES

A greater focus on sellers becoming coaches to buyers- John: "It's not just the roles of the SE getting stretched and more in demand, it's that the role of the seller is actually changing from this hunter, as we often think of them, to a coach."

"Because the buyer journey, the real pain, the friction in B2B sales, and especially anytime you're buying software for a team, the friction is actually on the buyer side and in the buyer's org."

"And that friction is going to be very painful for them, and the seller is the one who has been through this process, knows where that friction is going to come up because they've been through this process."

A deep understanding of the buyer journey makes sales more predictable Garin: "What do the buyers have to do, what actions do they have to take to actually get the deal done? And the more you can measure that and the more predictable your sales are going to be."

Find out more about John and Garin in the links below:

LinkedIn (Garin) https://www.linkedin.com/in/garin-hess-0017a0/

LinkedIn (John): https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-cook-9049a630/

Website: https://goconsensus.com/