The Trusted Advisor Sales Engineer (2025)

by John Care

chapters. Think of this as the more theoretical and cerebral part of the book, although I will put forward a mechanism that you can develop to actually measure trust and then assign it a number. Once you put a number on it, even

One of the best things about being a Sales Engineer (think of it as a “feature”) is that we have so many advantages compared to others within our company. That is because we have the capability to bring knowledge and value into a conversation.

You gain in trust level simply by comparison to the salesperson. That is not a bad thing, and is more a reflection on the profession of sales rather than the individual rep.

Your best strategy is to ask some great questions, listen to the answers and then process the information. Then you provide some insight and recommendations based on that information.

Listening is one of the premier, and one of the hardest, skills for a SE to develop and then master.

One of your toughest tasks is usually allowing the customer to speak without interruption. Either by you or by other members of your sales team. They have to trust that you know what you ...

we should have the attitude that we are always in Discovery mode. That said, Discovery is usually the #1 place where there is friction between the SE and the salesperson. Many organizations rely on the salesperson to perform initial Discovery, uncover the business issues, and then brief the SE on what they discovered. The SE then takes this second-hand information, translates it into their product / services / solution set – and presents it back to the client. According to research data from the 3rd Edition of MTS, around 40% of the time this misses the mark and ends up in a less than satisfactory customer interaction.

The fact that in most cases the SE has a higher C rating with the customer than the account manager is a great reason for the SE to drive the Discovery session – both technically and on the business side.

“and how does that impact you personally?” or “and what do you feel about that?”

Don’t make the mistake of explicitly using Discovery to show how smart and knowledgeable you are. That will come out naturally by asking the right questions, suggesting a few ideas, and then listening.

“The Three Wise Men” which relates to Increasing Revenue, Decreasing Costs and Mitigating Risk.

You can’t afford to let things slip or delay responses so both your personal time management, and the time management of others is key.

As an experiment, we set defined call times for the SE’s in 50-minute blocks with 40-minute follow up periods (for example 08:30-09:20 then 10:00 until 10:50). This resulted in 6 possible calls per day, with built-in recovery/follow up time between the calls. Over the next 6 months morale increased, attrition was almost down to zero, and our closure rate increased by 10%. This was mainly because we conducted follow-up immediately after the call while it was still fresh in the SE mind rather than relying on notes ½ day later. The power of being reliable.”

but also that you can “handle yourself” in a sales situation and not say or do the wrong thing.

Think Big. Look for ways to expand the deal. That may be by adding additional products, services, or new users to a project. The T/A Sales Engineer can expand the deal faster than anyone else in the salesforce can. If your sales process involves The Challenger Sale then this is a high potential area for you.

Be Positive. SE’s are taught to look (proactively) for problems in a deal and raise them to the attention of sales and their SE management. Look for positives about the deal so that they can be emphasized and reinforced. Provide balance.

Your inbox should not dictate your actions.

As mentioned in a few other chapters, no rep wants to be surrounded by negativity and told why the deal won’t happen. Bias your attitude towards the positive, tempered with reality. We often accuse Reps of having “happy ears” and only hearing and interpreting words from the customer that lead towards a deal. Your job is certainly to encourage that viewpoint and seek out the positives, balanced with anticipating issues to overcome. Pitching this to the sales side of the house as “preparation and planning” is better than “the competition is going to kill us with that new feature.”

No. The salesperson does not “own” the account. Your company owns the account and lends it to both the rep and the extended sales team (that is you) in return for revenue and customer satisfaction. Ask forgiveness instead of permission. Go meet a customer.

Active Listening. This occurs when you are genuinely interested in what the speaker is saying, how they are saying it, and attempting to understand how they feel about it. This involves not only listening, but also confirming in a variety of verbal and non-verbal ways that you are both listening and understanding.

You still need to commit to your words (and often your word is your bond) and under promise so you can then over deliver.

Don’t totally submit to “the way things are done”.

Your customer is speaking to you and interested in a relationship for a reason, so you are providing value. Invariably part of that value lies in the fact that you are an outsider.

However, what is the larger role of a Sales Engineer? It’s to explain something relatively complicated in simple terms so that other technical and non-technical folks can understand it. There is a major benefit to being an “explainer” of things to other people. Practice making that translation and keep it short, simple and understandable.

Let “how can I help you” become your personal mantra and own the phrase.