Back in the late 80’s, I came out of the engineering ranks and began my SE career at Sybase, a company that embraces sales engineering process. Having been an engineer, I thought at first I was supposed to show everybody how smart I was about relational database internals — those were the days of Codd’s Rules when “we’re more relational than you are”.

After I raised several objections on my own that came back to bite me, I began to realize the SE role was more than about being smart. It was about “restrained smartness”. It took years, but I realized being an SE was about helping customers make faster decisions, getting solution decisions faster, making good use of time, and working smart. “Sell while you teach”.

And I loved every minute as an SE. Every day was something different — New customers, new problems, new locations. I loved the diversity and knowing I was genuinely helping people solve tough business problems — In the early days Sybase ran circles around the other databases out there — it was a blast to never lose.

When I left Sybase, I had the SE thing down to a science. Boy was I shocked when I landed on the dark side of the moon. Chaos reigned. Fires burned out of control all the time. See lightning, hear thunder. Demo demons ruled the asylum. It was not fun, at all.

Bouncing around in several jobs, the pattern continued. There had to be a better way. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Good SElling!