A sales rep was told by their customer that the decision would be made that quarter. Excitedly, the rep told their SE, “Hey, I’ve got a hot one for you”. The SE, in the course of conversation with the customer’s technical counterparts, discovered that the solution was dependent on the opening of a new building — there was no way the deal was happening that quarter, or even the next quarter.

It is common that the business folks have one view and the technical folks have another. Let’s face it — customer’s lie to sales reps to keep them on the hook. SEs can leverage their technical credibility to to uncover the truth in the situation. Techies tend to be straight with one another.

SEs can provide an invaluable service to the sales team validating the sales rep’s qualification. SEs can discover the true business pain, business requirements, decision timeframe, compelling event, etc. The sooner the better.

The worst thing that can happen is that the sales team spends months assuming what the sales rep heard was correct, only to find out the customer was blowing smoke to keep the sales team on the hook. SEs can help avoid wasting huge amounts of time by spending an hour or so with the customer to validate the qualification. Better to do that, than risk the consequences of months of wasted effort.

Good SElling!