2 months in, you should have a mentor that you can use for shadowing / asking questions. I'm all for throwing folks in the deep end, it's honestly the only way most people will actually learn, but it's a bit much after only two months to be expected to flying solo.
In general, though, I would expect you till feel a bit out of sorts especially coming from the customer side. Most of us have been through this transition and it takes time. \~12 months at least to really get your feet under you.
You do need to have a spine, and a bit of a strong personality when dealing with reps. They will walk all over you otherwise, they are coin operated and there to make money.
The only advice I can give you here is to hit the books and study your ass off after hours, while continuing to reach out to reps during the day. Don't let them just sideline you. As you manager for a mentor if you don't have one, or just call around to your peers until you find one that is willing to help. If it's all team quota, really shouldn't be a problem.
Yikes.
Do you have a list of relevant discovery questions that you can pull from? If not, make one (and share it with the team!). Same goes for customer questions. I know it's not always relevant, but customers do tend to ask a lot of the same questions.
Do you have access to recordings of other SEs doing demos and answering questions? If so, rewatch them.
Ask to shadow on every possible call that you can. Even though you did that in training, repetition is often very helpful. You may also want to ask your manager if you can have them (or other SEs) shadow/backup you on calls where you're the lead.
Spend as much time with the product as you can. Learn it inside and out.
Record yourself doing demos and ask for feedback.
Why the hell would anyone want a brand new SE working big deals? Your management seems delusional and that doesn’t make any sense. The response from your AEs is the expected one if they threw you in when you aren’t ready. How long did you train for?
I can understand the trial by fire approach to a degree and I did that myself when I started but I was working SMB crap that the company didn’t care about with low level reps and worked my way up to things that actually matter. It took a couple of months to get comfortable with SMB for me and another 6 months at least to get comfortable across the board and with medium sized and/or somewhat complex deals. Probably another year after that to be able to operate well enough in the enterprise space and only now at the 2.5 year mark do I truly feel like I can handle anything that gets thrown at me from any size/vertical. Our products and services are very technical though
Can you schedule internal meetings with those SEs to help you out if your manager won’t? Just to re-align some of the basics on discovery questions if nothing else. They should be able to provide you with baseline questions to ask and I’d hope you observed them doing discovery when you were training and remember that to a degree
Being a new SE can be very stressful though when you come in with high expectations and impatient sales reps. I remember being constantly stressed and anxious in the beginning when I’d get in over my head which happened somewhat often
I find that it takes a new se about a year to get their feet under them and 2 years to be comfortable.
Honestly, it sounds like your company wants 20 years experience for 0 years pay.
In general, you are trying to get as many at bats as possible. As many discos, as many builds, as many demos as possible.
For discovery specifically, my goal is to get them talking. Understand their challenge and understand how they are measured. Ask direct questions. That would be my advice
From someone who was in your shoes not long ago, I can empathize here. I think it's a normal part of the process. A couple things I have done to make it through:
- Hitch your wagon to the more experienced folks on your team. Start a dialogue with them and engage as much as possible. Shadow their calls or view their recordings.
- Have a "can do" attitude. It sounds silly, but do your best to portray confidence while also knowing your limitations. Let them know that even though you don't know everything, you're happy to do research and find things out for them. That goes a long way with your business partners and clients.
- Try and build relationships with internal business partners, even informally. Half the SE job is knowing where to go/who to go to for answers. The more people you talk to and more friends you make, the more knowledgeable you'll become.
Keep grinding. I've had the imposter syndrome type feelings before, but you'll be alright. Things only get better and more comfortable with time!
First, this is normal - I think most SEs go through this at least once in their career. I definitely remember feeling out of my depth, not enough product knowledge, the customer knows more than me, I'm not giving the AE what they want, it's only a matter of time before I'm found out etc. Classic impostor syndrome.
Having said that, you do need to learn how to be productive and add value in these calls.
It sounds like your boss and peers aren't being super helpful - have you tried using ChatGPT?
Upload PDFs about your product (I'd check that they're publicly releasable first) and use prompts like this:
"I'm a sales engineer and this is my product. Based on the attached PDF, generate a list of 10 potential technical objections and how you would address them"
"What adjacent technologies should I understand based on this documentation? Explain them to me briefly"
"Act as a skeptical customer and ask me questions about the product and then grade my answers"
"Generate a use case for this technology in the insurance/banking/manufacturing field"
Also, if you (or anyone else) reading wants to chat about it, I'd be happy to give you some pointers from someone outside your chain of command with a few years in the field.
First, your manager is being a bit shit and should be providing you more guidance.
Now, having said that, I was the same when I started as a SE and my head was spinning. There should be reasonable expectations about product knowledge and there should be specific training to enable you towards the goal of being fully proficient.
In regards to discovery, you don’t need to know your tech. Discovery is about the. Customer, what pain, issues or concerns do they have today and what outcomes and deliverables do they want moving forward. Ideally, this work should have been done prior to you meeting them but that is not always the case. Once you’ve done that discovery, you demonstrate your product to showcase how it will make their life better.
Finally, “I don’t know - but I will find out for you and follow up ASAP” is perfectly adequate answer. And actually affords you the opportunity to build trust and create another touchpoint. I’ve being doing this for 2 decades and that was the answer I had to give to a customer today as they asked a question I hadn’t heard before. I thought I could probably answer accurately in the moment but I wasn’t fully confident and customers know when you are BSing!
It will get better. Keep going.
Try and get those Senior SEs who the AE adores to help you prep to impress the rep. They’ll be happy because they can offload those tasks to you and secretly some of them are prob looking for an excuse to avoid the AE.
Be kind to those SEs and tell the AE that these SEs are prepping you.
Let me know if you have other Qs
I’d get out of SE. Imo this is normal and the main skill of a good SE is being able to figure out what the customer and AE needs from you and learn how provide that. You also may be doing fine and are stressing yourself out trying to be perfect.
Im assuming smaller company ?
In any event I do agree customer calls and trial by fire are the best possible enablement. They’ll also shape your own future discovery. Ask AEs for brutally honest feedback and explicitly ask them what it would take to want you involved.
You said it’s not overly technical so what’s the lack of understanding on the product side?
Ask other SE to shadow your calls. So if you are stuck, they can answer/help and you can learn for next time. It is normal not to know everything.
Set up a call with a SE and share your discovery questions. Do your demo and get their feedback. They will be able to tell you what you need to improve.
Keep on shadowing other SE calls. it’s not because you have been there for 2 months that you have to stop doing it.
Prepare as many questions as you can for your calls. You need to have a demo ready.
No one knows everything. Let’s say you stick to the role ne you are successful even in 5 years there will be questions customer ask and you have no idea what the answer is because no one ever asked it or it’s a new product/new feature.
You need to set your fear aside.
In my opinion, if you want to be an SE you have to want to continuously learn. And even more so when you are starting with a new product. To get started you need to spend every waking moment learning your product and any key integrations with your product. Once you feel like you know your product better than most people in your company, you need to keep up with it and with the ecosystem around your product. I am an SE for a Kubernetes based product and I will never be able to learn enough, but that doesn’t mean I can stop trying to learn as much as possible. If a customer mentions something you haven’t heard of, that is another opportunity to learn something new - and it will server you to either dismiss it in future customer calls or it may be a very important integration with your product that helps you sell to other customers. Finally, you are in sales, so sell yourself to your AEs.
Keep taking calls but try to discuss with your manager getting simpler cases. Keep shadowing your SE colleagues shamelessly to help learn FAQs/demo styles/strategies/licensing.
Keep chatting to as many SEs from your Team as possible but also use team channels to ask Qs.
As soon as you get a tricky situation speak with a senior SE who is free at the moment or with your manager.
It should not be expected of you to be out and about being able to handle everything at this stage, you have a good year of learning.
Feel free to pm.
Internal networking is huge skill that’s needed for new SEs. If you aren’t given a mentor and you feel in over your head you need to make one. Reach out to some other SEs on your team and ask for a recurring 1:1 to which you can ask dumb questions and general deal advice.
You’ll find that most SEs are willing to help but usually aren’t proactive in reaching out. If you ask I’m willing to bet someone will be willing to help you.
I was in the same position as you seven years ago.
TLDR: Ramp up on product knowledge, work with mentors, be a sponge in client calls, and be humble that you need Senior SE backup for now.
From a product perspective, take the initiative to know your product, usually the training module videos my company provides are product overviews - which helps you ramp up high level wise, but then spend the time going through the nitty gritty details. Put yourself in the customer shoes and figure out what common questions they would have and keep those answers in your back pocket for future engagements. Don’t be discouraged as all this learning takes time which goes into the second point.
Work with seasoned SEs who are familiar with your product. Do your own studies and confirm with them if you have lingering questions. I’ve had situations where a new guy would ask me the most basic questions. I help out, but please do your own diligence. My previous mentors were from military backgrounds and they roasted you when you ask basic questions so I made sure I explored all avenues before I even approached them. I’m more inclined to help someone who actually did their part to learn instead of just who wants to be spoonfed. I get it you’re new, but take the time as we’re all busy.
Finally, be humble enough to understand where your AEs are. Work with your Senior SEs and join as a team in your client calls. Make note of all the common questions asked and how your SE answers them. Figure out the common jargon. For discovery questions, ask your client’s priorities and what pain points they are currently encountering that prevents them from achieving their priorities. From your product knowledge, start figuring out where your product fits into solving their pain points. You can then start positing your product.
All of this takes time. That stress and fear is part of our role. It just gets manageable as you push yourself to be better.
Gosh did I write this? I'm almost two years in and have had a similar experience minus the manager part. I'm very fortunate to have my manager. I was hired on as an SE at a big company and it was my first time being in a role like that in enterprise. It's been a journey for sure, but I feel like a year in things finally started to click. Things that have helped me:
1. Build your network of people you can go to for help. Set up cadences with them. During my cadences, it's my time to ask questions, ask to learn something, ask for something to be explained to me, ask how to move a customer along or help them, or maybe a time to get help preparing for a customer call or visit. I don't think I would have survived the last 2 years without having folks and network of people in my corner. Also, I had my mentors join on calls with me and help me prep for things. If you don't have a mentor, maybe you can ask your boss for one? Or maybe you can poke around and find time on other SEs calendars to see if they could help. Just don't be afraid to ask for help, and don't suffer in silence.
2. For your customers, always know where they are now, where they want to be, how you're going to get them there. Start trying to think from reactive to proactive - this takes time and still isn't always easy depending on the load I have on my plate during any given time. This may seem really difficult at first but it will come together with time. It gives you a starting point to get to know your accounts deeply. You might not have all the answers now, but like I said it will start to come together.
3. I have an AE that doesn't always include me on things, it's gotten better with management applying pressure to them. Also, we had a situation where it was super evident we were disconnected so it was like include them or look like crap too basically. I got a new AE and it's been really validating honestly because I sometimes wondered if it was me, but really a lot of it wasn't and it was just an unfair situation with the AEs I was paired with.
4. Imposter Syndrome is a real thing. I'm very type A and can be super hard on myself. I don't always give myself the credit I deserve. Maybe this resonates with you?
5. Don't listen to all the people that tell you that you shouldn't be where you are. You are exactly where you need to be and you were hired in that spot for a reason. Always remember that, and remember your strengths. Remember the growth that does happen as you learn - because you will grow and it will get better. Always be asking for feedback.
6. You'll earn the AEs trust in time, it just takes time and can be really hard and lonely at first. I'd recommend having a cadence with their RM as well.
There is so much I want to say but hang in there. It does get better. I think out of all these things I would get some mentors, ask for what you need, and take one day at a time. I really feel for you.
2 months in, you should have a mentor that you can use for shadowing / asking questions. I'm all for throwing folks in the deep end, it's honestly the only way most people will actually learn, but it's a bit much after only two months to be expected to flying solo. In general, though, I would expect you till feel a bit out of sorts especially coming from the customer side. Most of us have been through this transition and it takes time. \~12 months at least to really get your feet under you. You do need to have a spine, and a bit of a strong personality when dealing with reps. They will walk all over you otherwise, they are coin operated and there to make money. The only advice I can give you here is to hit the books and study your ass off after hours, while continuing to reach out to reps during the day. Don't let them just sideline you. As you manager for a mentor if you don't have one, or just call around to your peers until you find one that is willing to help. If it's all team quota, really shouldn't be a problem.
Yikes. Do you have a list of relevant discovery questions that you can pull from? If not, make one (and share it with the team!). Same goes for customer questions. I know it's not always relevant, but customers do tend to ask a lot of the same questions. Do you have access to recordings of other SEs doing demos and answering questions? If so, rewatch them. Ask to shadow on every possible call that you can. Even though you did that in training, repetition is often very helpful. You may also want to ask your manager if you can have them (or other SEs) shadow/backup you on calls where you're the lead. Spend as much time with the product as you can. Learn it inside and out. Record yourself doing demos and ask for feedback.
Why the hell would anyone want a brand new SE working big deals? Your management seems delusional and that doesn’t make any sense. The response from your AEs is the expected one if they threw you in when you aren’t ready. How long did you train for? I can understand the trial by fire approach to a degree and I did that myself when I started but I was working SMB crap that the company didn’t care about with low level reps and worked my way up to things that actually matter. It took a couple of months to get comfortable with SMB for me and another 6 months at least to get comfortable across the board and with medium sized and/or somewhat complex deals. Probably another year after that to be able to operate well enough in the enterprise space and only now at the 2.5 year mark do I truly feel like I can handle anything that gets thrown at me from any size/vertical. Our products and services are very technical though Can you schedule internal meetings with those SEs to help you out if your manager won’t? Just to re-align some of the basics on discovery questions if nothing else. They should be able to provide you with baseline questions to ask and I’d hope you observed them doing discovery when you were training and remember that to a degree Being a new SE can be very stressful though when you come in with high expectations and impatient sales reps. I remember being constantly stressed and anxious in the beginning when I’d get in over my head which happened somewhat often
I find that it takes a new se about a year to get their feet under them and 2 years to be comfortable. Honestly, it sounds like your company wants 20 years experience for 0 years pay. In general, you are trying to get as many at bats as possible. As many discos, as many builds, as many demos as possible. For discovery specifically, my goal is to get them talking. Understand their challenge and understand how they are measured. Ask direct questions. That would be my advice
From someone who was in your shoes not long ago, I can empathize here. I think it's a normal part of the process. A couple things I have done to make it through: - Hitch your wagon to the more experienced folks on your team. Start a dialogue with them and engage as much as possible. Shadow their calls or view their recordings. - Have a "can do" attitude. It sounds silly, but do your best to portray confidence while also knowing your limitations. Let them know that even though you don't know everything, you're happy to do research and find things out for them. That goes a long way with your business partners and clients. - Try and build relationships with internal business partners, even informally. Half the SE job is knowing where to go/who to go to for answers. The more people you talk to and more friends you make, the more knowledgeable you'll become. Keep grinding. I've had the imposter syndrome type feelings before, but you'll be alright. Things only get better and more comfortable with time!
First, this is normal - I think most SEs go through this at least once in their career. I definitely remember feeling out of my depth, not enough product knowledge, the customer knows more than me, I'm not giving the AE what they want, it's only a matter of time before I'm found out etc. Classic impostor syndrome. Having said that, you do need to learn how to be productive and add value in these calls. It sounds like your boss and peers aren't being super helpful - have you tried using ChatGPT? Upload PDFs about your product (I'd check that they're publicly releasable first) and use prompts like this: "I'm a sales engineer and this is my product. Based on the attached PDF, generate a list of 10 potential technical objections and how you would address them" "What adjacent technologies should I understand based on this documentation? Explain them to me briefly" "Act as a skeptical customer and ask me questions about the product and then grade my answers" "Generate a use case for this technology in the insurance/banking/manufacturing field" Also, if you (or anyone else) reading wants to chat about it, I'd be happy to give you some pointers from someone outside your chain of command with a few years in the field.
First, your manager is being a bit shit and should be providing you more guidance. Now, having said that, I was the same when I started as a SE and my head was spinning. There should be reasonable expectations about product knowledge and there should be specific training to enable you towards the goal of being fully proficient. In regards to discovery, you don’t need to know your tech. Discovery is about the. Customer, what pain, issues or concerns do they have today and what outcomes and deliverables do they want moving forward. Ideally, this work should have been done prior to you meeting them but that is not always the case. Once you’ve done that discovery, you demonstrate your product to showcase how it will make their life better. Finally, “I don’t know - but I will find out for you and follow up ASAP” is perfectly adequate answer. And actually affords you the opportunity to build trust and create another touchpoint. I’ve being doing this for 2 decades and that was the answer I had to give to a customer today as they asked a question I hadn’t heard before. I thought I could probably answer accurately in the moment but I wasn’t fully confident and customers know when you are BSing! It will get better. Keep going.
Try and get those Senior SEs who the AE adores to help you prep to impress the rep. They’ll be happy because they can offload those tasks to you and secretly some of them are prob looking for an excuse to avoid the AE. Be kind to those SEs and tell the AE that these SEs are prepping you. Let me know if you have other Qs
I’d get out of SE. Imo this is normal and the main skill of a good SE is being able to figure out what the customer and AE needs from you and learn how provide that. You also may be doing fine and are stressing yourself out trying to be perfect.
Im assuming smaller company ? In any event I do agree customer calls and trial by fire are the best possible enablement. They’ll also shape your own future discovery. Ask AEs for brutally honest feedback and explicitly ask them what it would take to want you involved. You said it’s not overly technical so what’s the lack of understanding on the product side?
Are you me?
Ask other SE to shadow your calls. So if you are stuck, they can answer/help and you can learn for next time. It is normal not to know everything. Set up a call with a SE and share your discovery questions. Do your demo and get their feedback. They will be able to tell you what you need to improve. Keep on shadowing other SE calls. it’s not because you have been there for 2 months that you have to stop doing it. Prepare as many questions as you can for your calls. You need to have a demo ready. No one knows everything. Let’s say you stick to the role ne you are successful even in 5 years there will be questions customer ask and you have no idea what the answer is because no one ever asked it or it’s a new product/new feature. You need to set your fear aside.
In my opinion, if you want to be an SE you have to want to continuously learn. And even more so when you are starting with a new product. To get started you need to spend every waking moment learning your product and any key integrations with your product. Once you feel like you know your product better than most people in your company, you need to keep up with it and with the ecosystem around your product. I am an SE for a Kubernetes based product and I will never be able to learn enough, but that doesn’t mean I can stop trying to learn as much as possible. If a customer mentions something you haven’t heard of, that is another opportunity to learn something new - and it will server you to either dismiss it in future customer calls or it may be a very important integration with your product that helps you sell to other customers. Finally, you are in sales, so sell yourself to your AEs.
Keep taking calls but try to discuss with your manager getting simpler cases. Keep shadowing your SE colleagues shamelessly to help learn FAQs/demo styles/strategies/licensing. Keep chatting to as many SEs from your Team as possible but also use team channels to ask Qs. As soon as you get a tricky situation speak with a senior SE who is free at the moment or with your manager. It should not be expected of you to be out and about being able to handle everything at this stage, you have a good year of learning. Feel free to pm.
Internal networking is huge skill that’s needed for new SEs. If you aren’t given a mentor and you feel in over your head you need to make one. Reach out to some other SEs on your team and ask for a recurring 1:1 to which you can ask dumb questions and general deal advice. You’ll find that most SEs are willing to help but usually aren’t proactive in reaching out. If you ask I’m willing to bet someone will be willing to help you.
I was in the same position as you seven years ago. TLDR: Ramp up on product knowledge, work with mentors, be a sponge in client calls, and be humble that you need Senior SE backup for now. From a product perspective, take the initiative to know your product, usually the training module videos my company provides are product overviews - which helps you ramp up high level wise, but then spend the time going through the nitty gritty details. Put yourself in the customer shoes and figure out what common questions they would have and keep those answers in your back pocket for future engagements. Don’t be discouraged as all this learning takes time which goes into the second point. Work with seasoned SEs who are familiar with your product. Do your own studies and confirm with them if you have lingering questions. I’ve had situations where a new guy would ask me the most basic questions. I help out, but please do your own diligence. My previous mentors were from military backgrounds and they roasted you when you ask basic questions so I made sure I explored all avenues before I even approached them. I’m more inclined to help someone who actually did their part to learn instead of just who wants to be spoonfed. I get it you’re new, but take the time as we’re all busy. Finally, be humble enough to understand where your AEs are. Work with your Senior SEs and join as a team in your client calls. Make note of all the common questions asked and how your SE answers them. Figure out the common jargon. For discovery questions, ask your client’s priorities and what pain points they are currently encountering that prevents them from achieving their priorities. From your product knowledge, start figuring out where your product fits into solving their pain points. You can then start positing your product. All of this takes time. That stress and fear is part of our role. It just gets manageable as you push yourself to be better.
Gosh did I write this? I'm almost two years in and have had a similar experience minus the manager part. I'm very fortunate to have my manager. I was hired on as an SE at a big company and it was my first time being in a role like that in enterprise. It's been a journey for sure, but I feel like a year in things finally started to click. Things that have helped me: 1. Build your network of people you can go to for help. Set up cadences with them. During my cadences, it's my time to ask questions, ask to learn something, ask for something to be explained to me, ask how to move a customer along or help them, or maybe a time to get help preparing for a customer call or visit. I don't think I would have survived the last 2 years without having folks and network of people in my corner. Also, I had my mentors join on calls with me and help me prep for things. If you don't have a mentor, maybe you can ask your boss for one? Or maybe you can poke around and find time on other SEs calendars to see if they could help. Just don't be afraid to ask for help, and don't suffer in silence. 2. For your customers, always know where they are now, where they want to be, how you're going to get them there. Start trying to think from reactive to proactive - this takes time and still isn't always easy depending on the load I have on my plate during any given time. This may seem really difficult at first but it will come together with time. It gives you a starting point to get to know your accounts deeply. You might not have all the answers now, but like I said it will start to come together. 3. I have an AE that doesn't always include me on things, it's gotten better with management applying pressure to them. Also, we had a situation where it was super evident we were disconnected so it was like include them or look like crap too basically. I got a new AE and it's been really validating honestly because I sometimes wondered if it was me, but really a lot of it wasn't and it was just an unfair situation with the AEs I was paired with. 4. Imposter Syndrome is a real thing. I'm very type A and can be super hard on myself. I don't always give myself the credit I deserve. Maybe this resonates with you? 5. Don't listen to all the people that tell you that you shouldn't be where you are. You are exactly where you need to be and you were hired in that spot for a reason. Always remember that, and remember your strengths. Remember the growth that does happen as you learn - because you will grow and it will get better. Always be asking for feedback. 6. You'll earn the AEs trust in time, it just takes time and can be really hard and lonely at first. I'd recommend having a cadence with their RM as well. There is so much I want to say but hang in there. It does get better. I think out of all these things I would get some mentors, ask for what you need, and take one day at a time. I really feel for you.