Episode 27

Last updated Sep 4, 2022 Edit Source

Welcome to episode 27 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [ @NerdJourney]! We’re John White ( @vJourneyman) and Nick Korte ( @NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we interview Ramzi Marjaba of the “We the Sales Engineers” podcast.   

Original Recording Date: 2019-02-22 

Topics – Ramzi Marjaba of the “We The Sales Engineers” podcast 

============================================================== 

• Nick and John were on We The Sales Engineers Episode 41: New and Experienced Perspective of Sales Engineering 

• Ramzi might be doing the podcast that John wish he had the courage to do 

• To study the job 

• He’s gotten to talk to some of the thought-leaders in the field 

• John Care 

• Brian Geery 

• Peter Cohan 

• Upcoming recording of a demo as a YouTube video 

• Avoid spray-and-pray 

• Should’ve asked manager to shadow good SEs 

• Forgot the SE skills for the product skills 

• Didn’t know the title acronyms 

• Relationship credibility vs technical credibility 

• No 

• Paid on performance 

• Learning from variety of different customers 

• Start looking before you’re extremely unhappy with your current one 

• Finding a new job takes time; Learn new job skills while on your current job 

• Get better at presenting by presenting to informal lunch groups 

• Or do demos 

• Practice interviewing 

• Apply before you feel qualified 

• Tech might not be interesting, though people being interesting might change your mind 

• Bad communication during interview process 

• Yes, it’s fair 

• Speed of responses shows how interested they are 

• Remember you have the power not to take the offer 

• Could be a committee process 

• Could be some other internal process 

• Perhaps they didn’t see your value; OR you didn’t show your value 

• They might just be slow; Follow up with the hiring manager 

• You’re just interviewing, not hired; Keep looking until you accept an offer 

• SE coach, mentor, manager 

• Most SEs stay SEs forever 

• SE Management is an option 

• Product management seems like an option, but they also seem to be paid less than SEs 

• Maybe it’s worth it if you see lots of advancement in the PM role 

• Most SE soft skills are done outside the company 

• Ramzi starts turning the tables and asking John what he’s seen 

• John’s experience matches that, except for straight sales skills 

• SEs who are good at the soft skills tend to get pushed into sales roles 

• Though SEs with technical and soft skills are way more valuable 

• Used to complain about them 

• Had to cover sales for a territory once and hated it 

• John - finding the right people to get the meeting with is a skill 

• Repeated inspection by sales management at the end of the quarter 

• John says he tells his sales team he won’t ask at the end of the quarter 

• Most people don’t plan careers, they only have emergency reactions 

• There are some jobs which have a clear linear path, but most jobs aren’t like that 

• Breaking people out of that blinder is a major goal of the Nerd Journey podcast 

• We need to overcome the blockers like feeling disloyal, feeling unlucky, fear, and discomfort 

• Financial planning is more common 

• Didn’t know about the various job roles coming out of University 

• Didn’t know about paths once hired 

• Expecting people to stay in the same role for 20 years is … delusional 

• John thinks positive organizational culture values people to the point of keeping them in the company, rather than the role, emphasizing career path 

• Ramzi hasn’t seen that 

• If the manager had actually invested in the team, they might have been more invested in finding/training their replacements 

• Career path as an entry discussion, Chad Sakac impact radius, and IC career and compensation path 

• Ramzi asks if the company actually followed up after that entry discussion 

• Discussion of great 1 on 1s 

• Ramzi hasn’t seen that at his orgs 

* Ramzi observes that not having a traditional background shouldn’t stop you from applying 

• We discuss the fallacy of feeling the need to meet every part of a job description before applying 

• Most important tool for career planning 

• Invaluable book for career 

• Mastering Technical Sales 

• Mindset 

• Extreme Ownership 

• Ramzi has a book club 

• Most important time management tip 

• Calendar follow-up time 

• Most important piece of career advice 

• Own your career 

• Link to the episode that Nick and John were on 

• Correction on The Last Samurai