Tech Sales Wasabi: The Sales Engineer Manager’s Guide to Hiring, Growing, and Managing Teams

Sales Engineers are the Wasabi of business. Wasabi is one of the hardest crops to grow on the planet. It takes the right environment and years of care by knowledgeable farmers in order to bring it to market. But it also demands a very high premium, making all of the effort worth it. Like Wasabi, SEs are particular and as a result, need particular care and feeding to thrive and grow. Most tech companies don’t provide the right environment. Most managers don’t realize all of these needs. Or if they do, aren’t sure of the best way to provide them. This book tells you how. It provides a framework for the SE manager to best understand how to create the needed environment to have a thriving team. It describes six practices that when used help SE managers: Know how to first develop the best in themselves Motivate and inspire their SE team Understand what data to use to measure and improve performance Hire for innovation and growth Integrate their SE team with the rest of the organization to increase its value Forge career paths and develop their SEs to realize their full potential Bill Balnave has spent over 20 years leading sales engineer, in both fast-growth start-ups and mega-tech companies. He’s led teams of 3 and organizations of 300. Two decades of fast growth, crazy mergers, and wild economic times provide him with a unique perspective in technical sales. This isn’t an observer’s view. He’s actually lived it. As a result, he outlines a practical approach to building, managing, and inspiring teams. As an SE manager, adopt this framework, elevate your SE team’s value to the business, and prove yourself a capable business leader.