Recently, an SE sent me the email below.  I had many mixed emotions — I was appalled, saddened, and heartened, but not at all surprised. 

For Sales Managers and VPs reading this – 

This SE lives in a dark cultural chasm that, based on a decade of experience, exists in various forms and degrees in many, many sales organizations. 

I urge you not to dismiss this SE’s posting as a rant.  We have seen literally hundreds of sales organizations that exhibit some of the characteristics that this SE describes.  I assure you, the SE speaks for tens of thousands of SE professionals.  Do you see shades of your organization in the below?  If you’re not sure, our on-line assessment can help you find out.

Every now and then, we visit a sales organization that, in every sense, values the SE role.  There, the SE is a vital resource that drives enormous incremental revenue in alignment with sales reps well beyond the sales rep’s capability. 

In these sales organizations Management enables, empowers, and rewards SEs to do so.  And do they ever reap reward!  In one case, an SE team grew incremental revenue 425% in 6 months.  (Our recent newsletters discuss how our program can be implemented in a financially responsible manner).

‘nuf said.  Enjoy the email…

“I just stumbled upon your webpage and read the entire BLOG. OUTSTANDING. How can we get this word out to every SE Hiring company out there? I’ve been in [my industry] for 20 years. Finally, your webpage is THE VOICE for SEs ! Thank God ! Outstanding, [my industry] is the worst for not appreciating SEs.

“I listen to VPs of Sales refer to SEs as “sales bitches” or “sales whores”. So many companies don’t realize our value. I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve been in where my voice was suppressed to let the sales guy run the meeting and not get HALF of the information out that the customer wanted to, choking the customer with their power point, or looking so desperate for the sale that the customer lost interest. My vision for the customer is HUGE, many of the sales people I’ve worked with fail to have discipline, self control, or empathy. I’m sick of it.

”I said to myself, I wonder if maybe finally there is a “voice” for us out there. Once I started reading [your website] I was like, YES, [THESE PEOPLE] GET IT. FINALLY I HAVE FOUND HUMANS THAT ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND AND Give a ____ about SEs ! ” Awesome….just awesome !

”One day, I dream of a company with massive SE resources. Where a brand new SE comes into the company, and is taught REAL TRAINING THAT IS MECHANICALLY USEFUL to their ACTUAL JOB ROLE and they are trained in a Military style – WHEN You are DONE with all the training, YOU ARE QUALIFIED and FULLY Capable TO TEACH IT to any stranger from the foundation on up, or you STAY in the Training until you can! One day, my company will be like that. One day I will have the SE Role for my SEs who will be highly esteemed, respectful, knowledgeable, caring, great coaches, sharing their knowledge, teaching AND doing, building their teams with good hard, honest work and no snooty attitudes from sales reps who only care about the dollar and not the customer and my SEs will be paid VERY WELL for work ethic and integrity and unselfish sharing of knowledge within their teams/groups.”

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