Solutions for Customers - The Sales Engineering & Customer Success Podcast

Show Notes:

We hosted Claude Decarish, Areas SE Director for Windstream, based out of Atlanta to speak about staying relevant and how to build your career.   His team supports Next-Gen SDWAN services, Collaboration and Security Services for many large enterprise accounts.  Claude began his path to Presales as a Civil Engineer which provided an excellent foundation to move into technology.  

I pressed him on the im...

The Career Opportunity this week is with Intensify who is searching for a Rockstar Customer Success Manager.  Check them out @ https://intentsify.io/careers/ learn more!

Shown Notes:  This week we had the privilege of hosting Matt Toy, Director of Account Management with Fastly.  Fastly's edge cloud platform provides a content delivery network, Internet security services, load balancing, and video & streaming serv...

Most people have an unrealistic belief (at times) that all Sales Engineers have the answers to every question and possess a swami-like approach to solving problems.  We all know SEs are human and never have nor will they ever possess the answer to every challenge a customer sends their way.

What if you are a SE who looks to find the answers to his/her profession?  Our guest this week had that exact challenge and took charge to contr...

Today we hosted Tom Gleason from Snyk.io where he leads the Solution Engineering organization.  Snyk empowers software-driven businesses to develop fast and stay secure.  The Snyk open source offering is what many engineers are quite familiar with and I was eager to have Tom on and discuss the organization further.  

Tom and I discuss his career background and how it has come full circle supporting customers in a pre-sales role and ...

In this episode, we throw out the metrics(well, sort of) and bring the discussion to focus on the human element we find ourselves in during the coronavirus. 

How do you support customers who are all remote at the moment?

What pre-actions should you focus on as a CSM in the industry prior to speaking with a client?

Let's focus on customers and their situation as people and then their business as I pr...

Season 2 is finally here! 

On this episode, we invited Paul McBratney, Senior Solution Engineer with Alert Logic based in Atlanta to join the show.  Paul brings a wealth of knowledge and background on the role of a PreSales Engineer, Problem Solver and Story Teller.

Paul is a bi-lingual SE who discusses how getting your teeth cut early into areas such as physical devices (taking apart and rebuilding servers for example), t...

As we wind down Season 1, it’s time to quickly reflect on closing Q4 and getting ready for the next fiscal year.  

How do you push for the final support of your customers if you are on a Fiscal Calendar year?  Does your Customer Success plan go out the window only to drive short-sales which will burn you in the future?  

Let's not forget about getting ready for Sales Kick-offs!

About the Host, Gary Sloper
For 20 Years, G...

Today we sit down with arguably one of the best Solution Architects in the industry, Brad Loomis.  Based in Boston, he is the Director of Solution Architecture at Cloud Technology Partners a HP company. 

Brad talks about early beginnings as a SA with Exodus Communications (later SAVVIS) who first commercialized the colocation and managed hosting business as we know today.  He shares tips and tricks on how to control your ...

Today we explore how to understand the global internet, WAN & LAN environments which is paramount for any pre-sales engineer.  While we understand IP subnetting, DHCP, routing and switching is not always glamourous it is necessary. :-)

All Cloud workloads require the internet and possessing the knowledge to understand Layer 1-3 within the OSI model will propel you deeper with customers.  Why?  If your SaaS applications...

This week we shift back to the world of Customer Success where we begin to carve out future episodes on metrics.  The first and often only metric which comes to mind in Customer Success is Churn. 

Unfortunately, many professionals use the “Churn” metric in Customer Success interchangeably and sometimes forget to parse out variables in the business.  It’s also NOT the only metric used in the Customer Success organization, however, w...

Today we discuss the basic skill all Solution Architects require - listening.  Regardless of the tenure you possess,  effective listening skills in a  PreSales role is necessary.  Honestly, you need to nail this basic skill in all business positions however it's critically important as the technical leader in a sales opportunity you control your listening abilities.  If you miss the key driver or pain a customer faces during a...

Buzzwords.  They exist all over Tech and quite often are overused in the industry by more and more people including Solution Architects and CSMs.  However, the use of buzzwords is not worded out of malice but more by convenience.  This episode was requested by the audience who asked/suggested we discuss not using buzzwords as much as possible replacing well thought out responses. Why?  CIOs and other tech decision-makers are produc...

On this episode, we explore the question many people still ask, “What is Customer Success?”  

Typically the question is really asked around how CS Leaders are defining Customer Success and what it means for their company.

While we can all agree there should be a maniacal focus on customers, do we really have their desired outcomes in mind?

For 20 Years, Gary Sloper has led high-performing Tech Sales Engineering and Customer Solutions ...

Often, meetings on-site can take a turn for the unexpected very quickly.  Sometimes, these changes can be prevented in advance with additional planning.

In our episode this week, we explore a couple of tricks to take along when meeting with customers at their location.  I have witnessed everything from fire alarm evacuations to floods which alter a scheduled meeting and one you can't really fix! 

What about ...

For those of us who spend countless hours supporting customers in tech, specifically PreSales Sales Engineering (SE) (Solution Architects, Sales Consultants whatever you have been called) and others in Customer Success (CSM), this Podcast is for you.

Episode #1 covers the pitfalls of being an amateur podcaster but outlines who will be on the show and what topics.  Countless learnings, trainings, podcast etc have always foc...