A coworker is leaving my team today. I’m sad, but it’s a great opportunity for him and he’s going to be in the Salesforce ecosystem so we’ll definitely cross paths again. While we didn’t work on a lot of projects together, I couldn’t help but think of some words of wisdom he told me that I use all the time.
Why am I seeing this?
To be a solution engineer at Salesforce, you spend about three months ramping into the role. Before you “go live” you need to do presentations in front of your peers; these are known as peer certs. It was during the feedback for one peer cert that my coworker said, “Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and ask: why am I seeing this?”
That’s stuck with me ever since. It may come across as being incredibly direct, but as a solution engineer I believe it’s a good grounding exercise. There are a lot of bells and whistles in our software – and every piece of software. Don’t get distracted by this shiny, new thing: show and articulate the thing that’s going to illustrate how this will positively impact the customer.
It’s also a grounding exercise in writing. I write almost all of my demo scripts word for word. I do this because there is a lot of nuance I want to convey. A concise script keeps me on track and conveys a narrative that this solution is beneficial for the customer.
Why am I seeing this also helps during questions and objections during demo delivery. I happily step behind the curtain in many of my demos to show how the solution was built, but before I deviate wildly off script, I ask myself if the customer is going to benefit from what I’m going to show. Do they need to see how I built case assignment rules, or would they better benefit from me talking about them? Again, there’s a lot of bells and whistles, but do they need to see it right here and now?
Next time you’re in a demo or webinar, ask yourself or even the presenter, “Why am I seeing this?”