Conference 7.286::digital

A sales rep's natural desire is to say "yes!" to the customer.  A technically-
oriented Sales Support person often finds him/herself saying "No, that won't 
work".  This make the sales rep unhappy, leading them to search high and low 
around the company for someone (however unqualified) who'll say "Yes!".

Say "No" too often and you won't even be asked any more.  Being proved right
in the end doesn't help either - no one remembers that you "told them so".
In fact, you may be cited as being the guy who said it'd work!

Life's a b**ch... and then you get TFSO'd!

-dave

Welcome to the real world of sales support! As you have stated, we, being
considered the more technical of the members of our profession are frequently 
called upon to help in a no-win situation. One thing I have noticed is, 
frequently the reason it is a no-win to begin with is that we allowed ourselves
to become a responder to a problem as opposed to being the one to analyze it up 
front. In other words, be proactive, not reactive. Of course, this implies having
a real relationship with the customer instead of being "just another vendor".

As sales support we need to position our products based on our knowledge of them,
not the perception of the sales force or the customer. I know this is very 
difficult to do, but we cannot "support" a product being sold into a situation
where it will become a customer satisfaction issue. Customer satisifaction must
be our #1 priority.

Just keeping it all in perspective...

    
    A no-win situation is when you are the bearer of *BAD* news like the
    512 user Ultrix VAX 9000 worth 1.2M must be debooked because ultrix
    only support 256 users.
    
    Things like this *REALLY* make you popular with the reps!
    
    -Ed
    

    Letting the tax collector live.

    
    Re: being proactive
    
    When your skills are in short supply, this can be almost impossible.  
    Too often we get asked, NO, TOLD! to help a rep in a remote location.
    Often they have already dug our graves for us!
    
    -Ed
    

    	re .0
    
    	We could use you in Customer Support.  Got any RDB experience?
    	VTX?  Wanna come to Colorado Springs?
    
    	Joe Oppelt

    You have to admit that sales support is a funny place to be. I was
    hired 4 years ago as a VMS weenie, then when UNIX was big in my
    district I was asked to be the UNIX weenie (since I had UNIX experience
    also), now the business has shifted again and I am back to being a VMS
    weenie. I a not unique in my district at all. We have people that have
    gone from VMS to Program Management and back.
    
    I remember when we were all told to be specialists, then generalists,
    and now we are back to being specialists. Of course, I can't speak for
    others but it does make things interesting and for the most part fun. I
    can't imagine where else we can get to help solve the variety of
    technical concerns that our customers have and still get to learn about
    the different products that Digital has. 
    
    As my first manager told me, sales support is not for everyone. We need
    to be mixture of sales, support, EIS, and CSC all rolled into one. When
    I speak with colleagues that work for IBM and HP they have a different
    view of what a "sales support" person is. I think I like Digitals view
    best. We are what we make it to be.
    

    re: .7
    
    Wait, I'm sure that this year is the 'generalist' phase.
    
    --- Gavin

    re.8  No, no, this is the general specialist phase...or is it the
    special generialist???
    
    Big D

    when I started in Sales Support, I had a networks focus.  Then a VMS/
    VAXcluster focus.  Then a CIM focus.  The last three years have had a
    UNIX focus. In that time I went from SS III to IV (Principal) to
    Consultant I.  I work, by the way, in a small, very remote site.  
    How to make Consultant II is basically a P.R. and Politics issue, 
    which I don't have the patience for.  Other people in my group, not 
    yanked from specialty to specialty, have made Consultant II.  Can 
    you say 'glass ceiling' ?  To me this isn't a 'tech vs. sales-y
    quality being necessary to prosper' issue.. it's a matter of a) job
    focus, being givent the time to build expertise, and b) how much time
    the SS person wishes to commit to office politics.
    
    karl moeller UNIX* Partner

    
    re .9 - Thanks Gavin for letting me know, I will update your job plan
    to reflect the year of the generalist ! Keep up the GOOD work, there is
    life after Databases.
    
    Steve (your manager).

In our Account Group the Sales Support people are as important as the Sales 
people and, in fact, quite interchangable. As a Sales Support person, I define 
the roles of myself and the Sales people I support. They work relationships 
and I handle the technical details and we both usually confer on pricing. I 
have taken Sales people aside after customer meetings and reprimanded them for 
trying to be technical and giving customers the wrong information. The best 
situation is where the sales rep defers to me on all technical matters. I DO 
NOT know all the answers, but I'm not ashamed to tell the customer so, and I 
am very concientious about following up, when necessary.

My boss wants me to become a Sales Rep, but I enjoy the dynamic nature of my
job too much and especially the requirement to be able to become an expert on
something at a moments notice. One of the great things about this company is
the ability to get find information or knowledgeable people with relative ease. 

Regards,

Jim

    I manage a sales support unit.  I've been pushing a personal vision
    for the last two years which has people segregated into two primary 
    roles:  technologists - traditional product, applications and/or
    technology focused individuals; and what I've been calling 'technical
    account managers' - your 'generalists', more specifically those people
    who have demonstrated a talent for project/opportunity management.
    
    I see benefits both for the people and the unit.  Everyone has a
    well-defined focus which hopefully outlines a career progression.  I
    try to make the specialties sufficiently broad so that they can be
    easily related to Digital's product offerings without being rendered
    obsolete whenver we change directions.  Everyone has a role to play in
    the opportunities we have to work on.  My job is made easier when it
    comes time to evaluate and plan training.
    
    Technologists are needed to tend to all the details involved in
    arriving at a solution.  They know the trends and posess up-to-date
    knowledge.  The technical account managers are needed to provide
    continutity, to develop the technical relationship with the customer,
    to provide the resource planning and to do the technical opportunity
    management.  Technologists tend to be involved in many opportunities at
    some level; technical account managers are used judiciously on the most
    complex selling cycles and accounts.
    
    I think the system works, but I don't believe that view is shared by
    all the people who report to me.  The technologists tend to suspect
    that I've taken responsibility away from them (true) to their detriment
    (false).  My view is that I've put clarity into their jobs and made it
    easier for me and everyone else to recognize contributions.  They think
    that the technical account managers are 'favorites' (not true!).  The
    technical account managers think that their jobs are more subjective
    than their counterparts (true) and that I cannot fairly evaluate them
    (false).  They feel that the technical life is easier (false) and that
    there is no clear career progression (false).
    
    I didn't make this stuff up to satisfy a whim - it just made sense
    given the demands placed upon us by our customers.  I suspect life
    isn't a whole lot different in other account groups.
    
    Al
    

    re: .14
    
    Our sales support unit has been set up in a similar way for the last
    few years.  My view is that it works well.  It is currently breaking
    down in that there has been a lot of 'account focused is good' and
    therefore 'not account focused is bad' talk in the last year.  This is
    pushing some of the technology oriented people toward account
    management, where they don't want to be.

    RE: .14 and .15  Your view is the one I received when guiding the
    agenda of the last Manufacturing Symposium.  Sessions were provided to
    broaden knowledge other than in one's own specialty for the Account
    assigned person.  These were very well received by some.  Others were
    clearly focused in the MFG specialty and needed depth.  It seemed clear
    to me that are, and need to be, both: account generalists and
    applications specialists.............

RE: Note 1883.14              A new kind of support person
    
>    I manage a sales support unit.  

    Al and I used to be in the same "Software Services" Unit which then
    split into "Sales Support" (SS) and "Professional Software Services"
    (PSS/EIS) Unit. Still work in the same office, ALO.  I stayed in
    PSS/EIS and am taking the SERP package. No sour grapes in the
    following, just an observation.  I am happy if it makes DEC happy and
    profitable.

>I've been pushing a personal vision for the last two years which has people
>segregated into two primary roles:  technologists - traditional product,
>applications and/or technology focused individuals; and what I've been
>calling 'technical account managers' - your 'generalists', more
>specifically those people who have demonstrated a talent for
>project/opportunity management. 
    
>    I see benefits both for the people and the unit.  Everyone has a

    For the customer too!  He essentially gets the old "PSS/EIS" type for
    free now.  Used to have to pay for it.  Some of the folks
    ("technologists")that switched from PSS/EIS to SS as ICs are now doing
    almost the same job as they did before, except now they do it for free.

    Isn't this a good example of the swinging pendulum?  I predicted it
    five years ago, except I did not contemplate the revenue being moving
    away from  PSS/EIS.  I guess I thought that PSS/EIS would restructure
    in some way. Maybe we have -- or are in the process with our move out
    of software to Digital Services.

    Is all this happening elsewhere too?  

    
    
    Fred
    
    

    I don't know about 'correct corporate words', but the correct English
    word is 'envision'.
    
    
    n

        Re: .21

>    Nigel, I'm afraid there is no such word in 'English' as 'envision'. It
>    is, unfortunately, another invented word, composed of a noun (vision),
>    turned into a new verb by our American cousins, by the addition of the
>    prefix 'en'.

        I would disagree.  The word `envision' is listed in the Oxford
        English Dictionary, so it is obviously an English word.  It is a
        recent word (the oldest citation is 1921), but it isn't marked
        in the OED as an Americanism and all of the citations appear to
        be from Great Britain.  The word isn't listed in the first
        edition of the OED (the volume for E was published before 1921),
        but in the supplements.

        As far as `envision' being `another invented word', I must agree
        with you.  It, like every other word in the English language, was
        invented.

        					B.J.

>	  It, like every other word in the English language, was
>	invented.
    
    Not according to the King James translation.  "In the beginning
    was the word", as I recall.  Ipso facto, said word wasn't
    invented.
    
    (Everyone knows that God was an Englishman, of course :-)
    
    

re: .23
    
>    (Everyone knows that God was an Englishman, of course :-)
    
naw, i don't think She was...a fine Irishwoman more likely :-)

								paul

    To this day, in my experience, 'envision' is not a word in common use
    outside the States. My trusty school dictionary, 'Nuttall's Everyday
    Dictionary of the English Language', of circa 1968 vintage, does not list
    'envision'. Just because it was first used in 1921, and it's made it to
    the OED, doesn't make it correct, and doesn't make it any more than a
    noun that's been made into a verb. Its etymology is based on a false
    premise, and usage doesn't correct that. The OED has a responsibility
    to list all words in common usage, it is not an arbiter of good taste;
    unfortunately.
    
    Nothing said so far changes the fact that it's a word invented contrary
    to the 'rules' of English, and by usage, has replaced a perfectly good
    word, 'envisage'. 250 million wrongs don't make a right. Every time a
    perfectly good word is dropped for an invented alternative, which then
    replaces several perfectly good words, the language becomes the poorer
    for it. I, for one, will resist that, and you lot, having now
    discovered that there is a better word, should drop 'envision', and
    use 'envisage' in the future
    
    Laurie.

    Now how about an exciting discussion on "momentarily" ?
    
    Or shall we just go out and make some money ?
    
    John

Hey, this is total quality management.  Everything
one writes should be perfect.

	report   house   retreat   spell   cast   tree   bush   boil   creep
	refrain  train   fool      lounge  book	  record alarm  bell   groove
	paper    dog	 murder    glass   defeat win    staple brew   telephone
	guide    lead    cheat     style   screen kill   peep	peek   peak

There tens of thousands of these.  "Have you nouned a verb today?"  Indeed you
have and so has every other speaker of English (or American).  There is no 
"rule" of any kind stating "nouns can't be made from verbs".  In fact, it is
one of the most common ways.  Verbs can also be made from nouns.   Verbs and 
nouns are good sources of adjectives and adverbs as well. In fact, when I'm made 
cranky by the "noun me no verbs" specialists, I sometimes say there are no
parts of speech in English at all.

New words are created every day and every day old words die.  It's the
way of the world.

    re .28
    
    I'm with you.  The proof is in the eating.  Can you understand
    (discover the meaning of) what I say or write without serious doubts? 
    Then don't criticize my style!
    
    fwiw,
    
    Dick

    It's a living language, aren't it.
    
    Laurie.

Please stick to the topic of the discussion which is a discussion of sales
support, or I'll make y'all buy a vowel from Vanna :-)

Thanks,

Bob - Co-moderator DIGITAL

    Will that put into jeopardy those noters who refuse?