Sales Engineering · 300-level

Sales Engineering: Winning Technical Deals

A senior practitioner's playbook for the presales SE: how to partner with an AE, run discovery, demo, and prove value, then survive procurement and land a clean handoff. Built from real enterprise deals, with the arithmetic that decides them.

SLE-3013 creditselectiveno prerequisites
What's inside

Sections & lessons

01

The SE role & the sales motion

  • Where the SE fits: the AE/SE partnership and the deal teamconcept35 min
  • The modern B2B buying process and the buying committeeconcept30 min
  • What the SE is actually measured on: technical win, quota, and hygieneconcept35 min
  • Your deal-team operating agreement (synthesis)reflection30 min
02

Discovery & qualification

  • MEDDPICC as the qualification spineconcept40 min
  • Asking discovery questions that surface real painconcept35 min
  • Mapping pain to quantified business valueconcept35 min
  • Disqualifying early: the discipline of walking awayconcept30 min
03

Demos that win

  • Architecting the demo narrative with tell-show-tellconcept35 min
  • A discovery-driven tailored demo, walked throughdemo40 min
  • Killing the feature dump: demoing to the persona's painconcept30 min
  • Surviving the live-demo failure and demo-environment disciplineconcept35 min
04

POCs / POVs & technical validation

  • Scoping a POV with written success criteriaconcept40 min
  • Running a POV from kickoff to executive readoutdemo40 min
  • Escaping the endless pilotconcept30 min
  • The mutual action plan as the deal's spineconcept35 min
05

Objection handling & competitive positioning

  • A real objection-handling method (beyond feel-felt-found)concept35 min
  • Trap-setting and planting landminesconcept35 min
  • Competitive teardowns and honest positioningconcept35 min
  • Beating 'no decision': the status-quo competitorconcept35 min
06

Executive & stakeholder communication

  • Framing business value and ROI executives believeconcept35 min
  • The executive readout: earning and using scarce timeconcept35 min
  • Translating between technical and non-technical buyersconcept35 min
07

RFPs, security reviews & procurement

  • RFP strategy: deciding whether and how to respondconcept40 min
  • Security questionnaires and compliance (SOC 2, ISO 27001)concept35 min
  • Navigating legal, procurement, and the redlineconcept35 min
08

Post-sale handoff, expansion & the SE career

  • The clean handoff to CS and implementationconcept35 min
  • Land-and-expand and becoming the trusted advisorconcept35 min
  • SE career paths: IC ladder, management, and specializationconcept35 min
  • Your SE operating system (capstone synthesis)reflection35 min

This module ends in a gate you can fail.

That's what makes passing it mean something. Take the DSAT, get placed, and start earning.