Cloud Computing - Mar 12, 2024

Enhance Your Sales Team: Key Elements for Developing a Successful AM/SE Team

Introduction

In the fast-paced world of technology, where innovation meets client expectations, the success of a project often hinges on the synergy between two key players: the Account Manager (AM) and the Systems Engineer (SE). This dynamic duo must work together seamlessly to understand client needs, design effective solutions, and deliver successful outcomes. As an industry insider with years of experience, I've witnessed firsthand the triumphs and challenges of AM/SE teams. In this ultimate guide, I'll share the secrets to building a winning AM/SE team, including essential sales team roles like account executives or sales representatives, to conquer any obstacle and achieve greatness.

 

Understanding the Account Manager and Solutions Engineer Dynamic

Before diving into the secrets of building a winning team, it's crucial to understand the unique roles and relationships between AMs and SEs. The AM is the face of the company, responsible for building and maintaining strong client relationships. They must deeply understand the client's business, communicate effectively, and manage expectations. Conversely, the SE is the technical expert who designs and implements solutions to meet the client's needs. They must have a solid technical background, stay up-to-date with the latest technologies, and be able to think critically to solve complex problems. Additionally, customer service representatives, also known as customer success representatives, play an essential role in the AM/SE dynamic by providing excellent customer service, working to retain customers, and identifying new sales opportunities for existing clients.

 

While different, these roles are highly complementary - the AM and SE must work in lockstep to achieve success. The AM translates the client's needs into requirements that the SE can work with, while the SE transforms those requirements into innovative solutions that deliver value. It's a partnership built on communication, collaboration, and shared goals. 

I once worked with an AM/SE duo that perfectly exemplified this synergistic dynamic. The AM, Sarah, had an uncanny ability to connect with clients and uncover their needs. She asked insightful questions, listened attentively, and communicated the client's vision to the technical team. The SE, Mike, was a brilliant systems architect who could devise clever solutions to the thorniest challenges. He and Sarah worked closely together, with frequent check-ins to ensure alignment. Sarah provided the business context Mike needed to craft the right technical approach while Mike kept Sarah apprised of progress and any issues that emerged. Together, they were a dream team that could handle anything that came their way. 

However, only some AM/SE teams achieve this level of harmony. Challenges can arise from miscommunication, lack of coordination, undefined processes, and clashing personalities. Building an exceptional AM/SE team takes careful planning, the right people, including top performers, and a commitment to continuous improvement. 

 

The Secrets to Building a Winning Sales Team

1. Hire the right people

Building a great team starts with bringing the right people on board. When hiring AMs, look for candidates with outstanding communication abilities, emotional intelligence, and a successful client management track record. They should be able to think strategically about the client's business and translate their needs into precise requirements.

 

For SEs, technical chops are crucial - you want experts who know their stuff inside and out. But more than raw technical skill is needed. Your SEs must also be strong communicators who can explain complex concepts to non-technical stakeholders. They should have a problem-solving mindset and the ability to design solutions that meet business needs. Intellectual curiosity and a commitment to continuous learning are essential as technology evolves. Additionally, having strong product knowledge is crucial for sales specialists to effectively conduct market research, forecast sales, and apply their expertise to practical situations at the right time.

 

Equally important for both roles are the harder-to-assess "soft skills"—teamwork, adaptability, resilience, and a growth mindset. Building a cohesive AM/SE team requires people who work well together, even amid ambiguity and pressure. Look for candidates who are open to feedback, willing to learn from failures, and committed to the team's success and the company's values. This involves hiring individuals who not only possess the necessary skills and experience, but also align with the company's values and vision, contributing to a positive and productive team culture. The specific technical skills you need may change over time. Still, these core qualities, asking the right interview questions and following compliance best practices, are evergreen and essential for driving business growth.

 

2. Establish clear roles and responsibilities

Ambiguity is the enemy of effective collaboration. Clearly defining each person's role and responsibilities is critical to setting your AM/SE team up for success. This exercise extends beyond just writing a job description—it's about mapping out how the AM and SE will work together in practice. 

Start by defining the key activities and deliverables each role is responsible for. The AM's core responsibilities include client relationship management, requirements gathering, project scoping and planning, and ongoing communication. The SE's core responsibilities include solution design, technology evaluation and selection, implementation oversight, and technical support. Where these responsibilities overlap - for example, in proposal development or project planning - explicitly call out how the AM and SE will partner.

 

Next, define expectations around communication and collaboration. How often will the AM and SE meet to align on project status and client needs? What tools and processes will you use to share information and track action items? How will you make decisions and resolve disagreements? Putting these guardrails in place provides structure to the AM/SE relationship.

 

Finally, ensure the AM and SE understand how their goals and success metrics align with the project's objectives. The AM's goals center around client satisfaction scores, retention/growth of key accounts, or revenue targets, including sales leader goals. The SE's goals might be system performance, defect rates, or delivery speed. While distinct, these goals should all ladder up to the ultimate aim of delivering a successful outcome for the client. Collaboration happens naturally when everyone understands how their work fits into the bigger picture, including within the sales function led by the sales manager.

 

3. Foster psychological safety

Google's seminal study on team effectiveness found that the most essential factor behind high-performing teams was psychological safety - a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. On teams with high psychological safety, people feel comfortable speaking up, asking for help, admitting mistakes, and challenging the status quo. This is especially important for AM/SE teams, where open and honest communication is crucial for fostering a successful sales team and surfacing and resolving issues before they derail the project.

 

As a leader, you are crucial in cultivating psychological safety on your AM/SE teams. It starts with modeling vulnerability and openness yourself. Acknowledge your mistakes and uncertainties, ask for customer feedback and ideas, and clarify that constructive dissent is welcome. Create forums for the team to surface concerns, share learnings, and brainstorm solutions in a judgment-free environment.

 

Regularly celebrate failures as learning opportunities - after all, in technology, being on the cutting edge means you'll inevitably have some misses along with the hits. The key is objectively examining failures, harvesting insights, and moving forward as a team. When people know they won't be punished for well-intentioned risks, they're more willing to innovate and experiment.

 

Psychological safety also means giving equal voice to the AM and SE perspectives, even when they clash. The AM brings deep knowledge of the client and the business drivers, while the SE brings technical expertise. Both viewpoints are essential, and the best solutions emerge through respectful debate and compromise. As a leader, facilitate healthy dialogue and ensure the AM and SE feel heard.

 

4. Invest in continuous learning

Technology is evolving extremely fast, and client expectations are rising in tandem. For AM/SE teams to stay ahead of the curve, they must continuously learn and upskill. This means providing ample opportunities and resources for professional development.

 

Start by understanding the team's current skills and the skills they'll need in the future. Work with your AMs and SEs to create individualized development plans that fill crucial gaps and support their career goals. Offer a mix of learning modalities to suit different needs—from conferences and workshops to online courses, mentoring, and stretch assignments. The key is to make learning a regular part of the job, not a once-a-year event. This includes investing in sales training, development, and onboarding programs to ensure new sales reps have the necessary competencies for long-term productivity and support your business model, especially for small business owners. These programs should be tailored to individual roles, including sales roles, and include various training materials, presentations, coaching sessions, eLearning programs, and specific training on technology and the right tools. Additionally, it is essential to determine the number of sales reps needed to scale up your team and meet your sales goals effectively. This will ensure you have the right resources and support for your team's success, including investing in continuous learning for new product updates and industry advancements.

 

Beyond individual development, team-level learning should also be prioritized. Hold regular brown-bag lunches or devote time each sprint for the team to explore new technologies, share ideas, and teach each other. Encourage AMs and SEs to attend each other's training and share insights across disciplines. Set up knowledge-sharing systems to capture and distribute essential learnings. The more the team learns together, the stronger their collaboration will be.

 

Remember that learning isn't just about acquiring new technical skills—it's also about honing crucial soft skills like communication, problem-solving, and adaptability. Provide training and coaching to help your AMs and SEs improve their emotional intelligence, conflict resolution abilities, and resilience. The most successful AM/SE teams are the ones that can navigate complex human dynamics with as much agility as they navigate complex technical challenges.

 

5. Leverage agile ways of working

Agile methodologies like Scrum and Kanban have transformed how software teams work - for a good reason. By emphasizing collaboration, flexibility, and continuous improvement, agile helps teams deliver value faster while staying aligned with changing client needs. For AM/SE teams, adopting an agile mindset can be a game-changer.

 

Agile's emphasis on cross-functional collaboration is particularly well-suited to the AM/SE dynamic. Rather than operating in silos, agile brings the AM and SE together as equal partners on a unified team. The AM represents the voice of the customer, providing input on requirements and priorities. The SE represents the system's voice, providing technical feasibility and design input. Together, they continually align on what and how to build it.

 

Agile's iterative approach also helps AM/SE teams stay in sync. Rather than defining all requirements upfront and disappearing into a black box of implementation, agile teams work in short cycles (usually 2-4 weeks), delivering a working slice of functionality at the end of each iteration. This regular delivery cadence provides built-in opportunities for the AM and SE to inspect progress, gather feedback, and course-correct as needed. It also gives the client visibility into the team's work, building trust and confidence.

 

To start with agile, AM/SE teams can experiment with basic practices like daily stand-ups, iteration planning, and retrospectives. The daily stand-up is a 15-minute meeting where each team member shares what they did yesterday, what they plan to do today, and any blockers they need help with. This quick sync keeps everyone aligned and surfaces issues early. Iteration planning is where the AM and SE come together to define and prioritize the work for the upcoming iteration based on client needs and technical feasibility. Retrospectives are held at the end of each iteration to reflect on what went well, what could be improved, and what actions to take. 

As the team becomes more comfortable with agile, they can add more advanced practices like user stories, acceptance criteria, and automated testing. The key is to start small, learn by doing and continuously improve. Agile is a mindset as much as a methodology—it's about embracing change, collaborating closely, and delivering value early and often.

 

6. How do you measure and optimize team health?

High-performing AM/SE teams don't just deliver great work - they also have excellent team dynamics. But "team health" can feel like a fuzzy concept. How do you know if your team is working well together? And what can you do to improve it?

 

The first step is to establish clear metrics for team health. Some key indicators to track include:

- Communication: How often are the AM and SE communicating? Are they having regular, productive conversations about client needs and technical feasibility?

- Collaboration: Are the AM and SE actively partnering to solve problems, or are they working in silos? Are they leveraging each other's strengths?

- Engagement: Are team members motivated and invested in the work? Do they feel a sense of ownership and pride in the outcomes?

- Morale: Is the team's energy and mood generally positive? Do people feel supported and valued?

- Productivity: Is the team consistently delivering high-quality work on time? Are they continuously improving their processes and outputs?

 

To gather this data, you can use both quantitative and qualitative methods. Regular team health surveys can provide numeric scores on critical dimensions, which you can track over time. One-on-one check-ins with team members can surface qualitative insights and improvement ideas. Tracking key sales metrics, such as customer satisfaction scores, can also provide valuable insights into team health and areas for improvement. Evaluating customer feedback after every point of contact, including one-on-one interactions and sales metrics, can help identify any possible objections that may arise during the process and better understand the needs of their target audience. Agile practices like daily stand-ups and retrospectives also provide natural forums for gauging team sentiment.

 

The key is to collect this data and act on it. Regularly review your team health metrics with the AM/SE team and jointly identify areas for improvement. If communication is lacking, agree on new norms like daily check-ins or using collaboration tools. If morale is low, dig into the underlying causes and brainstorm ways to boost energy and employee engagement. The goal is to make team health a visible, continuous priority - not just a once-a-year discussion on top of implementing an effective sales compensation plan, monitoring the sales cycle, and tracking sales performance.

 

Remember that team health is dynamic - it can fluctuate based on project demands, personnel changes, and external factors. The most effective AM/SE teams are the ones that proactively monitor and nurture their collaboration, continuously looking for ways to work better together

 

 

How can technology and tools enhance the productivity of a sales team?

An effective sales team can significantly improve their productivity and success by leveraging technology and tools such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, sales automation software, and analytics platforms. These tools streamline processes, track performance metrics, automate routine tasks, and offer valuable insights that can enhance communication and organization within the sales force. Moreover, utilizing technology in sales operations boosts efficiency and productivity by enabling sales representatives to focus more on engaging with clients and closing deals rather than getting bogged down by administrative tasks. The data these sales enablement tools provide also allows for informed decision-making and adapting strategies based on real-time information gathered during sales calls. Integrating technology and sales enablement into sales processes is essential for creating an effective sales force and staying competitive in today's fast-paced business environment.

 

Conclusion

Building a winning AM/SE team is a journey, not a destination. It requires bringing the right people on board, defining clear roles and responsibilities, fostering psychological safety, investing in continuous learning, adopting agile working methods, and optimizing team health. By consistently applying these strategies, you can cultivate the synergy, skills, and resilience your team needs to tackle any challenge.

 

As a leader, your role is to create conditions for your AM/SE team to thrive. This means setting a clear vision and direction, providing the right resources and support, and empowering the team to collaborate and innovate. It also means leading by example—modeling openness, curiosity, and a growth mindset.

 

Ultimately, the success of your AM/SE team hinges on the strength of the partnership between the AM and SE. When these two roles work together seamlessly, magic happens. The AM brings deep client knowledge and business savvy; the SE brings technical prowess and problem-solving chops. Together, they form a formidable duo that can dream up creative solutions, navigate complex challenges, and deliver remarkable results.

 

So invest in your AM/SE teams - nurture their skills, collaboration, and potential. The business landscape is only getting more competitive, and technological change is accelerating. The organizations that will thrive in this new world have agile, resilient, high-performing teams at their core. By building a winning AM/SE team, you're not just setting your business up for success but shaping the industry's future. Let's get started then. Shall we ?

 

 

Until next time "Protect Yourselves and Safeguard each other"

 

--Sean