Thomas Blackmon

Lots of SCs get frustrated when AEs don’t intro them. But let’s be honest — Lots of SCs don't fully leveraging the intro when they do get one. Remember - even within the Presales community, we don’t fully understand each other’s titles. Assume your SC/SE/SA title tells them NOTHING! Instead, give them your elevator pitch: ✅ What you are ✅ What that actually means ✅ Why you’re here ✅ A little something memorable Not only does this frame your role clearly — It also primes the room for WHY you’re about to ask 47 million questions in the remaining 58 minutes of yet another Zoom call. On my Diary of a Sales Engineer episode, Sameer, Ryan, and I swapped SC elevator pitches. Here’s what mine looked like when I was a Fintech SC: “Hi, I’m Alice Egan, Senior Solutions Consultant. I’m a [product] and tech ecosystem expert. I’m here to make sure our solution is the best fit for you by really understanding what you’re trying to solve, what you need to connect to, and why. Also yes - American accent but I'm in two years deep working with London fintech, so I've probably seen your exact use case before." ✅ Title ✅ What that actually means ✅ Value ✅ Something memorable ✅ Street cred Bonus tip? Bring a lil' background into it. Former paralegal now selling legal software? Say it. Former Hill staffer now selling to PubSec? Lead with it. Former support agent turned SC at Zendesk? I often started with that. Buyers don’t care about your title. They care about trust. Relevance. Connection. Your intro is your chance to create that. So… what’s your elevator pitch? 👇

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Missed my SVIP LIVE chat last week with Amanda Lanicek, CTO of Springtown ISD? 🎙️ We went everywhere in this conversation—slimy sales tactics 🐍, Texas’ schools new phone statute 📱, and why #cybersecurity is still the a top priority in education. Below is a quick snippet 👇 Thanks again for the time Amanda! #securityindustry

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Every year, without fail, I hear the same obituary: “The channel is dead.” It’s a tired narrative built on noise: too much margin pressure, too many vendors, too many partners chasing the same slice. But the truth? The channel doesn’t die. It evolves. What truly kills partnerships isn’t technology disruption. It’s lazy enablement and short-term thinking (sound familiar?). I’ve seen this pattern on repeat for the 25 (yes 25!) years I’ve been working channel. If you treat your partners like a route-to-market, they’ll treat you like a line item. You’ll get transactions but you certainly will not get growth. But treat them like an extension of your team? You build a machine that scales. Here’s the playbook that works: 1️⃣ Build Trust – Solve their biggest customer headaches, not yours. Too many vendors keen just to get their message across and sandwich it in. You have to think about how that partner or systems integrator goes to market and how your technology brings VALUE to that go-to-market 2️⃣ Win New Logos together – Run joint campaigns, not passive rebates or simple deal registrations. Identify an individual within a team and grow things out organically. In larger partners this is the only way to get those wins as a small vendor especially. Prove the model works and repeat and shout about it!!! 3️⃣ Ensure Competency – Train, test, and reward certification. Build out that capability and capacity within the partner. The technical teams are your best salespeople 💯 And here’s the part most vendors miss 👇 Channel partners don’t just want programs. They want the ability to create dialogue that challenges conventional thinking. When you give them that, whether it’s preventing ransomware, cutting endpoint costs, or rethinking hybrid work you give them permission to lead bigger conversations in IGEL Technology’s case. Think about what makes you different as a vendor and test out the theory and showcase where you’ve done it already and who else you’ve succeeded with. End user computing is brutally competitive. But when you arm partners with solutions that actually fix critical issues and deliver business value, they become your loudest advocates. They’ll carry your flag higher than any marketing spend ever could. I’ve seen channel partners go from 6 to 8 figures repeatedly using the methods I’ve deployed. The channel isn’t dead. It’s waiting for leaders willing to do the hard work and then make the investments needed to get things moving. 👉 So, question for you all. What do you feel the #1 mistake vendors make when managing channel partnerships? Let’s see if we agree 😎 #JTsChannelPlaybook #partnerships #leading

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Great collation of ways to conduct yourself in your selling approach. Excellent playcard for sales folks to keep handy. If you are in a selling career for a while , you have heard all this before .. many times. The greatness is in following these rules on a deal by deal basis , each day till it becomes second nature. Practice it long enough till it is programed in your behaviour. You don’t have to look far for motivation .. watch your successful leaders and colleagues and you will find them following this behaviour with discipline n conduct impactful meetings . Keep sharing Rahul . keep learning . 👍

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"Knowing we can follow data management best practices helps me sleep easier at night,” says Sam Liston, Senior IT Architect at the University of Utah's Center for High-Performance Computing (CHPC). 🎥 Watch to learn how CHPC implemented a modern, tape-based backup solution with Spectra Logic — and why tape data storage is having a resurgence. Read the full Spectra x University of Utah case study here: https://lnkd.in/dDpKcT28 #TapeStorage #HPC

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