Solution Heroes: Ron Whitson & How SEs Can Influence Revenue

Ron: I think a major misconception about our profession is that it’s all about doing demos.

People believe—sadly, even today—that the sales engineer’s (SE)  job is to go in and deliver the demo. When I first started, I thought that was my job too. Over time, I’ve learned it’s so much more than that.

We’re problem solvers. We’re communicators. And I focus on those two things because people don’t buy based on the tech. Even now, in February 2025, people are still buying from people. It’s not just AI agents doing everything quite yet.

So the ability to build relationships, bring value to someone, and be authentic—that’s what puts you in a position to win the business.

Ron: It’s super important. I think we all know SEs who are tools and sellers who are tools—and probably not in the best way. But when there’s a partnership—when you’ve got someone working the opportunity and you’ve got the technical person there alongside them as a partner—that’s when the magic happens.

I’ve been part of some really cool teams that have solved a lot of problems and made a lot of money for our companies. But it was all based on those relationships.

Ron: I think a problem that a lot of leaders run into in presales—and this was true even before the latest market conditions—is career progression.

The best presales people I’ve worked with all share this common trait: They are curious and they want to grow.

But that growth isn’t always a straight, linear path into management or leadership.

Sadly, in many organizations, there aren’t clear promotion paths laid out. So people feel like, “Well, if I can’t be a manager here, I’ll have to leave to get that next step.”

That’s the problem. A lack of clear career progression.

As leaders, we can combat that by investing time in our people.

• Understanding their goals.
• Finding creative ways to provide them with opportunities.
• Letting them lead projects, mentor others, or own strategic relationships with other departments.

Even something small, like leading an internal project, gives someone a chance to flex those muscles and see if they like it. And for leaders, that’s an opportunity to evaluate their potential and coach them forward.

Ron: Again, a lot of this comes back to relationships.

Let me give you three things:

1. Build relationships beyond just sales. If the only people you talk to are sales reps and sales leaders, you’re missing out. You need connections across product, engineering, and marketing.
2. Be in the right conversations. Get involved in discussions where you can add value. And when you’re in those conversations, balance humility with confidence.
3. Think like a business leader. Presales folks tend to be very logical thinkers. But when talking to sales leadership, you need to frame your ideas like a business leader would. That means saying: “Here’s the problem, here’s the solution, and here’s why it benefits you.”

Too often, we assume that because something makes sense, people will get it. But if we don’t articulate the business value, they won’t.

Ron: The key is explaining the why. Presales teams will do almost anything if they understand the purpose. They just don’t want to waste their time.

For example, let’s talk about activity tracking, which is always a hot topic. If you tell presales, “Track all your demos in the CRM,” they’ll roll their eyes. But if you say, “We need this data to justify hiring more SEs,” they’ll actually care.

Smart people hate dumb tasks. Give them a real reason, and they’ll buy in.

Ron: One of the biggest lessons I learned came from actually stepping into a sales role myself.

I was leading a presales team at IBM when an opportunity came up to become an Account Executive. I took the role and spent three years as a seller. It completely changed my perspective.

I realized that sellers aren’t just skipping steps to be difficult—they’re trying to hit revenue targets. They’re making business decisions. As presales leaders, we need to have empathy for sellers. If they push for a demo without discovery, ask why. Maybe there’s a legitimate reason.

But it can’t be the expectation every time. There still need to be systems and processes in place.

Ron: One of my favorite success stories was an RFP demo for a natural gas plant in Australia. They gave us 200 specific requirements and were scoring us in real time during the demo.

Initially, I planned to go requirement-by-requirement, but it felt too disjointed. So I proposed reordering the demo to tell a cohesive story. We asked the client for permission, they agreed, and it completely changed the dynamic.

At the end, they said, “Nobody else did that. You really understand our needs.” We won the deal: $3.6 million.

Ron: Exactly. Now, my biggest fail…

I once had a demo environment running inside a virtual machine on my laptop. On the flight to the meeting, I was making final tweaks, and suddenly SQL Server threw an error.

I ignored it. When I landed and restarted my laptop, the entire database was corrupt. The actual file supporting all the tables and everything in my demo was driven from the database.

There was no backup because it was all just files on the hard drive. And so it was essentially the backup file that corrupted.  At that point, I’m just freaking out. You know, turning red and feeling hot. All this work was lost and I’ve got this meeting coming up in a couple hours.

So, I rebuilt the demo in the back of a car using some basic stuff and a couple screenshots. During lunch, I stayed there typing away as fast as I could to get some other stuff built. We had enough to show them to continue the conversation. I’m sweating now just remembering that story.

At the end of the day, I don’t think there’s anything I could have done. The lesson I’ve finally figured out from that? You cannot prepare for every contingency. Something’s not going to work the way you expect it to. At that point, it’s no longer about blame. It’s about: How do you respond in this situation? How do you react to it?

Ron: There are two things I always come back to:

1. Start with a small step. Don’t let perfection get in the way of progress. Get a V1 out there, even if it’s 75% baked, and iterate from there.
2. Understand your team’s motivations. Not everyone wants to be a leader. But if they just want to “do demos,” ask: Are they delivering impactful, relevant demos?

And if someone is coasting, that’s where leadership really matters. If there’s someone phoning it in, doing the bare minimum, that needs to be fixed quickly. A weak link can poison the entire team’s morale.