Welcome to another episode of Telemetry Now. Today's episode is going to be a little bit different. Yes, we're talking about tech, but we're talking about careers and specifically presales engineering.
Joining me today is Sean McGinley, a presales engineer at Kentik, to talk about the different titles that people use for presales engineering, what the role entails, what the career path looks like.
So I'm really excited about this episode because it has a very special place in my heart. I was a presales engineer for some years and absolutely loved it. So I'm looking forward to today's show.
My name is Philip Gervasi, and this is Telemetry Now.
Hey, Sean. Thanks so much for joining today. It really is great to have you. I love having folks from Kentik on. You're relatively new to Kentik, I do want to talk about But also, I love your background.
There's so many parallels to my own history as an engineer and then in presale, so really looking forward to digging in.
But before we do, before we hit the the old record button today, you made a comment that you you play golf, but you're not a golfer. Maybe you can explain a little bit about what you mean by that.
Well, I I I look like I just started, and my play looks like I just I mean, everything about the game, I've just not gotten better over a twenty year span but I've played this game. I have not gotten better, but I do enjoy being out there and swinging the clubs, being with friends. It's, you know, a good that part is wonderful. But, you know so I can't call myself a golfer.
I'm always I'm still shooting over a hundred. It's just it it is what it is. And, you know, I've taken lessons. YouTube has destroyed the game in the sense that, you know, there's so many people with tips.
Oh, yeah. And and that, you know, you're changing constantly, and that's never a good idea.
Oh, you don't develop that consistency and that that technique. Yeah. I get it. I get it. Sometimes I wonder, like, I configure routers, but I'm not an engineer.
Something like that. With you. So and and, Sean, you're also on the East Coast.
Know, I'm in I'm in New York, and you're down in the Virginia area, specifically in Richmond. Is that right?
Just east of Richmond in Providence Forge. I'm right in between Richmond and Williamsburg.
Excellent. Beautiful area. I love it.
Oh, is.
Yeah. I'd like to dive in now, you know, into your background, and and you could share whatever you like, of course. I mean, you're our guest today, so as much personal and professional that you'd like to share that gives some color and context to what we're gonna talk about today, which is what it is to be in pre sales, what pre sales engineering is all about. Certainly got to define some of those terms, that's for sure. But tell us a little bit about your background, how you got into the role here at Kentik, specifically in pre sales.
Sure. So I I started out as a hands on network engineer working those late night cutovers, troubleshooting circuits, building data centers. Over time, I I realized that I liked the conversations that happened before the technology was deployed. So, and then, of course, helping customers figure out what they needed and, how it could make their, operations better. That really led me into the presales role.
And I got here. I was doing an audit for one of our larger customers, and I met my current account rep as well as the customer support rep and started using the product and became a big fan.
Okay. So you were a trad engineer, if you will. Right? Traditional network engineer turning a virtual and physical wrench.
And then you got the presales bug. Right? I do. I totally track with that because that's exactly what I did.
I was a VAR engineer for many years and loved it.
Then got into pre sales. For me, it was a little bit more number one, I didn't wanna do like midnight cutovers anymore on Friday. Yeah. So that was getting old. I was in my like early mid thirties at that point.
And then also, like the idea of the variable comp. You know, that was that was good. Yeah. At least a portion of your income being variable. I like that. And and I also really liked being customer facing. Now, mean, you're you're customer facing when you're an engineer anyway working for VARs because I'm working directly with the customer on on building the thing.
Not always. A lot of the time, it's the middle of the night and the customer is home snoozing and I'm doing the work by myself. But certainly, there's a customer facing element But not like presales where you're walking through week after week after month, you know, especially on big projects where it takes a long time to build the the architecture and And the the bill of materials, things like that. So, yeah, definitely, I got the bug for it as well.
So so now you're in presales at Kentik. Right?
I I gotta ask though, like, what does that mean? And I don't mean necessarily at Kentik. I just mean, in your mind, this term presales.
Yeah.
You you you we're using the term sales, which many an engineer have an aversion to. So let's let's let's put that out there. So is presales engineering a type of engineering? How does it relate to sales specifically? Is it part of the sales team? Like, where where where does it fit?
So presales is is the technical side of the sales process. So it's where technology meets business. So we we help customers understand what a solution can can do and how it fits their environment and whether it actually solves their problem. It's it's less about closing a deal and more about building trust and a technical road map to success, I think.
Yeah. And which takes time. Right?
It it does.
And and building that relationship, like you said, something that I enjoy. But it but for for me, I think that one of the ways that you're successful doing that, building that trust, building that relationship, and then ultimately building the technical architecture. Right? It does require a lot of experience as a traditional engineer, if you will. Right?
It does. And when I worked at the law firms, the lawyers, they were my customers, right? They were a tough crowd. But you're also part translator and part problem solver and part strategist.
So, you know, the the idea is we take those complex technical ideas, explain them in clear business terms. And I was always pretty good at that. We do the demos. We design proof of concepts.
We guide customers through technical validation. The goal is just to make sure the customer gets a solution that truly works for them and not just one that looks good on paper.
Yeah. Yeah. That that's a good point. Not one that just looks good on paper because I I do remember working with the account managers, the salespeople.
Right? The the the pure sales. They they got the meetings. They they did all that.
Often, was like their kid was on the same basketball team as customer's kid, you know, that kind of thing.
Sure.
And we're in the meeting, and I'm already sort of level setting sort of, you know, the account manager is, like, promising something that breaks the laws of physics. And I'm like, no. No. No. No. We can't quite do that.
But let's talk about what your needs are or what your problem is that you're trying to solve, and then let's build a solution around it. So so I really felt like though being part of the sales motion, you know, that that's something. I still got to be an engineer. Right.
I I wasn't necessarily standing at a crash cart in a data center. I get it. But you still got to be an engineer very much. Pro a problem solver, like you said.
I I really enjoyed that a lot.
Me too.
Yeah. Yeah. I I say this to my boss here at Kentik, and maybe I shouldn't. But, you know, when I was in presales, that was my favorite job.
I love what I do for Kentik. Don't get me wrong. But I really enjoyed being in presales because it really scratched that itch of being an engineer and being customer facing and being a problem solver and building something all at the same time.
Agreed. Agreed.
Yeah. So let let's talk about the titles. Is there because at Kentik, what is your official title?
Solutions engineer.
Solutions engineer. So you're engineering a solution. Got it. I was a solutions architect.
Oh, okay.
What what is do you have an understanding what the difference is between these terms?
Yeah. I I they overlap. Right? But but there is a subtle subtle difference where my job is typically customer facing during the sales cycle. So it's more involved in the demos, the presentations, the proof of concepts, where a solutions architect tends to focus more on design, design depth and post sales handoff. I think in some companies, the titles are really interchangeable. Yeah.
In others, the architect goes deeper into the implementation, but both are the same both share the same DNA, I guess, translating needs into solutions.
Yeah. And both in the presales organization, whether that's part of sales, you know, more broadly or not, but definitely part of the presales organization.
Yeah, I found that depending on the company that would define the terms differently, but very, very so that therefore what I'm about to say very, very loosely.
Engineering or pre sales engineering, found to be walking the customer through those things, like you said, maybe a POC, maybe some demos to show how a solution works.
Probably very akin to what you're doing here at Kentik. Walking through like, here are the problems that we can solve with Kentik platform, here are the bells and whistles and the features, but also these are the different components that you need to be aware of, let me show you how it Right.
When I was a solutions architect, I didn't really do that. So let's say I was showing a customer, like or rather talking to a customer about a WAN refresh. And we would go into an eyeball deep technical conversation about SD WAN and say, know, this is at the time, it was like something new, and they needed help understanding what that technology was. Right.
Maybe getting a lay of the land of the different SD WAN vendors. Yeah. And then and then, of course, what their specific requirements were, technical requirements and business requirements, like what latency requirements they had for their, like, MRI scans over the public Internet, you know, things like that. Sure.
And, like, okay. That'll help us determine what kind of an architecture, what kind of backhaul, talking about their security requirements. But I never got into like, then let's go into the platform and start clicking around and let me show you how it works. Never did that.
Never did So I've always seen that as the distinction between a solutions engineer and a solutions architect.
But I do agree with you. Like you said, there's there's ton of overlap. It really depends on, you know, the the terminology and the nomenclature used at the particular company. Right? Yeah. But both presales for sure.
Yeah. Agreed.
Yeah. Yeah. So what what are the main goals then? Is it to just I'll I'll tell you. I can I know it depends on the account manager you're working with?
Yeah.
But in your mind, what what are the main goals of a of a presales person?
So salespeople focus on why the customer should buy business value, pricing, and contracts where I hope they don't get mad at me for saying that, but the presales focus is on how it works and why it will succeed technically.
Salesperson's gonna close the deal. The presales engineer ensures it's the right deal. And together, we create that long term customer relationship. It's not a one time transaction.
So I think that's really how we're different. But sometimes you're paired with somebody that's, like here at Kentik, I have a fabulous account rep who knows the product very well and what a difference that makes. So we work very well together.
Yeah. I found that sales folks that used to be engineers, that that's great.
It really helps a lot. Yeah. It helps disarm certain things. But but certainly, do agree with you that this idea of presales in our realm of technology is really, I believe, the driving force behind closing new business about developing those long term relationships with customers.
Whether you're a vendor like Kentik or you're like with a VAR, again I was with VARs, the relationships were mostly built on professional services since we weren't selling. I mean we were adding a little margin on hardware from Cisco and Juniper and etcetera, but certainly our main business was professional services. But where's the value? What is the value?
And the value was in the skill of designing the thing, the skill of understanding the nuance of the technologies and the gotchas, you know, from having turned those physical and virtual wrenches. Understood some of those gotchas of, you know, these boxes do really well in an but not in an active active. Let's look at a different type of licensing model. They're like, how did you know that?
Like, I knew that because I got burnt in the middle of the night, my man. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
And that that's happened to me. I remember working with a customer just north of New York City, and it was a data center thing. We were looking at, you know, different firewall solutions for their for their data center.
And the deployment ended up going a particular direction because of those kinds of experiences that I had. But I agree with you, that's where the relationship with the customer comes. That's where the credibility and the trust comes from. So I really, really appreciate what you do in presales and the concept of presales for that reason. I mean, you know, again, working with great account reps Yeah.
That are able to find opportunities because Oh, yeah.
You know, that's kinda what makes business world work, you know, finding new opportunities and closing the business. And also great project managers that can coordinate all the craziness of a of a big implementation and and protect engineers from angry customers. That's always nice, that buffer. Yeah.
But it's the presales folks that drive that and that develop that relationship. You know? That that I I really believe, like, what you do, Sean, is why customers come back over and over. Obviously, the product has to be good.
Right? The product has to work.
So Sure. Well, you know what? That's that's what makes my job easy is, you know, when you believe in a product, it's it's it's easy to sell it Yeah. And show its value.
Yeah. And back to another point you made, the customers often said to me, how did you do that? Or where'd you get that? And I tell them, I never learned anything from being right.
So I've gotten burned. You know what I mean? Something something like that's always happened to you, and you never forget it.
You don't. I know. It becomes etched in your memory forever. Those are the the hardest lessons, but some of the best lessons.
Agreed.
Agreed. Yeah. So so then how does presales compare to, like, pure sales? Because you're still, quote, unquote, selling, and you talked about the engineering component. But so how would you say they compare and and they're different then?
Because you're not you're not outright engineering the solution. You're not outright in the data center. You're not in you know, standing at the rack.
You know, it it so a lot of times, I you know, ninety nine percent of my current customer base, they they have change control windows. And more times than not, I'm offering to be there with them. Really? Oh, yeah. Sure. I I like rolling up my sleeves, getting my hands dirty.
The account rep, not so much.
Don't they you know, if they can bring something, they'll be there. They'll join you. But, you know, I'm I'm there with the engineers rolling up my sleeves and, you know, doing the technical things that need to get done. But at the at the same time, the account rep's doing things that, you know, I don't really enjoy wouldn't enjoy doing.
Yeah. You know? Cold calls and things of that nature. Getting getting me to a place where I can walk in and just start talking talking technical and showing value. Yeah. So that's that's, I guess, the big difference.
But both have both both are as important as the other.
Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. You would have no one to talk to if the account reps weren't out there finding those opportunities.
And I and I work with some folks that are naturally inclined to that. And it's amazing to see them, like, in a group, like, when we're at an event or something. And You know, you have a a natural salesperson. Oh, yeah.
And they are like, like, they can, like, look at the landscape of people at the event, and they just see the opportunities emerging from the crowd. And then they go and they talk and they develop that relationship and they find the right work. A lot of folks say that I must be good in sales because I I have the gift of gab in in a sense.
You do.
Yeah. Well, I'm not good at sales. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I've been on calls where as a presales engineer, I'm talking to the folks, and it's an initial phone call, but the AM wanted to have, you know, a technical person on the call.
So we're on the call, and we're talking about the technology. And as we near the end of the call, at the end of the the scheduled meeting, I'm like, alright. Well, you know, hope this was helpful for you. You know, let we'll talk you talk to you soon.
And the salesperson jumps in like, well, hey, hang on a second. Hang on a second. Let's talk about your budget for next quarter. What are the next steps?
How would you like us to come back? And what I'd like to do is put a proposal in front of you. Perhaps we'll leave the pricing off of it so we can see if we're on track. And I'm like, oh, I never thought of any of that stuff.
No kidding.
Yeah. I'm sitting I'm thinking of speeds and feeds, like, my brain, you know, it doesn't it doesn't quite work that way.
No. I'm with you.
Yeah.
Which probably is why I love presales because I get to be the engineer and and nerd and stay close to the tech and talk Yep.
But not necessarily in a sales capacity.
So Right.
Right. It's it's like it's it's it's nice to sit back and just watch them do their thing at times. Yeah. Know? Because they're thinking they're thinking in a completely different they have a different strategy than what I'm thinking. I'm thinking, you know, technical, sell it technical and show them what it can do and how it can help them. But they're they're coming up with all these, you know, different scenarios where the play is legit.
Yeah. Yeah. And I love what you said about like, a primary job is to show the value of the product.
Oh, yeah.
You know, whether again, you're at a vendor or you're with a VAR or whatever it happens to be, you're showing the value of the thing that ultimately you're trying to sell, whether it's an overall solution, some kind of an architected solution or a specific product. But for me, and I have some thoughts around this as well, but I want to hear yours. How do you balance the way that you're incentivized? Because especially with VARs, there was margin on hardware.
So there was, you know, an in like a implied or an inherent incentivization to sell more boxes. Yeah. Which may be necessary, but maybe not. But you also wanna make your number that quarter.
Yeah.
And you have all that in pro services. Maybe is it really that many hours for this when you scope the project or maybe and then, of course, the project manager is always gonna add yet another twenty percent no matter what. So I never yeah. I never felt bad about that. But how do you how do you balance that? You personally.
You know, that's that's a great question. And for me, it always comes down to integrity. If you recommend something that doesn't fit, it may help your quarterly number, but it's gonna hurt your credibility really forever. So my my personal thought on this is that the best presales engineers see compensation as a reflection of helping the customer win. So when they succeed, when their network runs smoother or their observability improves, the business grows and so do we. So it's it's a long game mindset for me.
Yeah. It isn't transactional. And how much how much gear can I shove into this statement of work or into this proposal? It's it's more what is the right solution. Right. Because I know, number one, that's gonna make the customer happy.
And from a sales perspective, they'll probably wanna stick with us.
Agreed. Hundred percent.
Stick with with me even as a as a solutions engineer. I that's something that I've noticed. I've had customers reach out to me via DM on LinkedIn or whatever other social media and say, hey. You're oh, you're with so and so now.
Can you hook me up with your, you know, your your sales rep? So, you know, I'd like to I'd like to continue working with you. Yeah. So I think it's it's a great way to keep customers sticky because they're happy because you did the right thing. Yeah. And the money does follow. I mean, are in a nonprofit business.
Sure.
So that is a thing.
Do the right thing because of integrity, like you said, but certainly, the money is gonna follow because you did. It will. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Agreed.
So so then, like, to me you told me a little bit about your own career path, but let's say that somebody and I've seen some other blog posts and heard some podcast about, you know, presales. So I wanna hear from you. What is a typical career path or what do you think could be a what would you recommend as a career path for somebody that wants to get into this as their job?
So I think most of the most presales, it seems, comes from hands on engineering roles. Right?
Yeah.
You got network engineers, CISA admins, cloud architects, security specialists, and the next step is learning to communicate, which you do all the time. You know, if you're, like, working for a company and you're their network admin, you're you're pitching all the time, you know, for budget, you know, for product that that's needed. So I guess when you when you know that you have the communication aspect down, turning technical ideas into or selling it to nontechnical people, that's that's the big leap. Right? Moving moving from doing the work to explaining the work.
Interesting. And many companies also hire support engineers or consultants who are ready to move into a more customer facing role. And I think you also have to be a musician. No, I'm kidding. It seems like everybody in this field at one point was a musician. But I think it relates to that creating aspect as well and enjoying that.
So I got into it You know, I had ten years of being a network administrator for school system and the law firms. And the pitching came easy because I had been doing it for so long. You know? Didn't even didn't even realize it.
Right. What kind of musician are you?
I was.
You know?
Yeah. Those days are are gone, but I I I played hard rock, you know, big Led Zeppelin fan, of course.
Oh, nice. Okay. Yeah. And what was what is your instrument?
Guitar.
You're a guitarist?
Yeah. We're a dime a dozen. Everybody plays guitar.
Yeah. So I guess I shouldn't tell you that I have six guitars to my left right off camera.
Oh, you're kidding me.
Most of which I never pick up anymore. My wife always tells me I need to start playing more and and everything. And I was on Facebook Marketplace just the other day looking for a new half stack, but it's hard for me to pull the trigger on that stuff because I'm cheap.
Well, you know, it's I still do it. I I I got Ableton. I bought that the Scarlet piece to interface with the computer. And that that, you know, now I can and now I can write and, you know, just live in my own little world and create music. Right? Yeah. But what's what's your preferred guitar?
Like, of the series?
Yeah. Well, preferred is is tough because it really depends on my mood. Like, what's your favorite band? What's your favorite song?
I I I like so many genres. This morning, I was listening to Dream Theater. I love progressive metal. Oh, yeah.
Yesterday, I was listening to Billy Joel. Very, very different. But, you know, it depends. My new favorite band is called Porcupine Tree.
If you've heard of them, they are a progressive rock band that is less metal than dream theater, but still very technically advanced and creative in their their sound. I grew up in the grunge days.
I was in high school in the early nineties, so I have a very special place in my heart for Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Stunt Double Violets, Allison Chains Absolutely.
And all those sound garden.
Oh, yeah. Me too.
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, you know, what's funny is going back into presales, I I agree with you. That's one of the things that I really, really love about presales is being creative.
Yeah. You know, working with customers and not just knowing syntax, but working with customers to design an overall solution, like, okay. What is the what is the real problem here that we're facing? Sometimes it's the customer doesn't even know, you know, and you're you know, they they they're they're like, well, we're in for a hardware refresh, and, you know, we have e rate money or something like that, so we wanna replace all our closet switches.
You're like, okay. Alright. Well, I can I can do an order? That's fine. But what's what's going on in your network?
And all all of a sudden, you start discovering, like, what what some, you know, core issues are in their operations that you can resolve as part of a refresh and really help that customer.
Yeah, we're making margin on boxes so that doesn't hurt too. But it's interesting that you brought that up about being creative because I I really see presales as as very much that.
Me too.
I guess I guess traditional engineering is too because you you are, you know, figuring out, like, what is the well, you you know what I'm trying to say. Like, you're trying to figure out the specific answer to a technical problem. You're, you know, you're you're how do I run this fiber through this ladder rack? You know? So there's an element of creativity there for sure.
There really is. There really is.
So you believe that you'd you you know, to get into presales, you you really should have a foundation of engineering, hands on engineering experience.
It definitely helps.
When customers I think with customer sense that you've been in their shoes, which I have, you know, troubleshooting outages or managing production systems, get or you you earn instant credibility. But the key is balance. Enough technical depth to understand the problem and enough empathy and communication skill to connect with the person across the table. So but, yeah, you gotta have the hands on experience to some degree.
It's it it it helps make the job easier, but you you know, I've I've I've always had a passion for learning.
So I you know, I'll dive in on anything. But yeah. I think that's it's a it definitely helps.
Yeah. Would you consider getting into presales almost a promotion then from from traditional?
Yeah. I kinda I kinda do. Know? It it takes everything that I enjoyed being a a network engineer and kind of took away some of the hours, the long hours that I would have and then those those change controls in the middle of the week or in the weekends. But I enjoyed doing that as well. I just realized that this is something I would enjoy more.
Yeah. I think I agree. That's a tough one, and I and I didn't think of that question till just now. So I don't have a good answer for, you know, even myself.
But My off the cuff answer to you, Sean, is that I think it is a promotion in in a lot of ways. Yeah. And of our world, I think it is. I mean, you make a great living as a good high level engineer.
Sure.
Right.
But when you get into presales, one, you have better hours like you just said.
Two, if you're good at presales and you get hooked up with a good salesperson or team of salespeople that get, you know, great opportunities and you're good in presales, it could be much more lucrative as well.
Agreed.
So it's a promotion in that sense.
And, you know, you get to do you know, one thing that I I I will say is when you're part of the sales organization, you get to expense a lot more stuff. Yeah.
When I was an engineer, I expensed almost nothing, and I'm going to customer sites and the project manager, like, why did you do this thing? Why did you get a steak? I'm like, I didn't expense any food that day except for that dinner, so leave me alone. Yeah. When you're in sales, presales, part of the sales organization, it's like, you're you're encouraged to take customers out all the time. Like, you know, if you're you're at a meeting, let me take you out to lunch after we're done. You know?
Yeah. I mean, it it really is about that relationship building too. So, you know, those soft skills when you when you chitchat over lunch and and things like that are really important. But but you did say something I wanna go back to. Very, very important, I think.
And a big struggle for me. Well, no, it still is a big struggle for me being in technical marketing because I'm not really hands on anymore. How do you stay as a pre sales engineer, whatever your title happens to be, how do you stay current on those latest technologies that are like, that's exactly why you're in that meeting is to present. You're not in there talking about Spanning Tree and CatOS. You're talking about the latest stuff because that's what the customer is looking for. How do you stay up on that?
Yeah. You know, it's constant learning is just part of the job. You know, I spend time every every week reading release notes Lab testing new products, which, by the way, you know, as a presales engineer, I've I've I have finally had the lab that I dreamed of. Oh, Expense things. Right?
But, you know, talking with peers, I also learned directly from the customer. Some of the most advanced environments in the world are are at our customers' sites. So you quickly realize staying current isn't just about the the tech skills. It's about understanding where the industry is heading So you can help your customers get there first.
So you gotta stay on top of things. You know? You've gotta you've stay but, I mean, this job does that for you. Every time you know, it's like every every customer's a new job, a new project. They all do things differently, it seems.
So, you know, that's the exciting part about it. But, yeah, just day to day activities will keep you current.
Yeah. Yeah. I I agree with you on the lab part. I I had a lab at my in my basement when I was a VAR engineer, like In the field, And I would have a lab where I would, to an extent, build out the solution that I was working on, you know, not designing necessarily, but that I got handed by the pre sales engineer. Right?
And as much as I could, whether it was at the time in, like, GNS three, then we had things like viral.
Now I use Container Lab a lot, you know, whatever it happens to be.
And, well, at one point, I had a lot of hardware, like a couple of racks, full high racks, which was a big pain in the neck. Sure.
And so I would do that. And then when I got into presales, I realized I still need to do that. So I would You do. Like, I would design a big ICE project, Cisco ICE.
Right? Okay. And like, how do I deploy dot one x on this platform for these interfaces on this particular OS? And how does that policy get pushed out properly over the air for wireless?
Things like that. So I would practice. Not practice, but I would run through the configurations. I would do all that.
I would get as much as I could from the customer's network information Sure. Replicate it to an extent at home, and I would do that. And I I would clock those hours, you know Yeah. For the project.
Sure. I would do that. And then when I went to go deploy the thing, some of it was even copy paste Yeah. Because I I just did it at home over the weekend or the week prior.
Nice. But a lot of it was, you know, I I understood the nuance and like, okay. I gotta make sure this policy is tied over here to their active directory and this do people still use active directory? I don't even know.
Yeah. And you know what? You would know I I I cut my teeth on Novell.
Yeah. And And they references to things and I'm like, wait a minute. Is that really still a thing? I don't know.
Yeah, I hear you. I thought that was one of the greatest structures that there was in networking, NMS. I was a big fan of that.
Yeah, so yeah, I think that having a lab in presales, whether it's relatively simplistic or something elaborate, is very, very, very important. Agreed. And I think that's to be very accurate in what you design and ultimately what gets built for your customer. So that's one thing, and then understanding some of that nuance. But then, I like how you talked about that you're bringing value to the customer. A lot of the value that I brought in presales was almost educational.
It might be the product, specifically, how does this solution work? How does this platform work? And and what problems does it solve? And that's true. But a lot of it was like, we really don't you know, we we need to refresh our data center. We wanna move to a three tier to a class or CLO design, and we don't exactly understand how that works.
What kind of overlays do we use and why? And so I ended up sometimes having an hour long conversation about what VXLAN is and why we need it, and layer two adjacencies, layer three, what a VTEP is, all that and very educational. So as new technologies comes out, I find that in technical marketing, but also when I was in presales, listening to the podcasts, reading a specific set of blog posts that I find good blog posts, certain YouTube channels, things like that really, really important. And then being part of various technical communities. Attend various events on my own apart from any, you know, anything with Kentik or any other VAR I was with, just go to this thing.
And I found those to be, like, indispensable and turn that value right around and hand it over to customers. You know?
There you go. Yeah. That's a that's a great way to do it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So, Sean, it has been great to talk to you and get to really get to know you a little bit more. Yeah. Being relatively new at Kentik, we really haven't spoken much. So it was really cool that our first real deep conversation is recorded for the entire world to hear.
There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Likewise. I enjoyed this.
Great. Great. Yeah. And I I do look forward to having you on again, especially after you get settled in, and you have some really interesting war stories to share, which I would love to hear your perspective on as you're as you're working with customers out in the field.
Sure, I'd love to.
Great, great. So for our audience, thanks so much for sticking with us today for this little bit of a different episode, which I thoroughly enjoyed and I hope you did too. So for now, thanks so much for listening. Bye bye.