MORE THAN A DEMO: The Sales Engineer's Guide to the Next Era of Technical Selling

** NAASE Featured Book ** — Selected for the North American Association of Sales Engineers (NAASE) Sales Engineering Reading List: sales-engineering.org/sales-engineering-books/page/1

The sales engineer role is changing.

AI is reshaping how buyers buy. Reps are handling more technical conversations. Organizations are demanding more impact from presales teams. And the old boundary between sales and sales engineering is disappearing.

For the sales engineer who has mastered the demo and started asking, “What do I become next?” — this book is the map.

More Than a Demo is a practical field guide for modern sales engineers, solutions consultants, presales leaders, and technical sellers navigating the next era of technical selling. Written from the perspective of a presales leader who came up through retail technology sales, IT support, sales engineering, and SE leadership, this book goes beyond demo mechanics and into the real work that separates average SEs from trusted advisors.

Inside, you’ll learn how to:

• Run discovery that exposes the real business problem, not just the technical request
• Build demos around the customer’s future instead of your product’s feature list
• Earn trust with technical buyers by telling the truth, especially when it costs you
• Structure POCs and trials so they create momentum instead of drift
• Win competitive bake-offs by identifying the customer’s real fear
• Build stronger partnerships with sales reps and multiply your influence
• Protect your calendar, grow your reputation, and move from support resource to strategic asset
• Use AI to accelerate your workflow without outsourcing your judgment
• Navigate the rise of SE-enabled sellers, AI-native presales motions, and SEs who carry a number
• Prove your value to the business with the metrics that matter

This is not a book about button-clicking.

It is a book about trust, judgment, business impact, and the future of a role that is becoming more important — not less — as technical knowledge becomes easier to access.

Whether you are a mid-career sales engineer deciding your next move, a new SE trying to understand the craft, or a presales leader building a modern team, More Than a Demo will help you evolve your role, increase your impact, and become the person customers, reps, and leaders trust when the deal gets hard.

The future of technical selling belongs to the SE who evolves.

This is how you do it.