Best practices for engineering client advocates.

1. © 2013 Jay Kruemcke
Practical Tips for Effective
Technical Advocacy
Jay Kruemcke
jay@kruemcke.com
Kruemcke.com
@chromeaix @phastflyer
A blog on this topic can be found on
http://kruemcke.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/practical-tips-for-technical-advocates/

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© 2013 Jay Kruemcke
How do developers become a technical advocates?
Pulled in to resolve a critical problem
– Wonderful relationships can be built on terrible problems
Assist with a sales proposal / RFP
– You best know the product capabilities
Assigned to strengthen relationship
– Important or vulnerable client
Beta programs
– Assigned to assist the client with the process
Volunteered (or “got” volunteered)
– You (or your boss) wanted you to meet “real” clients
…

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Technical Advocate Key Goals
Positively improve the client and client sales team success. Your
overall goal is to make the client and the sales team more successful
by helping the client to use your technology more effectively.
Establish a good relationship with the client sales team. All client
interaction should be with the support and knowledge of the client
sales team. You cannot be a successful advocate without them.
Establish a good relationship with the client. The better you
understand your client and build a rapport with them, the more
successful you will be at being their advocate.
Focus on helping clients exploit technology to meet the needs of
their business through information technology
Help your client exploit other resources. There are many
resources to help clients be successful including your services team,
support team and other developers. Use them!
A Technical Advocate is a technical advisor who leverages their deep knowledge of technology
and the relationships within the engineering lab to positively influence client satisfaction and
revenue in an account.

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• Establish a rapport with the client to allow you to act as a trusted advisor to help them
successfully use your technology
• Understand the client environment:
• Topology & applications
• Future Goals and directions
• Organization structure and goals
• Actively engage with the sales / client account team to support the short and long-term
account strategies
• Provide high level assistance with architecture, performance, configurations, etc.
• Channel escalations when normal processes fail
• Feedback information to the engineering lab
• A remote systems engineer
• A pre-sales support offering
• An alternative to fee based services
Technical Advocates should not be:
• A non-commission sales job
• A critical situation manager
• A requirements solicitor
Technical advocates should not circumvent the normal support processes.
Role of the Technical Advocate

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Successful versus Unsuccessful Advocate Relationships
Successful
Regular communications with client
team
Regular communications with the
client
Client sometimes initiates
communications with advocate
Advocate understands client
environment including key
applications
Advocate understands how client IT is
organized
Advocate knows how to leverage
other resources in lab
Unsuccessful
Х Sporadic communications with client
team
Х Sporadic or no communications with
client
Х All communications are one-way
Х Client doesn’t know you exist
Х Client team only contacts you when
there is a problem
Х Advocate knows little about client
environment
Х Advocate doesn’t understand the client
organization
Х Advocate tries to do it all

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What is a Technical Advocate supposed to do?
Get involved fast! Contact the client / sales team for
the client and tell them you are their Technical
Advocate
Provide your contact info and a short biography that
describes your skills and ways that you may be able
to help support sales activity or to help resolve client
issues.
Understand your account. Meet periodically with
your client team to understand:
– Discuss the account strategy with the client team and how
your technology fits into that strategy
– Inquire about the status of recent sales proposals and what
the next steps will be
– Inquire about any unresolved issues related to your
technology within the account
– Participate in account planning sessions

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Best practices for Technical Advocates
Maintain contact by communicating regularly
– A simple email now and again works wonders
– Have a conference call at the beginning of each quarter
Keep notes
– It’s hard to remember clientdetails especially if you have multiple accounts
Don’t circumvent the Support process
– It can cause problems for you and the client
Don’t promise the client new function or solicit requirements
– Even committed plans are often changed
– Always put caveats around any statement of future directions
– Any commitments should come from senior management
Keep the sales account team in the loop
– CC the sales account team if you are working directly with the client
Provide status to your area coordinator
– Shows the value your provide to the client

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You must work through the client sales team to be an effective advocate. Here are
some of the characteristics of a client sales team:
Busy
– Be respectful of their time
Technology knowledge varies
– Don’t expect everybody to be an expert (or care)
Focused on solving a business problem
– Technology is not a primary interest
Calendar driven compensation
– Activity focus changes throughout the year
Several different roles in the team
– Different responsibilities and interest
Some Characteristics of Sales Teams

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Organization of Sales Teams
Sector
Accounts
Client Executive
or Sales Rep
Hardware
Sales Leader
Software
Sales Leader
BRAND SPECIALISTSBRAND SPECIALISTS
Services
Sales Leader
BRAND SPECIALISTS
Technical sales specialist resources also assigned

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Meeting the client
Before:
Understand the objective of the meeting. The sales account team should set up the meeting, agenda, and
objective of the meeting. Understand what you need to do to help them
Understand the meeting logistics and dress code
Try not to have a meeting when the client isn’t under unusual stress such as end of year processing or in
a critical situation
Find out who will be in attendance, their role in the company, what potential questions they may ask,
what problems they recently experienced.
Ensure your presentation, and verbal communications are well planned out. What is your message?
Confirm the sales rep has the proper non-disclosure & confidentiality agreements in place
Meeting the client:
Introduce yourself, expertise and background - especially around areas of interest to the client
Set the expectation of what you will be able to do in your advocate role
Tell them you look forward to working long-term with them, that you are there to learn about their
business so you can help them to be successful
LISTEN to the client, their concerns, their challenges so you can look for ways you can help
Don’t push your own agenda onto the client, especially up front in the relationship
After the meeting, have a discussion with the sales rep to agree on the action items and who owns what.
Be responsive with a timely reply to the client with any follow-ups that are your responsibility.

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Communication Tips
Be truthful
– Lies will destroy your credibility
Calibrate your certainty about the future
– Plans change. Make sure the client knows that.
Tell what you know, but not everything you know
– You know a lot more about the technology than is relevant to the
client. Focus only on the information that is relevant
Don’t focus only on product limitations
– It’s important to be honest about product limitations but talking only
about the limitations will not provide an accurate picture
Be realistic
– It’s better to under promise and over deliver

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Scenario: Account team doesn’t respond
Scenario:
– Client account team does not respond to your communications or only contacts you
when there is a problem.
Possible Root Causes:
– Client team doesn’t know you or how you can help
– Client team is “too busy”, particularly around quarter and year end
– Client team doesn’t want to complicate their relationship with the client
Potential Advocate approaches:
– Wear ‘em Down: Reach out to the Client team often and remind them what you can
provide
– Alternative Path: Reach out to the Client Exec if the Power Brand specialist won’t
engage (or vice versa). The Technical Sales Specialist can be a useful way to start
getting involved at a tactical level
– Prove your value: Leverage your expertise to help solve a tactical problem
– Cut your losses: Not all Advocate relationships work out – if you can’t establish a
relationship with the client team after trying lots of different approaches, then it may be
best to stop being an advocate for that account.

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Scenario: Can’t establish a rapport with the client
Scenario:
– Client doesn’t know you exist or can’t be bothered to communicate with the advocate
Possible Root Causes:
– Client doesn’t really know you or how you can help
– Client too busy
– Client team not facilitating the relationship with the client
Potential Advocate approaches:
– Really meet them: Try to figure out how to meet the client face to face. Either at their
location or if they attend a briefing or conference. Phone / email only relationships are
hard
– Persistence: Engage the client (with the client team) regularly. Especially good times
are right after we announce new technology and you could provide in depth
information on your subject area.
– Prove your value: Leverage your expertise to help solve a tactical problem
– Cut your losses: Not all Advocate relationships work out – if you can’t establish a
relationship with the client after trying lots of different approaches, then it may be best
to stop being an advocate for that account.

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Scenario: Advocate as Crit-Sit Manager
Scenario:
– Client team (or Client) reaches out to you to help them solve a bug/problem
Possible Root Causes:
– Client really respects you
– You’ve done this in the past and they know you will do it
– Client team wants to “throw this over the fence” to you
Potential Advocate approaches:
– Acknowledge the Client’s Pain: Yes there is a problem and let the client understand that you
understand their frustration and disappointment. Like everybody else, sometimes they just need
someone to vent to. Don’t take it personally but acknowledge that will solve their problem (note “”,
not “you”)
– Remind the client team/client about how Support escalation works: Unresolved problems
should be escalated through the Support team by the client (e.g. Ask to speak to a manager)
– Resist: We all want to solve the clients problem but you need to push the client team / client to use
the established channels and resources to resolve the issue
– One : Never point the finger of blame at another organization in front of a client. Doing so hurts the
credibility of as a whole and erodes one of the key values of . If you need to have frank discussions
with other teams in your company then do so away from the clients view but remember that we all
make mistakes and the “blame game” doesn’t fix the client’s problem.
– Work in the background: If the problem is within the scope of your technical expertise then offer
to leverage your knowledge of the client by offering help to the Support team – not to the client.
This can help to resolve the issue and keep you from getting into this mess in the future

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Scenario: Dealing with Requirements
Scenario:
– Client (or the Client team) asks for specific changes in a product
Possible Root Causes:
– Client respects you and views you as their interface into the lab
– You’ve done this in the past and they know you will do it
Potential Advocate approaches:
– Understand the request: Understand exactly what the client is looking for – inputs and desired
behavior and the value to the client. Look for alternative ways to achieve the client’s goal since
delivery of new function will generally take a long time. Clients sometimes ask for new functionality
because they don’t understand the current capabilities.
– Explain to the client how product requirements are managed: You need to let them understand
that, just like them, we have more things we want to do than we have the resources to do.
– Validate Opportunity: If the Client team is asking for a function as requirement to close a deal,
make sure that the opportunity for a sale is fully substantiated.
– Process the requirement: Use whatever process your team uses to manage incoming client
requirements and be sure to provide the client contact information.
– Be realistic: Make sure the client has a realistic view of when or if the requirement could be
delivered. Clients always want the new function on the level of software they are currently running
even though that is almost never the possible. Set their expectation low.
– Resist the Urge to Commit: Plan changes happen all the time and even committed items can get
pulled at the last minute due to overriding business needs Any communications about planned
functionality should be layered with caveats such as “plans subject to change without notice”
– Work in the background: Feel free to act internally as an advocate for the client’s requirement,
particularly if there is a strategic benefit for the client and other clients. But be clear to keep any
discussions of trade offs or commitments out of view of the client
The near mythical $20M
opportunity “If you just add …”

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Summary
It takes time and effort to build a high performing relationship
with a client and account team
Client sales teams operate under a different set of priorities
than Engineering does
Building empathy with the person on the other side of
relationship is the key to building rapport and an effective
and rewarding relationship

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© 2013 Jay Kruemcke
Advocate Cheat Sheet
Always take notes!
Establish contact with the client sales team
– In general, you should start with the Brand Sales Specialist and CC the Client Rep.
• Send an email with an introduction and propose an initial meeting with you and the client sales team members
• You may need a series of meetings to get the baseline of information
Introduce yourself:
– Your name, what area you work in
– Technical knowledge that may be relevant to the client
– Past contact with the client
– Previous advocacy with similar clients
– Your goals for the advocacy – what do you want to get out of it an how will it help the client team
Determine the client sales team goal for that advocacy
– Typical goals include increasing sales, improved client satisfaction, turning around poor client perception of
– Watch out if the chief goal is to resolve problems – you aren’t volunteering to be a crit-sit manager
– Look for ways to provide value to the account team and to the client
Start to understand the client
– Internet research of the company (e.g. What they do, where they are, etc.)
– Physical IT locations
– Type of IT equipment
– Chief competitors in the account
– Trends for in the account
• Up? Down? Why?
Start to understand the client organization
– Key contacts and their roles
– Friends in the account
– Enemies in the account
– History of key players (e.g., IT Director came from an Windows/X86 background)
– Client IT Organization –
• Who owns the IT equipment?
• Is IT a service provider to the business units or do the business units own the IT resources and the IT team operate the resources?
Client past history
– Key applications
– Significant recent sales
– Significant failures
– Strategic direction for IT? (e.g., Consolidate, distribute, replace with strategic outsourcing)
– Key problems
Now start building a relationship with the client
– Find an excuse to engage with the customer (Reason of Call)
– Examples: Client briefing, discussion of a specific problem, account planning meeting