Sales Engineer Assistant

An autonomous agent that supports technical sales — preparing product demos, building proof-of-concept environments, answering technical questions from prospects, and creating technical proposals that bridge product capabilities with customer requirements.

When to Use This Agent

Choose Sales Engineer Assistant when:

• You need to prepare a technical demo tailored to a prospect's requirements
• You are building a proof-of-concept or trial environment for a potential customer
• You need to answer technical due diligence questions (security, integration, scalability)
• You want to create a technical implementation proposal that maps requirements to product features

Consider alternatives when:

• You need sales strategy and deal coaching (use a sales champion agent)
• You need post-sale technical implementation (use an implementation consultant agent)
• You need product documentation (use an API documenter agent)

Quick Start

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# .claude/agents/sales-engineer.yml
name: sales-engineer-assistant
description: Support technical sales with demos, POCs, and proposals
agent_prompt: |
  You are a Sales Engineer. Support the sales process technically:

  1. Analyze prospect's technical requirements and environment
  2. Map product capabilities to customer needs (gap analysis)
  3. Prepare tailored product demos with relevant use cases
  4. Build and manage proof-of-concept environments
  5. Answer technical due diligence questionnaires
  6. Create technical implementation proposals

  Principles:
  - Focus on the prospect's use case, not every feature
  - Be honest about gaps — credibility wins more deals than features
  - Make the demo tell a story: problem → solution → outcome
  - POCs should prove value in under 2 weeks

Core Concepts

Technical Sales Process

Stage	SE Activity	Deliverable
Discovery	Technical requirements gathering	Requirements matrix
Demo	Tailored product demonstration	Demo recording + follow-up
POC	Proof-of-concept with customer data	POC success criteria report
Evaluation	Answer technical due diligence	Completed questionnaire
Proposal	Technical implementation plan	Technical proposal document

Demo Preparation Framework

Demo Preparation Checklist:
  1. Pre-Demo Research:
     □ Industry and company background
     □ Current tech stack (from discovery call notes)
     □ Key technical stakeholders and their roles
     □ Specific pain points to address
     □ Competitor products they are evaluating

  2. Demo Environment Setup:
     □ Sample data relevant to prospect's industry
     □ Integrations configured for their tech stack
     □ Custom branding/white-labeling if available
     □ Backup plan if live demo fails (recorded demo)

  3. Demo Script Structure (30 minutes):
     Minutes 0-5:   Recap pain points from discovery
     Minutes 5-15:  Show solution to pain point #1 (most important)
     Minutes 15-22: Show solution to pain point #2
     Minutes 22-27: Show unique differentiator
     Minutes 27-30: Q&A and next steps

  4. Post-Demo:
     □ Follow-up email with demo recording
     □ Answer open technical questions within 24 hours
     □ Provide POC proposal if prospect is interested

Gap Analysis Template

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## Technical Gap Analysis — [Prospect Name]

### Requirement → Product Capability Mapping

| # | Requirement | Status | Our Capability | Notes |
|---|------------|--------|---------------|-------|
| 1 | SSO with Okta | ✅ Full | SAML 2.0 + OIDC | Native integration |
| 2 | API rate: 10K req/min | ✅ Full | 50K req/min | Exceeds requirement |
| 3 | On-premise deployment | ⚠️ Partial | Hybrid only | Cloud + VPN option |
| 4 | SOC 2 Type II | ✅ Full | Certified | Report available |
| 5 | Custom workflow engine | ❌ Gap | Not available | Roadmap Q3 2025 |

### Gap Mitigation:
- Requirement #3: Propose hybrid deployment with encrypted VPN tunnel
- Requirement #5: Offer API-based custom workflows as interim solution

Configuration

Option	Type	Default	Description
demoFormat	string	"live"	Demo format: live, recorded, interactive
pocDuration	number	14	POC duration in days
gapAnalysis	boolean	true	Generate gap analysis document
technicalDepth	string	"detailed"	Depth: overview, detailed, deep-dive
includeIntegrations	boolean	true	Cover integration capabilities
competitorComparison	boolean	false	Include competitor comparison

Best Practices

1. Never demo a feature you cannot deliver — Showing functionality that is on the roadmap but not yet built destroys trust when the prospect discovers it during POC. Be transparent about gaps and present workarounds or timeline commitments instead. "We don't have that today, but here's how customers achieve the same outcome using our API" is a credible response.

2. Build POCs with clear, measurable success criteria — Define 3-5 specific criteria before the POC starts: "API response time < 200ms with prospect's data volume," "SSO login works with their Okta instance," "10 users can complete the workflow end-to-end." Without criteria, the POC becomes an open-ended evaluation that never concludes.

3. Use the prospect's real data in demos when possible — A demo with "Acme Corp" sample data is forgettable. A demo with the prospect's actual product catalog, user list, or workflow feels like a working implementation. Ask for anonymized sample data before the demo and load it into a demo environment.

4. Answer security questionnaires proactively — Maintain a pre-filled security questionnaire template (CAIQ, SIG, VSA) that covers 80% of common questions. This reduces turnaround time from weeks to days and signals security maturity to the prospect's security team.

5. Follow up on open technical questions within 24 hours — Every unanswered question is a reason to choose a competitor. Create an "open questions" tracker during the demo and assign internal owners. Even if the full answer takes a week, acknowledge the question within 24 hours with a timeline for the complete response.

Common Issues

Live demo fails during the presentation — The API is slow, the database connection drops, or the feature does not work as expected under specific conditions. Always have a pre-recorded demo backup. Start the live demo with "I'll be showing this live, and I also have a recorded version if we run into any technical issues."

POC scope expands beyond what was agreed — The prospect keeps adding requirements during the POC, pushing it past the deadline. Lock POC scope in a signed POC agreement before starting. Any additional requirements should be logged for post-sale implementation and should not block the POC success criteria evaluation.

Technical due diligence delays the deal by weeks — The security team sends a 200-question questionnaire that takes 3 weeks to complete. Maintain a questionnaire answer database that is updated quarterly. Use AI-assisted matching to pre-fill answers from the database, reducing completion time from weeks to days.