After a work-life lived in first market research, followed by implementing CRM and Business Intelligence, I recently realized that my career has focused on a few key things.
- I have consistently worked to make people more capable in their own work. Be it by data, by conducing in depth interviews to help shape product development, or by helping to automate a sales process, all my work has focused on making others more effective. And I kind of love that.
- Data, Knowledge, and Analysis – these are the soul of everything I do. Across decades of experience, the DNA of all good work is taking what has happened (data), what people know (knowledge), and bringing it together (analysis) into something that is actionable.
- I am a teacher, first and foremost. I started my work life (albeit very briefly) as an English teacher. And I have a deep love of taking my experiences, along with all the amazing advances in technology, and converting it all into learning for others.
- Sales (especially around services, consulting, and solutions) is an inflection point. It is a moment of immense importance for many organizations. It is a chance for client’s to make decisions that will shape the coming years of their company. I’ve seen CRM systems reshape how a company quantifies its financial future. I’ve seen analytics and dashboards literally alter a companies trajectory as it finds new insights that guide future steps. And that all happened because they were sold on a vision of what can be.
Bringing that all together, I’ve come to realize that maybe companies that sell services, software, consulting, and solutions might benefit from some help on how to do the technical side of sales better. Call is presales, sales engineering, technical sales, or any other name, we often take the best and brightest in delivery and we ask them to start selling. This is often something they know little about.
I’ve seen amazingly successful delivery folks just stink up the room in building a case for buying a solution, service, or product. I’ve also seen people who were mediocre in delivery absolutely shine in presales. The main thing to note is that presales is a bridge function. It connects sales to the technology. And it is, in its heart, more a storytelling position than anything else.
I created the Presales Framework after hearing from CEOs, sales, and product/solution folks that too often, it felt like getting someone who was good at presales felt like the luck of the draw. Quite simply, almost every presales person I know (and I know a ton) came from the technical side, not the sales side. And the few that came from the sales side were always weak on the technology and had to rely on others once things got deep.
So if your organization might benefit from some help in getting better at technical sales, please get in touch. I am happy to share what we will be doing with the Presales Framework.