Amplify Presales’ Voice!

 

For years, many presales leaders, managers, and staff have lamented their comparative lack of a substantial “voice” in discussions of sales opportunities, particularly in comparison to the strength of the “voice” of their sales counterparts.

This can change!

Given that it is data that drives decisions (hopefully!), presales players now have the ability to generate the data necessary to support their opinions and causes. Tools like Homerun, PreSkale, Provarity, Elvance, Vivun, and others provide the vehicle to track activities and link to resulting outcomes.

Use these tools!

Each piece of data that is entered into these tools adds a fraction of a decibel to the presales’ voice within your organization. A handful of data is a whisper; a bit more and you have a murmur. Each contribution of data increases the volume, turning it into a compelling voice, reflecting a fact-based body of information and experience.

Prior to the availability of these tools, individual presales voices were largely unheard. Even presales leadership suffered from a lack of data to support their concerns. The forces of “hope” repeatedly overcame those of “reason.”

Presales information management tools act as amplifiers, enabled by the accumulation, aggregation, and analysis of sufficient data. Now, the ability to reduce the thousands of demos wasted due to a lack of discovery, pointless POCs, ridiculous RFP responses is at hand. With adequate data, perhaps we can also address the biggest competitor of all for many vendors: The No Decision outcome. 

Deliver the data!

Document your time; document your observations, document your discovery notes, document what happens in your POCs, and other presales activities. Where possible, track the time you invest and note the outcomes. The richer the data, the stronger your voice will grow.

“But I hate to enter data…!”

So do I. But this is an investment in your future. You can significantly impact your organization’s processes and decisions through the act of recording the parameters available to you.

• How much discovery information do you receive prior to demos? Document it!
• How many demos are a waste of time? Record them!
• How many POCs are fruitlessly consuming massive amounts of presales resources? Document the details!
• How many sales opportunities are pursued in spite of poor product fit? Record it!
• How many deals are lost due to the lack of a feature? Enter that info!

Bonus for Great Demo! and Doing Discovery practitioners and leaders: Capture Situation Slide information in these tools and track wins, losses to competition, and losses to No Decision, along with other parameters such as product fit to boost the amplification of your voice.

Do it for your organization; do it for your team; do it for yourself!