Presales and Sales - Out of Alignment?

We often hear that presales folks and their sales counterparts are “out of alignment”.  Two questions:

1. In what ways are they out of alignment, in your experience?

      For example,

• Sales offering POC’s too early or without need.
• Demos being requested without sufficient Discovery information.
• Disagreement on the amount and type of Discovery information needed.

2. What tools, process steps or mandates have you implemented that is helping to address these alignment challenges?

     For example,

• Requiring pre-demo preparation meetings.
• The use of (reasonably complete) Situation Slides or similar construct prior to assigning a presales resource for a demo.
• Discovery documents.

Let’s see what we can do to help close these alignment gaps…!