Considering Presales? Interviewing? Newly Hired? Check Out This Path to Presales Podcast

I joined Matt Madden for this 1-hour exploration of your first few steps into presales and opportunities to accelerate your journey. We discussed:

• The origins story – and what presales can lead to
• Presales as a cultural ecotone
• Presales beginnings
• “Presales” as a term – what’s in a name?
• Situational fluency
• Doing Discovery and Great Demo! books – when to read
• Enabling an unfair advantage for yourself
• Qualification vs discovery
• Company culture and discovery
• Great Demo! origins – the horror of traditional demos
• Do the Last Thing First!
• An advanced methodology
• Great Demo! third edition organization – two books in one!
• Do the exercises – why?
• Core methodology vs advanced topics
• Storytelling in demos
• Partnering with sales – three scenarios
• A surprising interaction with a seasoned salesperson
• Pre-meetings with seasoned salespeople
• The “Harbor Tours” origins story
• Establishing roles in accord with strengths and weaknesses
• Sales is not easy – no pressure!
• Partition discovery
• Working with new salespeople – “get over it!”
• Mapping roles and laying your cards on the table, mutually
• Structured approaches and processes
• What are hiring managers looking for?
• Three pillars: Situational fluency, product knowledge and use cases, technical acumen
• What else can help you differentiate?
• Passion… aligned with pragmatism
• Dealing with Imposter Syndrome – embrace it (in a way)!
• Dunning Kruger – and Mt. Stupid
• Be conscious of what you may not know…
• “We can’t know all of the answers to all of the questions in the universe…”
• “I don’t know, but I’ll find out…”
• Strong desire to learn and awareness of current knowledge
• Problem-solving skills
• A desire to see customers succeed
• Time-management skills
• Strong documentation and observation skills
• Strong communication skills
• Understand the differences between the “what” and the “how”
• End-results vs how it works
• Some comments about note taking
• Some guidance for presales managers regarding interviewing processes
• “Never Stop Learning” and resources available to you
• The Lunar Module and ongoing learning

You can find this podcast here. Enjoy!