
Burning Presales
By Mark Green
From Peter Cohan, Don Carmichael and Chris White to Adam Freeman, plus many others, tune in to hear what the industry's best are doing to solve the most nagging of Presales and Buyer Enablement questions, and what you can do to lead growth for Presales, Sales Engineering and Solution Consulting.

Burning PresalesJul 19, 2023

#57 Colin Wrightson - Is it OK to like RFPs if you do them well?
RFPs are a stepping stone to presentations, but if they’re such a gateway to the next stage, why do so many people fail to put their best foot forward? Colin Wrightson from Juniper Networks has seen lots of examples of how NOT to answer them, and gives us some great advice on how to get this essential selling tool right.
Connect with Colin on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-wrightson-36b7649/

#56 Colin Wrightson - What’s so different about Network Presales?
Colin manages a complex organization selling networking hardware, software and services. There are 5 distinct areas that network presales folks must cover, and so listen in to hear how Hardware, Architecture, Protocol, Management and Competition make being a presales person in the networking industry so different to those in the software industry.
Find Colin on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-wrightson-36b7649/

#55 Lidia Vasileva - How can I succeed as a creative in presales?
As we teased in the previous episode, Lidia rejoins us for a masterclass in turning your creative brain into a presales super-power. First step is to step back and not necessarily emulating your colleagues. For the rest, tune in for this bite-size answer to this burning presales question and don’t forget to connect with Lidia on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lidia-vasileva/ or via her website https://www.packetmage.com

#54 Lidia Vasileva - Why is Clarity so Compelling?
Following on from a stellar Demofest session, Lidia joins us to highlight one of the key areas she’s passionate about - being clear. So listen in to her acronym-busting, purpose-finding episode where you’ll see why being clear and concise is the most compelling action you can take for your own success, and the success of your buyers. Connect with Lidia on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lidia-vasileva/ or via her website https://www.packetmage.com.

#53 Tim Brömme from Miro and Jan-Erik Jank - Should presales really solve problems?
Tim Brömme from Miro and Jan-Erik Jank from SAP are back again, and collectively from the Presales Unleashed podcast. This week, Jan helps us learn why presales should never try to solve a customer’s problem, and what they should be doing instead.
Connect with Tim and Jan here on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tbroemme/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janerikjank/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marktechnology/

#52 Tim Brömme & Jan-Erik Jank - How could you scale discovery effectively?
Tim Brömme from Miro and Jan-Erik Jank from SAP are here, collectively from the Presales Unleashed podcast. This week, Tim takes us through some insightful answers for those trying to scale their discovery to the whole buyer stakeholder group. Connect with Tim and Jan here on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tbroemme/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janerikjank/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marktechnology/

#51 Tony Francetic - How to let go of the Presales reins?
Tony Francetic from Thomson Reuters returns to discuss how when teams grow, there’s a point where bringing management in to help run your staff can help corral the team. It’s a common struggle so Tony’s advice here can really help make sure your process of growth isn’t a scary one! Don't forget to connect with us both on LinkedIn!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marktechnology/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-francetic/

#50 Tony Francetic - Can Presales folk, train Sales folk?
Tony Francetic from Thomson Reuters joins us to show how he’s leverages the knowledge and experience of his presales teams, to enable sales teams to perform better. There are two different methods to enable this kind of enablement change, and Tony takes us through both.
Don't forget to connect with us both on LinkedIn!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marktechnology/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-francetic/

#49 Laura Krebs - How should we measure digital buyer journeys?
When a digital demo is used in conjunction with live presales you can expect a 40% lift in likelihood of a deal closing. But without being able to show measurable business outcomes it’s very hard to say why we’re doing this in the first place. Laura Krebs from SAP Concur helps answer this question with her focus on driving scale, velocity and a better customer experience.

#48 Laura Krebs - Where should we scale digital presales?
Laura Krebs from SAP Concur’s role explains how she takes the experience of her presales consultants and bottles it, producing success in every single segment, every single industry and every single opportunity size all because buyers are really driving the way in which they want to consume the information.

#47 Don Carmichael - Should presales be serving post-sale buyers?
Customers must be retained before the proper value is gathered by a vendor, so Customer Success is ever more important - but with strong relationships being built by presales at the start of their journey, letting them have positive impacts after the sale (and rewarding them for it) leads to a natural continuation of successful change. But this can only happen when delivered in a scaled, measured way. Don covers all this and more plus how to create a thriving Presales vs CS relationship.

#46 Don Carmichael - What if there were no more live demos?
Sure, a controversial stance but actually the facts and changes stack up to the significant shift in what presales meetings are for, and the way that buyers consume content. Don says it's only history and the legacy of how we've sold that has trapped us into assuming live demos are the best way to serve buyers. An advisory, consultative workshop is going to be far more beneficial.

#45 John Hodgson - What do presales hiring managers need to know about candidates?
Hiring managers need to trade off different skills and abilities. John’s research shows that 69% or hiring managers lean towards candidates with a high ceiling of potential. There’s a limited market of individuals out there, and many companies are seeing great success in hiring directly out of industry. They operate at a peer level and bring immense authenticity to the buyer’s experience.

#44 John Hodgson - What do presales candidates need to know about hiring managers?
97% of hiring managers said that they look for motivation as the most important aspect in any potential candidate. Also, John says that the ability to build and maintain a healthy relationship with sales people is absolutely crucial. So for candidates setting themselves up for success, they need to take these important aspects into account, and all the other top tips that the team at Bright Dynamics have found in their latest research.

#43 Paul Harris - Why has video content become crucial for presales?
There’s been an explosion in awareness about the presales industry, but that leaves us with a question on how we can leverage all the new technologies available to us. Paul’s advice is to understand how to meet people where they are - TikTok and Twitch? Video attention spans are very short, and so you need to get your message across succinctly - the first time you record “it’s almost certainly way too long”.

#42 Paul Harris - Why not spread your impact across the whole buying journey, and your CV?
Create the best possible version of a demo then share that impact with your colleagues - you’re now 1.5x the power of yourself. Calculating your power and impact is crucial for leveraging demo automation and auto responses to RFxs. Bring people out of that day to day whirlwind of RFP and repetitive demos, and increase the value of what you bring to your buyers.

#41 Damian Tommasino - How is Presales different in the Cyber Security Industry?
Whilst the Cyber-security presales industry still has catching up to do, the conversation as we head into 2023 is moving away from cold calling and generic presentations, towards true buyer enablement. With these new methods, Damian also sees more demand generation activities coming into focus for presales and understanding the value they bring. “It’s about showing them what kind of outcomes you can achieve”.

#40 Damian Tommasino - What are Buyer Experience Frameworks?
Buyers want (immediate) access to products, information, and a trusted partner to help guide them (when they ask for it). Damian explains his Build, Connect, Engage and Close stages of his buyer-centric framework, and he’s successfully battled the ageing sales metrics that can now align to what buyers want.

#39 Tom Curtress - Who helps buyers best? Presales or Sales?
The path to revenue leader takes many paths, Tom’s is a world of foundation in finance transformation as presales, and now, Sales! Tom says whomever describes the problem best is best placed to solve it so hear how he makes sure he’s there when customers have the need to change.

#38 Tom Curtress - What are emotionally driven buying decisions?
Leading with logic rarely gets you a real connection. A personal passion for Tom, understanding the emotional reasons for making buying decisions is more important than the logical ones. Closing deals is often focused on the emotional risk of moving forward, so here’s Tom’s take on helping buyers with risk mitigation.

#37 Rene Voogt - Are Sales and Presales really coming together to help buyers?
Working together is more fun, more communication and better ideas - all focused on the buyers. But Rene also helps us with some hard questions, like how to get teams working together who don’t know each other, or aren’t always aligned on a common vision - here is where the skill of a leader comes into play.

#36 Rene Voogt - Why is Personality & Passion in Presales so vital?
Rene takes us through the 4 Ps of presales. Product, Process, People and Passion - and why Passion is absolutely essential when it comes to being an effective presales person. He also takes us through how to grow people, and as a manager how you can find the passion within people to coach and support them, but the motivation has to come from the people themselves.

#35 Mitch Chesney - How can presales can support post-sale activities?
Burning Presales brings you incredibly valuable presales advice, this time from Mitch Chesney.
Using his experience in this area, Mitch brings some valuable insights into how to help renewals and expansion take advantage of the massive scaling seen in the presales industry. “Clear the field & build that relationship for the long term”, make sure it continues to grow as it never ends at the contract signature and becomes part of the customer community.

#34 Mitch Chesney - Where and when should you scale presales?
Burning Presales brings you incredibly valuable presales advice, this time from Mitch Chesney.
The topic of scaling presales is often discussed, but Mitch brings years of experience in making sure you apply scaling to the right places, at the right times. What’s crucial is to understand your people, because freeing up their time means they can dive into other projects - do you know which projects they’re most passionate about? You should.

#33 How do you lead from where you are in Presales, especially for women? | Lori Payne
Lori Payne has been in software since the late 90’s, and basically observed the entire software cycle unfold. She landed in Presales first as a practitioner and has since risen to become Vice President if Global Solutions Consulting at Blackline. Lori is very passionate about enabling women in tech and building the next generation of Presales leaders.

#32 How do you retain your best people, and preserve their knowledge and expertise even if they leave? | Mark Green
Mark joined this episode of the Burning Presales Podcast as the resident Presales and Buyer Enablement expert at Consensus. He was a former customer, and loved us so much he offered to join. Now, he teaches the Presales world how to enable buyers and scale Presales in ways few are able to do. It was my pleasure to ask him a BIG question I'm sure all of you are wondering about.

#31 How do you qualify good prospects and deal with people 'just browsing'? | Peter Cohan
The second episode from my second round with Peter Cohan, who is the founder and principal of The Second Derivative and author of The Great Demo!. Legend, myth, the OG Presales thought leader and everything in between.

#30 What exactly is good discovery and why is understanding it so important? | Peter Cohan
Back for round 2, Peter Cohan is the founder and principal of The Second Derivative and author of The Great Demo!. He's basically a legend. The OG thought leader for Presales.

#29 How do you sell the value of Presales to Sales and Finance? | John Care
Today’s question will be answered by John Care. John is an Author, Speaker and Professional Skills Trainer For Sales Engineers at Mastering Technical Sales, where he is also the managing director. John, once again, gives way more content than I expected. Listen to the end, and check out the upcoming release of his book.

#28 How do SEs get AEs to let them do adequate discovery? What is that? | John Care
Today’s question will be answered by John Care. John is an Author, Speaker and Professional Skills Trainer For Sales Engineers at Mastering Technical Sales, where he is also the managing director. This episode is RICH with content, answers to several sub questions, and an announcement about John's new book!

#27 What are 3 transformational forces in Sales Engineering right now? | Patrick Passang
My guest for this episode is Patrick Passang, Author of the Social Sales Engineer, a Sales Engineering coach, entrepreneur and creator of the now infamous Secret Kingdom of Sales Engineering map.

#26 What's the role of the SE in the customer lifecycle? | Ramzi Marjaba
Today's question will be answered by Ramzi Marjaba, Sr. Sales Engineer at Ixia Solutions Group, and author and host of the wildly competitive podcast "We the Sales Engineers"

#25 How do SEs stop thinking of themselves as subordinate to sales? | Ramzi Marjaba
Today's question will be answered by Ramzi Marjaba, Sr. Sales Engineer at Ixia Solutions Group, and author and host of the wildly competitive podcast "We the Sales Engineers"

#24 How do SEs grow and stay motivated in their careers? | Akshat Srivastava
This episode is presented by Consensus and the question is answered by Akshat Srivastava. Akshat is a Solution Architect Leader at AWS and founder of SENY (Sales Engineers of New York) - a non-profit community focused on connecting current and prospective sales engineers based in the NYC metro area.

#23 How do you measure SE performance and how can Presales be successful? | Akshat Srivastava
This episode is presented by Consensus and the question is answered by Akshat Srivastava. Akshat is a Solution Architect Leader at AWS and founder of SENY (Sales Engineers of New York) - a non-profit community focused on connecting current and prospective sales engineers based in the NYC metro area.

#22 | How do SEs do fewer wasted demos and more high impact activities? Todd Janzen
This question is answered by Todd Janzen, who is the Global Vice President of Q Branch at Salesforce.com. Q Branch is one of the coolest divisions of Salesforce, completely focused on building world-class Presales capabilities and the chief embracers of Buyer Enablement. Todd gets tactical about how Salesforce.com specifically uses the 6 demo types in their strategy to change the way they sell.

#21 - How do you build, manage and scale Presales teams? | Brian Cotter
Brian is an industry leader in building and managing Pre-Sales Solution Consultant and Sales Engineering teams. Currently, he is the SVP of Global sales engineering at Seismic. He knows a thing or two because he’s seen a thing or two.

#20 - How do you elevate Presales from demo jockey to sales co-pilot? | James Kaikis
James is a co-founder of the Presales Collective and host of The Presales Podcast. He’s also a former solution engineering practitioner and leader at marketing leading companies like Showpad and Salesforce.

#19 - What's changing in B2B that reinforces the value of Presales? | James Kaikis
James is a co-founder of the Presales Collective and host of The Presales Podcast. He’s also a former solution engineering practitioner and leader at market leaders, including Showpad and Salesforce.

#18 - What does it mean to scale and how do you scale Presales? | Garin Hess
Garin Hess is the Founder and CEO of Consensus, and author of “Selling is Hard. Buying is Harder”, a research-based book that discusses how enabling buyers accelerates technical sales.

#17 - How do you help buyers navigate their emotional ROI? | Garin Hess
Garin Hess is the Founder and CEO of Consensus, and author of “Selling is Hard. Buying is Harder”, a research-based book that discusses how enabling buyers accelerates technical sales.

#16 - What is the most pervasive problem in the first demo? | Kerry Sokalsky
Kerry Sokalsky is the President & Founder of Presales Mastery and the Founder of Sales Engineers of Toronto (SETO). He is an expert demo performance coach and is passionate about all things Presales.

#15 - How can leaders evaluate how presales reps perform with clients? | Kerry Sokalsky
Kerry Sokalsky is the President & Founder of Presales Mastery and the founder of Sales Engineers of Toronto (SETO). He is an expert demo performance coach and is passionate about all things Presales.

#14 - The top 5 presales struggles as seen from a sales leader | Rex Galbraith
Rex is the VP of Sales at Consensus and has sold to literally hundreds of presales leaders at enterprise software companies. He is obligated to give this answer.

#13 - How do you retain top presales talent? | Tony Francetic
Tony is a Solution Consultant leader at Thomson Reuters and passionate presales thought leader who couldn't be more pleased to give this answer.

#12 - How do you increase presales influence in your org? | Tony Francetic
Tony is a Solution Consultant leader at Thomson Reuters and passionate presales thought leader. He is riveted to give this answer.

#11 - How do you get more attention from buyers at the very beginning? | Robert Beattie
Robert is a visionary sales leader who’s currently the Head of Sales Acceleration at Modernizing Medicine, and previously worked as Vice President of Sales at Thomson Reuters. He is animated to be giving this answer.

#10 - What is the reality about automation in sales and presales? | Mark Green
Mark is a technology evangelist at Sage, Co-Host of the enormously successful podcast Two Presales in a Pod and founder of the Digital Presales Impact Model. Mark is stirred at the prospect of giving this answer.

#9 - How do you get into presales and succeed? | Mark Green
Mark is a Technology Evangelist at Sage, Co-Host of the enormously successful podcast Two Presales in a Pod and founder of the Digital Presales Impact Model. How should someone succeed in this space? Mark suggests to not just follow in his footsteps, but create your own in a similar enthusiastic style.

#8 - How do sales and presales collaborate together better? | Chris White
Chris is the author of the book, The Six Habits of Highly Effective Sales Engineers. He’s also founder and CEO of TechSalesAdvisors, and the Founder and Managing Director of www.DemoDoctor.com - an online training resource for sales engineers. He is inspired to be giving this answer.