What is Presales?
Presales are a series of marketing and commercial relationship-building activities that must take place between qualifying a potential buyer and closing a deal. Presales is commonly also a role in a sales organization or team that has expert technical knowledge of a sellers product and finds precise fits between seller product and buyer needs.
Sales roles represent stages of a commercial relationship. These can be whole teams or individuals, and each role has responsibilities and priorities that bring prospects closer to making the decision to buy. The goal of a sales arm of an organization is to find buyers that meet a target audience and develop a strategy to fit the buyer needs with the seller offering. The sales process is the first portion of a customer life cycle and the role of presales is to support sales and craft solutions for the buyer.
Presales possess subject matter expertise and join Account Executives at the demonstration stage of the buyer journey. At this point, a buyer has demonstrated interest, initial discovery is complete, and presales develops exact mechanisms from seller offerings to solve buyer dilemmas. Presales help communicate value to the buyer and define the scope of the sale from a product point of view. Some of the titles that refer to presales professionals are Solutions Engineers, Sales Engineers, Solutions Architect, and Solutions Consultant. Sales Enablement divisions often have a dedicated Presales Enablement team.
Sample Sales Process
Account Executives (AEs), with the support of Presales, manage the commercial relationship before entrusting a customer to a Customer Success Manager. Presales develop a solution for the customer, and present the solution with the AE. These solutions are often presented in the demonstration. Without an effective demonstration, a buyer may not have proof that the seller solution will fit their needs. During the demonstration Presales address potential objections, conduct discovery, and work with the Account Executive to further the decision making process. Following the demonstration, if the buyer decides to move forward, the AE follows up with the close and hands a customer to Customer Success.
Presales Myths
Presales Myth 1: Leaders of Sales and Presales require the same skills.
Leaders in Sales and leaders in Presales require different skill sets. Both leaders have authority and expertise in soft skills, running discovery, and showing teams how to manage objections. However, since sales and presales are compensated differently and have different priorities, management priorities shift. When priorities differ widely between leadership, aligning to meet customer needs can be challenging. One way to align Account Executives, Customer Success, and the Presales teams and leadership is through centralized training in soft skills and discovery. Solutions should be available to clients throughout their life cycle at an organization, and problem-solving abilities should not fall solely to presales. Ideally, leadership is centralized, and customers get a streamlined experience, with value added at each step from sales to customer success.
Presales Myth 2: The measure of success of a Presales role is product and technical knowledge.
A technical and product expert who is also an expert communicator is the Presales unicorn. Presales must have deep product knowledge, they must also have deep people knowledge and understand how to communicate solutions and deftly read a room. A poor meeting or demonstration where a presales professional fails to communicate the value of a product or suite of products to a buyer can derail a sale. It is arguably the most important meeting of the sale because it is where objections are raised and addressed, and connections are deepened.
Presales Enablement FAQ’s
Where do Presales activities fit within a sales org and who do they support?
Presales teams or individuals possess expert level knowledge of products or services that account executives are selling. They are compensated differently than account executives and their measure of success varies. Presales and Account Executives work in concert to close sales. Presales are also called solutions engineers because of their ability to engineer solutions to meet buyer demands. Ideally, a sales organizatoin is trained is trained in soft and technical skills to communicate value throughout the customer life cycle.
Who runs Discovery, Account Executives, or Presales?
Both. Never stop learning about your prospect or customer's needs. The more information teams have on customers, the more value they can provide throughout a customer's lifecycle. The goal of presales, account executives, and customer success is to deliver solutions and add value continually. Account Executives, Presales, and Customer Success should all be experts at asking questions and actively listening to demonstrate their understanding of customer needs.
Why should we centralize training and provide solutions at all points of the customer lifecycle?
The way people communicate and buy changes. Presales and sales note these changes in subtle but different ways. Sales may pick up on subtle changes in communication in interactions or trends of buyers, whereas Presales may notice differences in how teams understand the subject matter in a demo. These sometimes imperceptible shifts in user experience and perception influence decision-making in big ways. When all stages of sales and roles unite with a common goal of staying informed of trends in buyer behavior and communicating clearly with each other, relationships and communications with customers improve similarly. If sales, presales, and customer success are similarly trained in soft skills and solutions communication, the customer experiences more value at every stage of the lifecycle.
An unfortunate and common alternative is the case where training is not centralized, an organization is siloed, and a customer experiences a fractured sale and then is noticeably shifted to customer success. This shift can feel seismic and disrupt the relationship if precautions are not taken to provide solutions throughout the process. Training Presales in soft skills comfortably closes the sales cycle and anchors a client through Customer Success. When it is time for renewal, a client feels supported throughout the process.
Parallel Parking, Presales, and Soft Skill Training.
One analogy that may be helpful to describe how Presales training benefits sales teams is parallel parking. Finding the right fit between a buyer organization and a seller, particularly in SaaS software sales, is like parallel parking in a great spot. In the car, which is the software solution, an account manager is behind the wheel, with a solutions engineer in the passenger seat. The parking spot is perfect but a little tight, so the team requires an onlooker to stand outside and guide them. A Presales training program, like 2Win, is that onlooker.
Where an organization and product may have a multitude of features that could be useful to a buyer, the objective is not to show them the mechanics of the car, but to get the car parked. An account executive will be looking for the opportunity, or the parking spot, and the solutions engineer will analyze the fit of the spot. 2Win training teaches sales organizations how to deliver solutions customers need, and how to maintain great relationships.
Many organizations face uncertain boundaries and departments that are too siloed when building a commercial relationship, closing a sale, and ensuring renewal. Centralizing leadership and investing in presales and sales training for discovery, personal branding, and demos delivers continual value to the customer experience.