I had some fun creating a collage of personas that are typically expected from Presales professionals. Presales is truly a unicorn-class vocation.
Presales
Presales
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Business101 Ways to Improve Your Career in Presales
The role of Presales, also known by job titles such as Solution Engineering or Sales Consulting (among other names), is a unique vocation that sits primarily within the enterprise sales domain. Presales professionals excel at blending the disciplines of business proficiency, sales presence and solution/technical prowess into a seamless, and critical, aspect of sales opportunities.…
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LifeIn 15 min your computer will…
Restart. Not a big deal, right? We’ve all seen this type of message on our computers. This time, however, the message popped up on my laptop 10 min into a customer presentation who had a hard stop after 1 hour. Hey, no problem – I’ll just delay it. Surprise! No option to delay or cancel the reboot. Gee thanks. (for those…
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BusinessHow to Destroy Your Presales Career in 10 Easy Steps
Talk features, features, features: Value…benefits…ROI. Too many excess terms to confuse customers. Just focus on features. They’ll think your smart using all that jargon. Be difficult to manage: Be late with administrative tasks or, heck, don’t do them at all. Make your employment a challenge to make your manager prove their ability to manage. Memorize your presentations: And…
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BusinessMy Hardest Training Session
“No matter how good you think you are, there will always be someone out there that can kick your butt. But never stop improving because it will lessen the bruises.” –My high school karate instructor During high school, I became quite advanced in karate. And being in high school, at times I really thought I…
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Presales90 Seconds of Presales Panic – W is for What could possibly go wrong?
It never seems to fail that the larger and more important the demo, the more your nerves work against you. This is especially for those new Presales and Solution Engineering. Here’s another 90 seconds of Presales Panic that has been passed on to me. “What could possibly go wrong?” I thought. Everything was set-up and…
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Presales90 Seconds of Presales Panic – H is for Hazard!
You know it’s a hazard. All of your training and intuition scream “Don’t do it!” But… I was working in Guilford, England. My power adapters were working fine converting the UK 220v to US 110v, but I needed to plug in one more charger in addition to powering my PC. I had this 4 outlet…
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Presales90 Seconds of Presales Panic – V is for Venue!
A true story as told to me by a tier 1 ERP Presales Engineer a couple of months ago. Every demo venue has its own challenges. No network available for a web-based demo? Ok, this can be a familiar situation at financial and government sites. Not a big issue as this venue was explored ahead…
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Presales90 Seconds of Presales Panic – S is for Schedule!
… as told to me by a tier 1 ERP Presales Engineer just last month. Two hours before the demo was to start, word came in from the prospect that the scheduled demo time is being cut from 2 hours to 1 hour. Great! (Not!) “So what are we going to do? Who’s not going…
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Presales90 Seconds of Presales Panic – A is for Audience!
Who are these guys?! Demo what?!! First Question! Do you always start prep and ask: “Who’s going to be in the room?” If yes, well done! Take the next 90 seconds off! (If not, what question is better and read on) It’s all about taking aim and delivering targeted messages. If you don’t know your audience,…