#7 - The role of Pre-Sales explained

Marc: 0:05

Welcome to the Data Coffee Break podcast. I'm Mark and I'm Christian. If you are passionate about data like this, take a seat. Relax and join us to our coffee break where we discuss all things data.

Christian: 0:18

And remember, there are no filters, no PR.

Marc: 0:22

It's just a real life experience. So let's begin.

Christian: 0:27

Cheers, Marc.

Marc: 0:29

Cheers. Enjoy. Happy Friday.

Christian: 0:31

Let's get started. Marc, how are you doing?

Marc: 0:34

Very well. Welcome to my house. Well, to my flat. Sorry, it's not yet a house. I can't pretend. That.

Christian: 0:41

And this is the first time that we are

Marc: 0:46

That's a different experience. Let's see. You is going to work out for us, but it's nice. We we can enjoy to have a beer together.

Christian: 0:53

Yeah, it's becoming kind of a habit now. Like we we are doing beers while we are supposed to be coffee. Supposed to be coffee? Yes. So what are we going to discuss today, Marc?

Marc: 1:05

Yes. So we're going to simply dive into the to understand what is this role? Oh, it differs with maybe what is so well known as consultant or working in support. So really helping people to understand what's expected about this role.

Christian: 1:27

Absolutely. I mean, one of the reasons why because presales is still is still a not very well known position or role. Right. I mean, personally, I didn't I didn't even know that that presales existed.

Marc: 1:43

Definitely in my studies when I went to uni much a generalist master. I really wanted to go into consulting because that was the excitement of working with different clients, different projects and learning so many different technologies. And the reality is that in uni you only hear about consulting, you don't hear about, I mean consulting, being a consultant, you don't hear about what is a support engineer, you don't hear about what is a pre-sales, you don't hear about what could be your technical success manager and things like that. Maybe it's because those roles are actually quite recent, I will say, in some aspects. And, and, and that's why I think there is some value to explain a bit more. Why Why is that? This could be a fantastic role for for so many people.

Christian: 2:38

Yes. So let's outline what a sales A sales engineer, Sales consultant. What actually do we do? First of all, we help a salesperson during a sales cycle. So let me just put you in in simple words. Company Acme goes to a customer and says, Give me $1 million for this product. The company will say, No, please give me that million dollars. The company will say, Well, show me that this is going to work with my or it's going to be useful for me.

Marc: 3:10

That is going to cost less that what is going

Christian: 3:14

Exactly. So in order to do that pre is to actually go in, demonstrate, doing a demo, doing a proof of concept, doing a positioning business value differentiation that the solution is going to solve a specific pain point of the customer or a specific challenge. What do you think? But you have another one.

Marc: 3:37

I would add some other aspect of this role When you start to have some experience, some level of experience, it's more exposed to decision maker sea level, as we say, and provide thought leadership. So that's really having a conversation, high level about trends in the industry, trends in linked to this technology, trends about where the client should invest to make sure they staying ahead of the game literally compared to the competition. And so there is this aspect, and another aspect is evangelization, evangelism, evangelization. I never know what the perfect way to evangelize the technology, evangelize the service. So that's in some aspect is being involved with marketing. In this case, yes. When you do some demos to to clients, but also to the community of users or if you're working with the partners. So what could be called channel you working towards like elevating the value proposition of of this product, of this technology to the partner community in this case? That's all why I see this one.

Christian: 4:55

Yes.

Marc: 4:56

And I would like to actually link back to spoke about support consultant. In the technology company. A software vendor vendor is usually called professional services and presales. What's interesting is those one where in some aspects here before the pre-sales role was even created in the company, was actually known as a pre-sales engineer or pre-sales individual.

Christian: 5:28

Yes, and I can give you my experience, right. I didn't start the support because I was not working for a software vendor company when I started. When I left uni, I was working for them at the client side. So I was a developer because that's what at university we get told you are going to be a Java developer back then. Right now I don't know if it's data scientist or Python, but historically, yes, you need to go through all of those steps. Support or junior developer delivery or professional services. And after you, I'm going to quote unquote did your time. You then go into pre-sales. And I think there was a good reason for that in a way, because you want to, first of all, have empathy with the customer when they are telling you I have these problems in production or certain activities are taking me days or or weeks to to finalize you, Have you went through that problem? Or if there is a there's a support case, you know, how how important that is. And most importantly is something interesting about pre-sales that is that you have experience in multiple technologies so you can actually try to speak the customer language, not necessarily on the industry, but sometimes even on the technology side. I guess that's that's my experience on on having previous years in the industry before becoming a pre-sales.

Marc: 7:01

Is it a difficult move, difficult shift to do From in your case you did from software development to presales?

Christian: 7:10

It was because, I mean, once again, we are perhaps working on that professional services or consultancy to identify if you may want to try a pre-sales roles. I was doing pre-sales without knowing it. When I was a consultant, I was doing demos, I was talking to customers all the time. I was trying to the customer to tell the customer what is the value, and that back then business, intelligence. And I didn't really realize and that I was having that or that I had that skill set until I actually applied for a pre-sales role. And I'm going to be honest with you, I didn't really know what pre-sales person was supposed to be doing. So I think it took me like a few months to really, really get it.

Marc: 7:59

So you were going to actually deliver on the

Christian: 8:02

Yeah. For me it was like, okay, so the Now of course I can try to, to fix it. That was, I might say, my first six months do it. We still do.

Marc: 8:13

It. In particular, if you think about the client.

Christian: 8:18

One of the things that a lot of people ask other roles such as consultancy or or professional services and pre-sales is competitive. That's a very interesting piece here. And competition. Some people can take it in different ways. I personally like this phrase from think it was Chesterton who said that the truth sold your fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him. I see a lot of times pre-sales individuals trying to trash other technologies in front of their customer. I don't like that. And I don't think competitive means about it's about differentiation, it's about business value proposition that we discussed and that element of competition and that adrenaline to to know whether you are going to be selected at the end of the cell cycle. That is very different from, for example, I have finished my project and I'm going to deploy it into production and see if it works, which is also a lot of the adrenaline rush from experience. Yes, yes, yes. If it's going to work. But but that's I would say that's a key element on on the pre-sales side of things that it might not be for everyone.

Marc: 9:34

Yeah. Coming back on the adrenalin, adrenalin this was pre-production or testing and we move that into production. Yeah. Do you have this adrenaline rush as doing the pre-sales role in the aspect of. Yes, we, we convince the client today the value proposition or the technical demo was successful and the clients really see, see like using the technology going forward. Like do you, do you have this kind of same feeling as well?

Christian: 10:11

Yes. When you are going to go into a demo or when you're showing the run button on your demo and see if it's going to work?

Marc: 10:22

Yeah, there's.

Christian: 10:23

A lot of adrenaline. Yes. I mean, I the answer is yes, I, I do get that all the time. But I think which is another difference between being a consultant to for a pre-sales and I think you touch on that in a pre person is a customer facing I would say 99% of the time. So that's where you bring the value. Personally speaking, I think a pre sales person is someone that was not.

Marc: 10:52

Geek.

Christian: 10:53

Enough to be a developer, but not socially

Marc: 10:57

I love it.

Christian: 11:00

I mean, I'm not saying that a pre sales didn't like it that much, right? Or you didn't want to go that deep into the into the role. But also you are not that sales person. But what do you think about being customer facing? Do you like it?

Marc: 11:15

Mark Yeah, definitely. It's literally every day you speak with clients or potentially meet with clients face to face. So if you if you're not the ex extroverted type of person or in between, like you can say, clearly being in between also works. That could be a struggle for some people. So that's, that's an aspect to consider.

Christian: 11:36

Something that maybe you need to develop is I think it's called have a thick skin, but I mean is that not every meeting will go well? Oh yeah, not every demo will go well. So yes, sometimes you are doing your best in front of the customer and or you receive what we call objections and it's objection after of. Action. And it's fair, right? Sometimes I mean, the product is or the solution is not for the customer or sometimes the solution is not working because reasons.

Marc: 12:12

Think back about those events you may have see the audience not being engaged. You pretty much like alone in front of everyone and feel like this is not my day. This is. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Oh, like simply I didn't. I didn't understood what I should have done or simply I realize now I should have done it differently in terms of presentation.

Christian: 12:38

Yes, exactly. So when it comes to presenting muscle that you need to develop.

Marc: 12:46

And it could be.

Christian: 12:46

Stressful and that can be really stressful. I hope this is not taken the wrong way, but you really need to have good self confidence to I mean, to be in front of or to willing to be in front of an audience, no matter if the audience is just one five, 100,000 people, you you have something in your mind that that you want to be there. Right? So and I'm not talking about that you are a person that you like to brag or or you are like super or overly confident about yourself, but.

Marc: 13:19

You you need to enjoy it. Yes. You need need to literally feel the the motivation or the pleasure to have performed on stage. I will say it's kind of like a performance.

Christian: 13:31

Quick one. If you're enjoying this episode on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. Links are the description as per usual.

Marc: 13:41

Also, if you'd like to grow this community with a friend or a colleague interested about all things data.

Christian: 13:49

Now back to the episode and talking about Not necessarily everything that goes wrong, but it's really important to understand that presales is not support because as a consultant you charge by the hour or your employer charge by the hour for you, right? So your time is precious. Presales is not the case. And sometimes customers try to see this as Mark, might I have this problem and I cannot actually work in production. What what do I do? And and because we like to help, we try to fix the problem. And sometimes it's a good thing to do. Don't get me wrong. Go and fix it if you are well versed. But being honest, I mean that's why it's support exists, right? So these are individuals 24 seven that they can help you.

Marc: 14:39

And and that's quite interesting knowing the don't think our solution is a good fit for you. Some account executive will be unhappy, but it comes back to what you stand for. You don't want to create a bad relationship with the client in a sense that the client will come back after a few months and say, like, you sold me something that is not working. You sold me something that is actually not solving my issues. So as a sales person, I will say no sometimes in those aspect, but on the other part of the no is saying no to the client. I'm not going to help you. Well, I wouldn't say like that. Yeah, but pretty much the aspect like I understand you have an issue, let's say in production, but I'm not the right person to help you. I prefer to redirect you to our support. I prefer to redirect you to the professional services team who is well equipped. And that's that's the case. And most of the time is they're trained to do some of those activities compared to us.

Christian: 15:46

I remember a one of a colleague of ours told have a customer than having an unhappy customer. And I think yes, I mean, to your point, to be able to say no brings your credibility up. And all of this gave me some memories about when I was on consultancy or development is that sales don't work on production environments. The presales is there to do proof of concepts to build perhaps a demo assets that are not meant to be put in production, maybe an architecture that that is really important, right? Because I mean, it's a consultant. You, you are part of the delivery team that will bring this project into production. So I've met so many presales or solution engineers that they still miss, that they miss that feeling of and working towards something that is being used in production. But it's not something that presales should be working.

Marc: 16:52

On yet to be able to see the outcome of of Basically, that could be frustrating. Or some presales professional in this case here. And actually, what are the kind of skill sets that are required, asked by companies, by firms hiring process professionals in this case, like on the top of my mind, I would say obviously team player being able to have all they call usually or they describe usually in those job description is sales acumen.

Christian: 17:29

Sales acumen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would beg to differ on that one. Sales acumen could be because you've been sold something on the street or something. Yeah, I guess depending on the, on the level of the pre-sales position that you want to go, then of course you might want to have already some experience on, on a sales role.

Marc: 17:50

Luckily I never heard anyone in presales asked to sell a pen to the interviewers.

Christian: 18:01

I know, I.

Marc: 18:02

Know that may be more foresee. I can't exactly. Even salespeople.

Christian: 18:06

Exactly. Exactly. Now, I do believe that that you need to have some tech experience, right? Whether that is coding or experience previous experience with the product or the technology, for example, the database or ETL or data or visualization. Something really important for those for those looking for a pre sales role or that are wondering whether they could be a good fit for a specific company. And I'm going to talk about here on a product company. You don't need to necessarily have experience with product when you go and work for those companies. They will train you properly on the product. Sometimes it's more important that you have experience on a specific industry, on a competitor product or similar product. And also, as you mentioned, acumen on the domain data warehousing, visualization. I would say that that skill to be more generalist person that can talk about a domain, it's it's a good skill to have.

Marc: 19:16

Yeah. And as you said, like not looking into but those transferable skill are important and. Recall that a lot. Soft skills. This is because this is a tag I don't like.

Christian: 19:34

And to finalize this part of the skills that creativity. Or you have that creative thinking on around the specific problem. Or you can imagine how things are going to be used. That is an amazing skill to have as a salesperson. Again, this doesn't have to be technical.

Marc: 19:55

Yeah, creativity. And that's usually associated with a keyword like problem solving in this aspect where the client come with a question, you know that the product doesn't answer directly. But if you think about it in different aspect, if you maybe mix it with another set of technologies, you see that it's actually really solving well the kind of issues, the kinds of facing and sometimes bringing even more value for the client on that aspect 100%.

Christian: 20:25

One thing that I would say is as well is that companies, is that a lot of people, myself included, when I left university, we have this idea that you have to be super technical or a genius to get into one of these companies. And by all means, if you're one of those, go for it. But there are also other roles that may not require highly technical skills, and you can still work for the company that you love.

Marc: 20:54

I love what you just said, like working for Do you think is it companies that you love or products that you love? In this case, in both aspects.

Christian: 21:04

You really need to believe what you are hands. If you don't believe in the product or in the company that you're working for, and that may apply for any type of role. But in presales is actually quite important because you are all the time interacting with people in multiple situations that are linked to cell. I, I truly believe that you need to love or really like.

Marc: 21:30

Loving maybe, but disliking enjoying.

Christian: 21:34

Love can be a very strong word.

Marc: 21:37

In this case. Christian, is there anything

Christian: 21:41

Oof, maybe it's the beer or something are I'm going to generalize here. Is not something that you may encounter, but a commercial discussion sometimes takes precedent over what is really important for the customer. And what I am going to give an example here is like when you see that the company or the people in the field really will benefit from your solution. But because there is no commercial agreement or there are some other interests. This is one of those that is better when you don't know that they exist. You know what I mean? So so that is something that because as a person that cares, it's difficult to be detached from it. So I that's the part that sometimes I don't enjoy it. But what about you?

Marc: 22:34

It will be I think it's a common theme when I the presales professional, the classic having to feel RFPs and RFI. So request for proposal for RFP and requests for information, that's basically.

Christian: 22:55

Oh my.

Marc: 22:55

God, yeah. That's basically a document, an that the client is sending to to the company and many other companies to compare the product on very specifically define criterias. And that's extremely boring to company to feel. And that's complex.

Christian: 23:20

Actually, it's complex for those that have Normally it comes as a big, big Excel file with a bank of questions that someone copy pasted.

Marc: 23:29

From sometimes completely irrelevant.

Christian: 23:32

Irrelevant. They ask you yes, no or with a And yes, it is very boring. So Mark, would you say that you like to pre sales role? What what do you like about it? If I would ask you like okay, so what do what does smart.

Marc: 23:48

Like what is not like I.

Christian: 23:50

Call process.

Marc: 23:51

Yes I think it's good to go back to what we beginning or in the middle which is being client facing, being able to expose to the client the value of the product, having the opportunity to present to an audience all those aspects where you are speaking about the these adrenalin rush into more of a consultant, a developer moving a piece of technology from testing to production. This is the same kind of feeling that you can get being in front of the client or proposing to the client. And this is what excites me. So this kind of pre-sell sells the aspect and generally like seeing the, the happiness of the client sometimes on this aspect. This is so cool. I just love.

Christian: 24:45

It. Yeah. When you were talking about what couple of more skill sets that are essential for pre-sales, such as time management.

Marc: 24:55

Oh, yeah, very true. Wow. Well, that's in particular in some part of the quater. Yeah, it's super.

Christian: 25:01

Important, but I think we can finish here and Time management tips for another episode.

Marc: 25:08

Well, that was a very interesting episode, your personality with this episode.

Christian: 25:15

Christian Same here, Mark. Thanks for listening to this episode. This podcast represents our views and not the ones of our employers.

Marc: 25:23

Our mission and the Data Coffee Break podcast always changing data field.

Christian: 25:30

Follow us and get into the conversation with Instagram.

Marc: 25:35

See you next Tuesday and till then, keep your