This blog is the first ever dedicated to the pre-sales community. Bond with your fellow SEs, and share your passion as an SE.  Enjoy the blog, and Good SElling!

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Not long ago, I had a sales manager nearly scream at me, “Establishing value is my job, not the SE’s”. In this posting, I will explain why that sales manager is losing revenue and bonus.

In their “trusted advisor” role, SEs have technical credibility stamped on their forehead. As SEs work with their customer’s technical constituents, they are in a perfect position to uncover additional business problems and statements of quantified pain. Techie-to-techie conversations can yield a wealth of G2 regarding business reality. Suppose SEs asked questions like the following:
“What is driving that requirement?”
“What impact does that have on the business?”
“What affect would that have on you / your group / your company?”
“Why then?”
“What will happen if you don’t do anything?”
“What resource, time, and budgetary constraints are there as I configure this solution?”
“What do you mean by _____ ?”

SEs take their conversation to a whole new level. SEs uncover the business requirements driving the technical requirements. The more pain SEs uncover, the more solution they can apply, and the larger deals grows. The more quantified pain SEs uncover, the larger the business problem to be addressed, then the larger a deal can grow, and the easier it is to hold price.

Relegating SEs to give “feature, function, benefit” presentations and demos does not make the best use of the SE’s abilities. The problem is that benefit is often intangible and difficult for customers to envision, leaving customers often asking themselves, “So What?”.

Note several of the questions above are designed to be answered numerically. Associating numbers with benefit converts benefit statements into value statements. The SE’s presentation of the solution then becomes a more compelling “feature, function, quantified value” discussion.

If the SE is already wowing the audience about features and functions, who better then to “Wow” your customer with powerful quantified value statements. Feature, function, quantified value. Feature, function, quantified value. The solution presentation becomes compelling, easy to visualize, and comes from the most credible and believable person on the sales team.

Leverage the SE’s credibility to sell more effectively, hold price, grow deals, and put more money on your pocket.

There once was a farmer whose daddy, and his daddy, and four more generations of daddies had farmed the same land. Their business grew handsomely over the years.

Now this farmer’s crop was failing. Being proud of his craft, it annoyed him that he couldn’t figure out why, and it pained him to see the crop fail on his watch.

Being a man of the millennium, the farmer Googled and read FarmersWeek.com. And then one day in a strong summer sun it came to him. “I know”, said the farmer, “I need to get the SheepBell-FarmForce weed removing, plant pruning, fertilizing, insecticiding, ethanol burning, satellite dish GPS tractor with an optional iPod connector”.

The sales rep paid a visit to the farmer, who gladly did a dazzling demo, and the farmer was in awe of the machine. They even let the farmer use the machine for a few days. The monthly leasing terms were the icing on the cake.

The farmer bought the new machine, reconfigured the dashboard to his liking, and taught his children how to use it. Now the children weren’t too crazy about the new machine. After all, in the past daddy had bought other machines that came and went. The children felt like they were already working hard and producing as much as possible. So they put up with it and did as their daddy asked.

The farmer was pleased. The machine performed exactly to spec, the report display had lots of cool colors, and the iPod sounded great. His neighbors were envious. He was the talk of the town. At first anyways.

Alas, time passed and there was no improvement to the crop. “How could this be?” the farmer puzzed, “The machine works beautifully. Why isn’t the crop getting any better?”

Though it pained him, the proud farmer called in the local agriculture expert as a last resort - After all, the farmer’s family had been farming the same land the same way for 150 years, what could a so-called “expert” tell him that he didn’t already know?

The expert listened intently to the farmer’s problem and was impressed with the farmer’s history and knowledge of farming. After assessing the situation, the expert explained that the farmer could leverage his proven farming approaches while updating some of his farming process techniques. Said the expert, “If you update your irrigation, fertilization, and crop rotation techniques, then you can still salvage your crop this year. You won’t be needing that new fangled machine for now.”

The moral of the story is: Focus on process first, tools second — Not the other way around.

The best CRM/SFA tools in the world are ineffective unless you have a good sales and pre-sales process foundation. Good sales and pre-sales process with mediocre tools are far more effective than great tools with a lousy process.

The hi-tech highway is littered with stories of companies who implemented CRM and SFA tools and failed. They fail largely in part because they do not change the core reason for their problems - Ineffective processes.

Large gains in sales performance are never achieved through tools du jour. Large gains are always achieved through successful sales process change management.

Just ask the farmer.

Now and then, it never hurts to ask ourselves if we are doing the basics, and doing them well. Here are a few reminders of basic SE behaviors.

Be Early. Plan to arrive 10-15 minutes early for customer calls. Give yourself time to walk to the meeting room, get a drink, arrange the room to your liking, etc. And finish early. Don’t eat up all your time with the formal meeting. Finish 10-15 minutes early so there is time for an “after meeting”. The best selling happens during the informal discussions afterwards.

Be Prepared. Know who you are presenting to. Adapt your presentation to the participants, their personality and level of tolerance for risk. Know their business. Adapt your presentation to their business challenges suitable for their job title. Presentations and demos are not “one size fits all”.

Be Pro-active. Don’t sit around waiting for things to happen. Take the initiative to make deals move forward. Contact the customer to get a status. Chase your sales rep. Do what it takes to make technical decisions happen.

Be Salesy. As much as some of us hate it, our job is to sell something. We like to say, “Sell while you teach”. Leverage your technical credibility to explain the quantified value of your solution. Explain how it maximizes the customer’s value and minimizes their risk better than the other alternatives they are considering.

Be Strategic. Get pre-sales strategic skills training. Sharpen your pre-sales skills at least once a year. Use strategic skills to manage your time, get technical decisions faster, grow deals, and improve customer satisfaction. Pre-sales strategic training programs are hard to find, but they are out there.

Be Happy. Are you happy being an SE? Is your time at the whim of your customers and/or sales reps? How is your quality of life? Are you a road warrior, or putting in 80 hour weeks? If your professional life is spiraling out of control, do something about it. It is important to set boundaries (based on strategic training). Don’t be afraid to set priorities for your time. Don’t be afraid to say “No” based on those priorities. People will take advantage of your time and push you until you do say “No”.

With the U.S. Independence Day holiday weekend, it is appropriate to reflect on freedoms from a pre-sales perspective and why these freedoms have a large impact on driving revenue.

1) Freedom of Schedule: The SE’s time is theirs. The SE’s time is not at the whim of their masters: Sales reps, SE managers, or customers. Only the SE has a sense for their priorities in the context of many masters. With proper coaching and training, SEs can determine their priorities based on revenue potential, importance, and urgency — what is best for the business. Failure to respect the SE’s time degrades their satisfaction, which degrades their productivity and quality of life. Attrition becomes a real possibility. The good SEs are the first to go because they are the most marketable. Losing an SE is a blow to the business — It takes over a year to bring new SEs on board and get them productive. Respect your SE’s time.

2) Freedom to Own the Technical Sales Cycle: SEs own acquisition of the Technical Sales Cycle — Not sales reps, and not their managers. Sales reps who micro manage the sales cycle actually elongate the sales cycle. Think about a NASCAR pit crew — The car is not most efficiently serviced by one person giving orders, but rather by a unified team who each know their role in alignment with a common goal. Empower SEs to own all aspects of the technical decision including qualifying technical constituents, resolving their decision criteria through technical tactics, establishing the quantified value of your solution, and acquiring the technical close. Let your SEs go.

3) Freedom to Discover the Truth: Never assume customers are telling sales reps the truth. Like it or not, customers do not trust sales reps — “They want to take my money.” On the other hand, customers trust SEs — “They want to help me”. Leverage this dynamic. The truth is more likely to be more accurate technician-to-SE than it is business-person-to-sales-rep. Empower SEs to leverage their technical credibility “trusted advisor” status to have forthright, frank, and up-front conversations with their technical constituents to get closer to the truth regarding business pain, needs, drivers, decision timeframes, owners, and yes, even budget availability! SEs will provide significant insight into the true dynamics of the opportunity. The discrepancies that they uncover will be highly valuable in determining next steps in the deal. Let your SEs go.

4) Freedom to Drive Revenue: One of the most ironic aspects of being an SE is that most are bonused based on revenue in the door, yet SEs have no control over what that revenue will be — that, of course, is the sales rep’s job. SEs, at the very least, can and should have control over the size of the configured solution. To grow deals, SEs need the ability to discover lots of quantified business pain that they can apply more solution to. Quantifying the pain enables the SE to establish a compelling quantified value argument, which helps the SE hold the sales rep’s price. Since it is the SE who possesses technical credibility, who better to establish value? Feature, function, quantified value. Feature, function, quantified value. The customer sees the SE as a “trusted advisor” and so will be far more likely to believe the SE’s story than the sale rep’s story. Let your SEs go.

Let your SEs go. Empower your SEs to be free to drive your business and grow your revenue. Keeping them on a leash is counter productive and leaves lots of money on the table. The best SE / sales rep relationship is when the sales rep, like Picard to Riker in Star Trek, says, “Make it so #1″.

To turn my attention to more tactical skills, here are 5 tips for giving killer demos.

1) Avoid Feature Blab. Feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature get a drink of water feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature. Pace your demo. The customer’s problem, the quantified impact of that problem on the customer’s operations or job, your feature that addresses the problem and its function, the quantified value or business impact your feature provides. Problem, impact, feature, function, value, problem, impact, feature, function, value, etc. Every 5 minutes or so, there is a new “Wow!” statement.

Remember, you are there to persuade them to choose your solution, not play with toys.

2) Use Flow Breakers. Don’t use the PC as a crutch. Get up and use the white board. Get up and move around, be animated. Change media now and then — Bring up a powerpoint, charts, graphs, customer video. Mix it up. Flow breakers help command attention.

3) Q&A. Leave 1/3 of your allotted time for questions. If they give you an hour, plan on 30-40 minutes for the demo, and 20-30 minutes for questions when you are done. The Q&A is when the real selling begins.

4) Get the Customer to Do Your Selling For You. When the time is right, ask your coach or sponsor, “Could you go to the white board and show us how this would apply to your environment?”. What they say will be 10 times more powerful than anything you could say. This works well in a web based demo too — Make them the presenter and have them use a drawing tool. AVOID CANNED DEMOS — When you can, use the customer’s data, and have a laser focus on features that will best benefit THAT customer.

5) Visually Imprint 3 Major Points. Using a white board or a pre-prepared single sheet of paper (that can be passed around the customer organization), write down the 3 major bullet points you want to leave them with. One of these points should be the customer’s quantified business problem and the quantified value your solution will provide them. Writing it down makes a visual imprint on the customer’s brain so it is easier to later recall and remember.

The following actually happened. I kid you not.

In response to the question, “How would you like to improve the behavior of your pre-sales team?”, an EVP of Sales of a multi-billion dollar company actually referred to his SE team as “his sales - - - - - - s”.

Did he really just say that? I couldn’t believe my ears. I don’t think I have ever been so offended in my 25+ year professional career.

As extreme as this opinion is, the fact is that some form of this cultural attitude and stigma lurks in the shadows everywhere we go. As a pre-sales community, we let this happen to ourselves. In many sales organizations we visit, sales reps treat SEs like subservient second class citizens. Do your demo, sit down, and shut up. Reps have no respect for the SE’s time or opinion. And worse, SEs just sit there and take it. SEs have no control and are controlled. In some cases, executives want to reduce SE headcount because they don’t add value. SEs are an expendable expense.

Fortunately, many other sales organizations have a healthier culture. SEs are given a say in what deals they will work on. SEs are deeply respected and their opinion regarding sales strategy is valued. SEs are given control of the technical decision. SEs are an equal partner to the rep, a strategic asset, and a sales weapon. Without SEs, reps would starve.

Recently a sales manager nearly screamed at me that SEs should NEVER talk about the value of the solution, that is the domain of the sales rep. Sigh.

That sales manager will never believe that his SEs could be making him filthy rich. When SEs are empowered to leverage their technical credibility, a value message from an SE is 10 times more powerful than anything a sales rep can say, and that SE will put more money faster in the rep’s pocket.

In a handful of organizations, executives are hiring more SEs than reps because they’ve learned that empowered SEs drive more business than reps. Case studies provide documented proof that one empowered SE can grow incremental revenue $500,000-$1M per year. Let them go. Let them help you make money. As Captain Picard said, “Make it so #1″.

The issue here is the dreaded C word — Control. The more sales reps and execs want to control their SEs, the less value SEs will provide. Through a change management program, SEs can drive more revenue faster and reduce their cost of sales by giving them more control.

For reps and Sales EVPs who demand control of SE resources, that’s a real - - - - - .

On several occasions lately we have been asked to provide a management skills improvement program for pre-sales managers. This begs the question, why are people asking?

It is common to find pre-sales managers who have been promoted from within the SE ranks. There is a right reason and a wrong reason for doing this.

The wrong reason is because the SE is due for a promotion. All kinds of problems can arise from promoting a person who doesn’t know how to manage - they will be prone to be ineffective managers. We have had experience where weak pre-sales managers try to remain buddies with their buddies, so it becomes problematic for them to implement the necessary procedures, policies, and measurement to facilitate changes in pre-sales process.

The right reason to promote a manager-wanna-be is because they have demonstrated a clear ability to manage in the true sense of the word. A reasonable checklist of managerial abilities includes:
- Communicating the “big picture”
- SMART goal setting
- Cultivating initiative, responsibility, accountability, and commitment
- Development of business strategy
- Using measurement as a motivator
- Implementing reward / consequence systems
- Varying management style as the situation warrants
- Making use of structured risk/reward decision making technique
- Assessing behavior, aptitude, and attitude
- Coaching and mentoring
- Recruiting
- Time and priority management
- Conflict management
- Relationship building with sales reps, sales management, and other staff

If you are a manager, do you see the need for improving your managerial skills? If you are an executive, does your manager-wanna-be have what it takes to “manage”? Can your manager manage? If you perceive a need for managerial improvement, we recommend the American Management Association (amanet.org) who offers excellent management effectiveness courses.

As you may have seen on our home page, a $2B client of ours drives 70% of their revenue through their channel. The average deal size is $20k. Huge volume. Amazingly, they only have 100 SCs. Without the channel, this company might need four times that many SCs.

The secret sauce is this: Make your partner SEs as smart as your own SCs. Your SCs can be responsible for technically recruiting and enabling partners. They also get involved in critical, large partner deals as requested, but the beauty is there aren’t many of those kinds of deals.

Your SCs are responsible not only for teaching partners all about your solutions, but also competitive intelligence, positioning, value messaging, best sales practices — anything to do with the pre-sales role.

As you might imagine, the results of cloning partner SEs to be like your SCs are compelling. The effect is to offload SC workload, reduce cost of sales, and grow revenue. For every SC, it would not be unreasonable to have 10 or 20 partner SE clones. It scales, it’s repeatable, and it works incredibly well.

Bottom Line: There is enormous value in empowering your SCs to technically recruit and enable partner SEs to be as smart as they are.

Those of you who use an SFA/CRM product like Siebel or Saleforce.com may have noticed something. Actually, you may not have noticed something. SFA products completely ignore the SE’s perspective on deals.

Referencing the formal pre-sales workflow analysis we did years ago, it turns out there are exactly four fields of SE specific information that is captured by an SFA product. (I’ll send a copy of “Sun Tzu Art of War / Art of Sales” to the first person who can tell me what the four fields are.)

SFA products, by and large, are glorified sales rep oriented contact management systems. They usually also include some opportunity management and capture next steps — for the sales rep. Surprisingly, SFA products are passive data collectors — they do not analyze data to proactively suggest how to grow deals or close deals faster. Not for Sales Reps, and certainly not for SEs.

I like the cartoon at Sidney Harris Cartoon. A professor has complex formulas sprawled all over his blackboard, as another professor points to a step and says, “I think you should be more explicit here in step two”, the step says, “Then a miracle occurs”. That is how SFA products treat the SE’s mission to acquire the solution decision. It’s a ton of technically oriented work, work that every SFA and sales methodology takes for granted and ignores.

So what are SEs to do? What tools can SEs use to help grow deals and reduce the time it takes to acquire a solution decision? Most organizations, if they have any SE specific tools, roll their own. Some folks hack away at their SFA product — a square peg in a round hole. We’ve seen some good home-grown tools out there. Building your own is a lot of work to develop, maintain, and mature to where they complement the SFA product well, and SEs will use them. It’s not what SEs or Field Development get paid to do.

The SE community does not have a lot of options. Build or do nothing. We at salesengineering.com are the first to commercially introduce SE specific productivity products that complement SFA products — SE Applications: See for example SEplanit. We think it’s a step in the right direction.