PreSales Talks: Top things for SEs to do at end of Quarter

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Often there is slightly more time for presales at the end of quarter, because you've finished demos, POVs and trials with a bit of time for the deals and contracts to be closed. How do you most productively use this extra time?

  1. Bring/buy bottles of champagne - start celebrating the wins?
  2. Education
  3. Help finish the deals?
  4. Document War Stories
  5. Build more Scalability
  6. Open up new customers
  7. Develop your career
  8. Win/Loss/Pending Reviews?
  9. Hand off to Post Sales
  10. Get customer success stories and references
Presales talks is a series of Clubhouse rooms for Presales Collective.Join the club or look it up on the PSC slack and join us each friday.

Bring/buy bottles of champagne

• Team bonding

• Get to know each other


Education

• Catch up on certifications

• Practice time - with a friendly audience

• Lots of "Stick time" - hands on time in the environment

• Learn new things

• Prime time to do training

• Learn new products

• Some teams have a allocated time, but it is hard to take at other times

• For shared pools you can get other team members to cover for you.


Help finish the deals?

• Probably too late

• Get the customer technical folks out of the way

• No early stage activities for current opportunities

• Opposite sometimes, customer wants you there as a trusted advisor.

• Different role from normal. Closing down, not opening up the deal.


Share war stories

• Document and share what went wrong and good.


Things that allow scalability

• Automation

• Outstanding things

• Vertical demos


Opening up new customers

• Early stage meetings solo

• Take SDRs with you - instead of the rep


Is end of quarter a real thing?

• Don't feel the same as an AE does.

• Just a date. 

• How much can you influence on dates, and what is in play?

• Can you help others out? See what else can be brought in?

• What can you help to try and bring in early?


Breaking into presales? Developing your career?

• Ask presales leaders if you can learn their products, demos, etc.

• Ask to join in any team training materials?

• Reach out to target companies and organizations.

• Download trial versions of their products & learn to use/demonstrate it

• Always a good time to reach out and develop your career ambitions

Win/Loss/Pending reviews

• Spend time looking at what is working or not

Handoff to post sales.

• Do it early! 

• At stage 4 out of 5, it is a good time to start the handoff

• Customer wants to feel it to be seamless

• Postsales could be annoyed at non-standard inclusions. It's still better to have that discussion early and solve the problem together.

• Join in on existing customer discussions.

Getting customer success stories

• As a trusted advisor you can have a strong hand in helping get good stories from the customers

• Encourage the AE to get it into the contract

• Early discussion with the right people.

• Get a selection story about a customer

Call out/shout out/celebrating success

• We're in sales 

• Make sure recognition is made to everyone who helps make a deal possible

• Pointing out why things aren't won!