Presales Talks - What do we love about presales in 2022?

 We had another big year of Presales Talks in 2022, with weekly calls throughout the year, getting many regular and occasional guests to the call! Before we think too much on what we're going to do next, I'd like to reflect on some of the great things we did in this year's sessions.

We explored the "Dark Side of Presales" in August with a very popular show covering this topic.  Presales is a job that has stress and pressure to perform on it, like many other sales roles. In some organizations this also has related problems of harassment, bullying and lack of diversity.

This discussion brought many of these issues up and how people deal with it. 

In July there were several exciting sessions, including Branding & Big Room meetings.  We shared ideas of podcasts and books to help on these big topics, and tools, tips and tricks for working on these better. 

Two big calls in June covered Listening skills and a fun topic of "The most awesome thing about working in Presales".  I am still getting a lot of messages from people about that - which is awesome in itself!

One quote stood out from that session, which was "You learn more about life itself" and we explored the idea of using comedy and improvisation skills for actors in training for presales. Of course our aim is not to just entertain people, but to help them buy more products!

Back in May, we had several great sessions about getting hired as an SE including Presentation Interviews and Presales Interviews more generally.  We also covered what to put into your Resume. One tip spanning these sessions is that you need to show the kinds of skills in applying for work as an SE that you'd apply to the job itself.

These topics are always interesting, because everyone's schedule for looking for a new role is different. Earlier in the year we also discussed what it is like being able to build your own Presales Organization, and what things good presales organizations have in common across different businesses.

Back in the beginning of the year, we were discussing how Presales and Customer success work together, how Presales people can use Social Media, and the rise of the Social Solution Engineer! 

This year we switched from the clubhouse platform to twitter spaces, which allowed us to explore a different technology with some pros and cons.  We'll keep reviewing this, and other ideas around format and make sure you know where to reach presales talks going forwards. 

Looking forwards to our final 2022 session this week, and ideas for next year's sessions. Thank you to everyone who's joined in on Presales Talks, the team at Presales Collective and of course the whole presales community!