Beware Presales Hubris: An Open Letter to Presales

“Clueless.”

“Technically inept.”

“Lying”

“Manipulative”

“Untrustworthy”

“Annoying”

“Greedy”

“Verbose”

“Pushy”

“Self-centered”

“Unethical”

“ADD”

These are just some of the descriptions of salespeople that presales folks posted on LinkedIn. And here are how presales people describe themselves on LinkedIn:

“Authentic”

“Trusted advisor”

“Highly competent”

“Expert”

“Customer Focused”

“Problem solver”

“Collaborative”

“Honest”

“Highly skilled”

“Consultative”

Yes, a great many of the LinkedIn posts by presales folks tout their technical acumen, authenticity, being a “trusted advisor,” and other skills and attributes. Many of these claims are true for a portion of the presales population. However, some of the negative characteristics assigned to salespeople are also found in presales.

Wait. What?

How is this possible? Well, first, we need to stop the name-calling.

Stop Bashing Salespeople

“The salesman knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it.”

– Oscar Wilde

Granted, there are many salespeople who live up (or down, depending on your perspective) to the frequently used descriptors offered by presales people, including those above, plus being “coin operated,” clueless about their products and technology, interested only in getting the order, and so on.

However, there are also many excellent sales folks who have earned the same qualities typically assigned to presales.

They earnestly believe in their products and services. They are (sufficiently and frequently surprisingly) technically and product savvy. They are excellent team players who deeply respect their colleagues in presales, customer success, development, marketing, legal, accounting, and all the other vendor disciplines. They embrace the doctrine of buyer enablement. They live to see their customers succeed over the long term.

I was facilitating a Great Demo! Workshop at a customer site, when I made a humorous, but disparaging remark about “typical salespeople.” One of the participants, a salesperson, took offense and called me out for my comments. He pointed out that “These generalizations can be very hurtful and unfair…” and he was right!

He made me realize that I need to evaluate each person on their own merits. We should all do the same and stop systematically bashing salespeople.

Along similar lines, many presales folks have a perception that doing sales is easy. This couldn’t be farther from the truth!

Sales Is a Tough Role

“Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, and no trust.”

– Zig Ziglar

If you have never been in sales, it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand exactly how hard the discipline is. It is not just living under the sword of Damocles in the form of the constant pressure to achieve the quota. That’s just the tip of the sword.

Doing sales requires executing multiple overlapping, multi-threaded project management exercises. Each sales opportunity is a project with its own timeline, players, challenges, pitfalls, advances, delays, and outcomes.

Let’s use a demo as an example event. A good, experienced salesperson working on a large opportunity may invest hours preparing, researching, setting calls and meetings, doing discovery, and prepping their team for the demo. The corresponding presales player may invest a few hours to consume the discovery information and prep the demo, and an hour or two to deliver it.

Presales’ perspective is often, “I did the heavy lifting, now it’s all set up for the salesperson to close the business.” That is, very frankly, naïve.

Was the demo sufficient proof? Are there other prospective concerns that need to be addressed? Are the competition’s products perceived as a better fit? Is a privacy, security, and/or data review needed? Is the proposal correct? Has a business case been generated? Are the legal agreements acceptable? Is the prospect’s purchasing team demanding unfavorable terms?

And great salespeople don’t leave the project once the sale is completed. They have set expectations that need to be fulfilled, requiring excellent coordination with implementation, training, and customer success. Sales folks who are also account managers know that their easiest sales consist of expansion into existing, happy, successful customers.

Opportunity complexity has been increasing, as well. Buying committees today often include six to ten members, and internal prospect politics complicates the process. Combine long sales cycles of six to eighteen months, in many cases, with sales win rates of twenty to forty percent, and your sales team is facing challenging odds, indeed.

Imagine investing a year in a sales process that ends with a loss to a competitor or a No Decision outcome. I’ve lived this personally; it was quite common when selling into pharma research to find your prospect had just been acquired by another pharma house, and the entire project was put on hold or cancelled. Ouch.

Combine these challenges with the omnipresent pressure to achieve quota, and you have a difficult journey. It would be like being the captain of a ship, sailing for months to a far-away land, purchasing a cargo, and navigating back to your home port, all in the hope that your cargo will still be in demand and be sufficiently valuable to turn a profit.

And there are no guarantees that you will make a profit! For SaaS companies, only 60-70% of sales staff meet or exceed their quota. This means that one-third of all SaaS salespeople are not bringing in the big bucks in commission that many presales teams often assume they are enjoying. These folks may in fact be earning much less than their presales counterparts.

So, sales is a difficult discipline, and it takes courage, persistence, and intelligence to execute successfully. Please understand this and pause the assumption that presales folks have the toughest role. Every job at a vendor is tough when you are serious and passionate about it!

What other personality attributes would you expect in a salesperson?

Prima Donnas Are Everywhere

“Sales are prima donnas; marketing is clueless.”

– Me

I drafted that quote when I was in an “in-between” role, overseas, doing a combination of high-level presales, sales, and customer success. It sure seemed like that to me at the time!

Yes, there are definitely prima donnas in sales. Intriguingly, I don’t see a strong correlation between the best sales performers and prima donnas; it seems that the prima donna personality may be relatively independent of actual success!

But here’s another angle: are there prima donnas in presales? Oh, yes. It is a personality trait that is, sadly, broadly distributed!

Any presales player who fancies themselves as the “go-to” person for a product, technology, presentation, or demo is a candidate. Anyone who perceives themselves “at the top of their game” may also be suffering presales’ hubris.

And working with prima donnas in any discipline takes some extra effort. Sadly, I am unaware of any real solutions (but we all seem to quietly rejoice when a prima donna takes a fall!).

Are there other personality attributes that we typically assign to one discipline vs another?

Introverts vs Extroverts

“I restore myself when I’m alone.”

– Marilyn Monroe

There is an ongoing generalization that salespeople are predominantly extroverts and presales are introverts. While this may be true of the broad population, there are many exceptions to this claim.

As salespeople, many of us are willing to be “on” during a sales call, a discovery conversation, giving a presentation, or delivering a demo, but we also prefer to retire afterwards to the peace and quiet of one’s office or a similar Fortress of Solitude.

Many of us are not deep relationship builders. Many of us don’t golf or thrive on taking clients out to expensive dinners. Many of us focus intently on working with our buyers, buyers’ teams, and our own teams to enable our prospects to realize the rewards and value of implementing and adopting our solutions.

So, please don’t assume that because someone is in sales, they must be an extrovert. In fact, an AI Overview offers, “While there’s no definitive percentage, research suggests that the most effective salespeople are often ambiverts (those who score halfway between extreme extroversion and introversion).”

Next, what impact does experience have on being a salesperson?

Everyone Was New Once

“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.”

– Henry Ford

One of the biggest complaints I hear from presales folks is how they must “teach new salespeople” all about their products, market, customers, processes, etc. This is a fair complaint: thank goodness it doesn’t (*ahem*) cut both ways!

I’m sure, for example, that brand new presales staff emerge from their freshly hired cocoons fully fledged and deeply knowledgeable, ready to engage with the most challenging prospects immediately.

Oh, wait, I’ve forgotten. It often takes six, twelve, or even eighteen months for a presales player to come up to speed. In many cases, new presales staff aren’t even allowed to present demos until after four to six months of onboarding have been completed.

Here’s an interesting question: Are newly hired sales staff provided the same opportunity? Do they get a “pass” on their first six months of service without any need to bring in revenues or hit their quota numbers?

Generally, nope.

As an example, I made the transition (I was drafted) from a presales role to sales and was expected to bring in two million dollars in new license revenues that first year, overall, with a similar expectation that I’d also need to meet my quarterly revenue goals. From essentially a standing start, I needed to acquire the necessary sales skills while also finding and working opportunities. This, I believe, is the typical situation for salespeople.

What’s a solution?

Cherish your senior sales staff, particularly the ones who consistently make their numbers and who are generally a delight to work with. Hold these folks up as examples for the more junior sales staff to follow and learn from.

“I understand your desire to offer a free POC,” you note to a new sales rep, “but did you know that Seth (who always makes his numbers) rarely needs to do a POC. He focuses on doing deep discovery followed by a crisp Technical Proof Demo. This is often all that is needed for many of our prospects. I’ll send you examples of his discovery notes so that you can use them as a template.”

Let’s examine this approach a bit deeper. You’ll notice that I’m not suggesting that you, as a presales professional, try to teach a new salesperson their job. It is very rare for a person to be willing to take advice on their role from someone who is outside of their discipline! It would be like a programmer trying to tell you how to demo.

Instead, you are simply saying, “Hey, you might want to take a look at your most successful peers and follow their practices…” You can expand on the details as appropriate, again simply referencing “Seth” and his colleagues’ successful methods.

What’s the next complaint we often hear from presales? “I get requests for customer meetings on short notice!” and “I’m overbooked!”

What About Scheduling?

“Opportunity doesn’t make appointments; you have to be ready when it arrives.”

– Tim Fargo

One of my biggest complaints when I was in presales, supporting the sales team, was how I’d receive a meeting request for a demo just a day or two before it was scheduled. Frustrating it was, but what I didn’t see were two other challenges.

The first was the difficulty my sales counterpart had in finding a date that worked for the prospect’s team. It appears to be the rare person in business who has a delightfully empty calendar! So, when a mutually acceptable time was finally agreed upon, it may have been the culmination of resolving a complex scheduling problem.

When I was in sales and found an open slot that worked for all parties, I’d jump on it. Otherwise, it might literally take weeks to identify an acceptable date.

Here’s a helpful practice: Reward those reps who schedule with sufficient time in advance of the meetings. Heartfelt thanks and positive comments can impact and drive positive behavior. A gentle pushback on those who abuse scheduling, along with referencing the “Seths” of the sales team, can help change behavior as well.

The second challenge is well-known to both presales and sales folks: scarcity of resources. On the presales side of the page, we feel we are overbooked, running from call to call, demo to demo, and POC to POC. But the sales side is similarly constrained: there are too few presales staff available, and availability may not align with challenge number one above!

Here’s a simple solution to avoid being booked back-to-back-to-back: Block fifteen minutes before and after each call (at minimum) to give you time to prep for your next engagement and clean up from your last one. This practice goes a long way to help maintain your sanity!

And consider this: those folks who perceive themselves as the “go-to” person for their product, technology, etc., are self-perpetuating their overbookings!

Don’t Know Much about History

“The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”

– Mark Twain

Another set of misconceptions has to do with “how old is presales” and “how presales’ (and sales’) skills and approaches have changed.”

I was watching a keynote speaker at a conference make the claim that “presales, as a function, began in 2007.” Intriguingly, that was also when the speaker first joined an organization in a presales role. The presenter maintained that 2007 was when presales activities first appeared.

Ridiculous, and deeply narcissistic!

And that speaker isn’t the only one who appears to suffer from a lack of exploring history. Many other presales pundits have made similar claims, and they tend to date the beginnings of presales with their tenure in the role.

If we use that method of dating, then presales started in 1984 with my first taste of the role in what was called “Product Technical Support,” which included (yep) doing discovery, delivering demos and presentations, managing POCs, and other tasks that are still done today. My next experience was with an organization that labeled its presales team “Field Application Scientists.” Not “Sales Engineers,” notably, because (1) they weren’t salespeople and (2) they were scientists, by training, not engineers!

Speaking of Sales Engineers, I’ve found references to Sales Engineers dating back to the early 1900s, associated with automobile sales teams. I suspect that presales became a profession about the same time that flint shards were chipped into tools!

Presales as a profession is clearly a discipline that is older than anyone currently alive. Have the skills and methods changed over the years?

Yes and no.

There has been a slow, general movement in sales and presales philosophy from presenting features, to exploring advantage statements, to confirming benefits, and to being consultative vs “salesy,” and towards buyer enablement. However, the best sales and presales people have always operated in this “modern,” customer-focused, outcome-oriented, long-term relationship mode. And sadly, many inexperienced sales and presales players still operate in a feature-function manner.

One of the watershed dividers is the amount of discovery that was done and is being done today. In spite of the plentiful platitudes populating LinkedIn posts such as “No disco, no demo,” most sales teams barely scratch the surface. Typical discovery calls are frequently scheduled for thirty minutes, but often only ten minutes are allotted for discovery, with the balance of the time squandered on corporate and product overview presentations, and the dash to demo.

The best performers have always explored their prospects’ situations deeply and carefully before proposing solutions. And the best performers today continue to do so.

The best performers frequently draw from a broader range of experiences than their peers, as well.

Roles and Experience

“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.”

– Mark Twain

I’m impressed with people who state that they’ve been in presales roles for their entire career, often claiming ten, fifteen, twenty, or more years in the discipline. However, I’m more impressed with those folks who have enjoyed positions in two or more roles.

Someone who has been in presales in the cybersecurity space for twenty years, for example, has deep experience in that vertical. However, they may know nothing about other markets and verticals. And the buyers in the cybersecurity vertical view purchasing software similarly to buying insurance: they know they must have it, but they don’t really want it!

This is a very different frame of mind from software that supports pharma research, where scientists are looking for new ideas and novel approaches. They are frequently excited about the possibilities that new software tools offer; it is a mindset that is entirely opposite from cybersecurity.

Accordingly, be cautious of taking guidance from self-proclaimed “thought leaders” in markets or verticals that are different from yours. Their experiences have been limited by the nature of their markets.

Some of the best salespeople I know came from presales, and some of the best presales folks moved into that role from sales. Each additional role brings with it a corresponding perspective and experiences.

Imagine that you are a chef in a restaurant that focuses on “California Cuisine.” If you limit your food options to that genre, you will get really good at designing and cooking the specific repertoire associated with California Cuisine. However, how would your menu change if you chose to explore and incorporate Latin American, Southeast Asian, North African, and other flavor palates? I suspect people would beat a path to the door of your restaurant, and you’d have an extensive waiting list every night!

Here’s some self-inspection: What is my experience? What are my limitations? Extensive and extensive!

On a rough timeline, I have been a:

Practicing chemist (first person to successfully freeze-dry beer)
Presales
Product Manager
Product Line Director
Customer Marketing VP
Senior Corporate Consultant (combo of presales and customer success roles)
Regional Sales Director
Head of Marketing
Founder of a new business unit
President of that business unit (grew it from an empty spreadsheet to a $30 million business over five years) and member of the C-Suite
Founded Great Demo! and (hopefully) transformed the skills of thousands of customer-facing folks in markets from A to Z (seriously: from accounting to zymology)
Member of the Board of Directors of a successful software company since 2004

Is that extensive? Possibly. Am I missing experiences and suffering limitations? Certainly!

While I’ve been an internal customer of HR, finance, development, and other departments, I’ve never worked in any of those groups. With respect to organization size, I’m inclined towards startups and early-stage companies; my experience with large firms is very limited.

Personality-wise, I prefer a hands-on approach, including the responsibility of ownership. I’m not skilled at internal politics, and I am poor at committee approaches to projects and problem solving. I’m comfortable making decisions and living with the consequences, and I am willing (eager, even) to “run the experiment” to try something new. I probably align with Innovators and Early Adopters on the Technology Adoption curve.

Regarding teams that have worked under my watch, my objective is to make them fabulously successful whenever possible. I’ve hired dozens of people and also faced the challenge of firing some. For several years, I managed a team of ~120 people that included sales, presales, implementation, customer success, development, and production. I’ve experienced employees with personality challenges and physical limitations, and in one very painful case, a person who philandered with customers.

Working at an organization’s headquarters provides one perspective, operating from a field office offers another, often richer set of experiences. I was fortunate to have that opportunity for two years in Basel, Switzerland, where you could jump on public transportation just steps from our office and visit three of the world’s large pharma houses in minutes. And I can share that relearning how to type using a Swiss-German keyboard was doubly challenging!

I read hungrily and consume a broad range of business books and an even broader range of informational books and resources. I am a huge fan of Mark Twain, the Wright Brothers, and the Grateful Dead (I took trumpet lessons at Dana Morgan’s in Palo Alto for those in the know). I love clever quotes, and I collect them from a variety of personalities.

Finally, I am fortunate to be in a location at the “edge of the earth,” the ecotone where the Franciscan Mélange of the Northern California shore meets the Pacific Ocean’s Humboldt Current. My neighbors include bears, grey foxes, skunks, chipmunks, crows, ravens, osprey, bald eagles, pelicans, cormorants, dolphins, and whales. The ravens and chipmunks, in particular, have been training me to serve them!

Does this sound like a lot of experience? Perhaps, but I recognize that there is much more that I haven’t experienced, and am in many cases entirely unaware of, than I know. Now it’s your turn.

Look in the Mirror

“You can either blame everybody else or you can take a look at yourself and determine where you can improve.”

– Robert Kiyosaki

It would be easier to continue to bash salespeople if salespeople were the only people with the faults that many presales pundits proclaim. Sadly, the presales population is also composed of a spectrum of personalities, ranging from the character defined in Ron Whitson’s A Friendly Human in Presales to people who are arrogant, boastful, full of themselves, and suffer acutely from the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Consider the following things that I’ve encountered in the presales space:

Self-proclaimed thought leaders who offer platitudes but no real substance. There are many of these!
Notables who plagiarize and, in many cases, claim otherwise (even when the evidence is obvious).
Entire presales vendor organizations that have betrayed long-term relationships. Just awful.
People who have copied, taught, and, in some cases, resold methodologies without consent.
One organization built a large community by appealing to our altruistic principles and then turned around and monetized what we had all contributed. Completely disingenuous!
And there are numerous presales vendors who haven’t developed a new idea or experimented with a new method in years, yet trumpet that they are state of the art.

Is there arrogance in a portion of the presales population? Definitely. Deceit? Clearly. Pridefulness? Of course. Duplicity? Apparently so. Condescension, disdain, contempt? Every day!

Does all this mean that presales is inherently evil? Obviously not, but presales enjoys and suffers the same spectrum of human personalities as any other discipline.

It is certainly possible, and perhaps likely, that the presales personalities spectrum is shifted, overall, to the “good” side of the curve, but there is no doubt of the presence of players exhibiting “bad” attributes.

So, if you are honest with yourself, are you suffering some level of presales hubris?

To avoid presales hubris, consider enrolling in a Great Demo! Doing Discovery or Demonstration Skills Workshop. For more demo and discovery tips, best practices, tools and techniques, explore our blog and articles on the Resources pages of our website at https://GreatDemo.com and join the Great Demo! & Doing Discovery LinkedIn Group to learn from others and share your experiences.

Beware Presales Hubris: An Open Letter to Presales