#178 The Important Battle of Sales Engineering: Generating Visibility

Notes:

What would you do as a manager of 22 solutions consultants in your department? How would you handle their many pressing concerns and build relationships and at the same time give feedback for each person on your team? This episode pretty much sums up what we would do if we could change the role of presales within an organization. Also, Tony shares how he was able to move the role of presales from a subservient role under the sales division into more or a partnership and beyond.

Tony Francetic is the Solutions Consultant Manager with the Tax Professional Sales department at Thomson Reuters and oversees a team of solutions consultants that provide web-based and live product demonstrations during the sales process. He started his career at Thomson Reuters supporting the CS Professional Suite of products as a Technical Support Specialist and then transitioned full-time as a Technical Trainer with TCIS. He continues to train internally on presentation skills and Crucial Conversations. Tony holds degrees in Cyber Defense from Baker College and Integrated Leadership Studies from Central Michigan University.

Key Takeaways:

What sales engineering was called then when Tony joined Thomson Reuters and before he took over the sales infrastructure department
How Tony moved from the role of trainer to now the manager of training and consulting
The role of presales in the entire sales cycle
Tony’s challenge as a solutions consultant manager to change sales culture where the presales engineer isn’t on a level subservient to the sales rep
Was there already a sales engineering team in the company when he first became an SE manager or did he go and build that team?
How Tony was able to move presales from a subservient relationship to sales into more of a partnership?
Problems encountered when you don’t bring in an SE to discovery calls and only during a demo
How to show account managers the value of actually partnering with the presales team
The time it takes for SEs to prepare for demos and presentations
Ramzi distinguishes between qualification and discovery
The subtleties of working with tax professionals and what they are looking for when working with sales engineers or solution consultants
How does Tony manage to sleep while managing 22 sales engineers on his team?
The role of sales engineers beyond just partnering with the sales team within an organization
Why Ramzi considers the salespeople as the CEO and the SE as the CTO of a sale

Quotes:

“Primarily, that’s what we’re there to do, right? We support the sales division, we work to move deals forward, that’s the primary goal of presales, but to have that be the core focus of the role, and, and leave on the table, all the other aspects that presales have to do effectively. And not engage with the other parts of the company that can benefit from their experience and their knowledge, that interaction with customers. That’s a huge mess, in my opinion.” – Tony Francetic

“The first step in understanding that if you’re going to have a demo, the solution is gonna solve the presales person can’t care about that deal more than the sales rep. So, there’s, there’s a big part of that was just some recognition, I guess that it’s not always on somebody’s shoulders, it’s a team approach to it.” – Tony Francetic

“We’re not here to just get an info sheet thrown over to us and do demos whenever you need us to. It’s a lot bigger than that we can help. Strategy, questioning, positioning like that’s we deal with more customers, and we deal with it from the stage of understanding their needs. And I think that was, that was probably the biggest impact is when there started to be some recognition of, hey, they can actually help me before.” – Tony Francetic

“It’s always money, can you close a deal, and the more deals we close doing it the right way, then those reps like to talk and we’d like to try and reinforce that and talk about the ones that do a little bit of legwork on the front end, identify the, really the needs of the pain points of the customer connect with my team have a strategy, and then we knock out of the park and they close the deal when you’re talking shorter sales cycles, more deal opportunities. And that starts to feed upon itself after a while, too.” – Tony Francetic

“I think that anybody in pre-sales, when you get into demos and just the volume that you’re able to deliver, the longer that you do that those experiences that you go through and understand that man, I didn’t connect with that person. That would have been so much better if I did x, growing and develop by delivering, I think is a core part of pre-sales.” – Tony Francetic

“It’s great to focus on your weaknesses and try and improve them but it’s a lot easier to improve what you’re good at. Yeah, right. So, take that and take it to the next level.” – Tony Francetic

“But you look at most of the major companies that are out there and you know, throw it IBM SAP, Salesforce, you know, all the big ones. There’s a, there’s a VP or some level where pre-sales is there at that level of influence. And I think to get to a point where the recognition of what pre-sales can do for a business, not just a sales division, but a business. When that starts to happen, then it’s that strategy piece that I think can go a long way in improving the viability of a business long term.” – Tony Francetic