And before I get into the 4/1/1, I’ve observed the following:

Presales is a buzzword these days. Everybody wants to get in it thinking that it’s fun and glamorous. But those things that people glamorize is such a small part of Sales Engineering.

1- Sales Engineering can be boring, and in fact, if you’re doing it right, should be boring. 80% of the work we’re doing is just preparing for the exciting stuff. And we never get to do the exciting stuff if we don’t do the boring things well (updating salesforce anyone?).

2- Asking “Any questions?” in a meeting is an invitation for your clients to not ask any questions.

3- The boring things include doing a proper discovery with the account manager and preparing open ended, thought provoking questions that you may never get the chance to ask.

4- If you’re not familiar with Tell-Show-Tell, learn it now. I can help with that. And once you’re familiar with that, switch it into Tell-Show-Ask-Ask-Ask etc.

Oqire

I’ve recently come in as an advisor for Oqire, a Presales Intelligence Platform meant to make the sales team collaborate and sell easier. If you want to watch a quick demo:

Here’s the link.

Alternatively, you can sign up for free and try it out.