#222 Revealing the Pain of a Situation, Then Guiding to the Dream

Notes:

Who would have thought that a teacher could be an expert in sales engineering? These two professions might be completely opposite to each other since sales engineering is more technical and the teaching profession is more social, but they are almost identical. In this episode, you will meet a former teacher who transitioned into presales and still felt like teaching because he has mentees who he teaches about the field.

Kris Meulemans the Global Head of Customer Operations in Materialize. He is a Presales Leader with years of experience in multiple industries. He also shared tips and tricks on how to gain the trust of the customers to tell their pain points.

Key Takeaways:

Why the teaching profession and presales are the same
What is the difference between andragogy and pedagogy as ways of teaching
Kris shares what makes selling easier
How to deeply understand the target customer’s pain points
How to earn the trust of the customers to tell their pain points in just a short time
Ramzi shared how he handled a situation where customers requested features he couldn’t do
Why is the presales more process-oriented and the sales more retail-oriented
Why does Kris have a lot of people who chose to be on his team and how does he handle them

Quotes:

“The teacher training is one of the best training for everything, but also to become presales. Because what you’re doing in teaching is you’re connecting what people already know to what they don’t know yet. And you have to show them the value of learning the law of wanting to learn. And that’s exactly what we do in presales, as well. It’s understanding where people are today, where they go, where they go to, and showing them that value of going to a new situation.” –Kris Meulemans

“The difference between andragogy and pedagogy is the pedagogy is you tell what you’re talking about. It’s just like, ‘Here’s some content and you just have to get the content in your head.’ Andragogy is the more adult learning, ii’s all about getting you engaged in learning, showing you the value of learning, helping you through it, and coaching you through it.” –Kris Meulemans

“If you want to bring people along, you have to tell them a story that’s valuable enough for them to invest their time in.” –Kris Meulemans

“It’s always finding their pain points and then going up. You start talking more about this value in different terms, but you have to understand that to transfer what their experiences are into something that the person with the monitors is going to understand. And, and I think it’s an easier one to do, is to go from the problem and make it clear how much that problem is costing and how that can be reduced. The easier and the more visible it is, the better.” –Kris Meulemans

“Understand the problem area deeply enough, and you can only get there by listening, asking questions, listening better, listening deeper.” –Kris Meulemans

“It’s presales versus sales. In every company, you always have presales versus sales. But the way I always explain it to salespeople, as well, is that we aren’t just presales, we’re there to serve the sales process and the value of our solution to the customer. But we serve the process, not a salesperson, and that is an underlying thing that we see that happens.” –Kris Meulemans

“ The forecast from the sales engineers is much more accurate because we tend to be a little bit more defensive. But we think about things a little bit more, and we see the risks a little bit more so that it tends to be closer to reality.” –Kris Meulemans

“They can’t just take all the work I’m doing and just get rid of me. Your value is not in putting that stuff in CRM, your value is in relationships with the customers.” –Kris Meulemans