Coaching Goals and Outcomes

Value Focussed Demo Design

 

• Understand your product / service and its specific values to your different market segments

• Review your current presentation / demo and analyse this against your value proposition

• Suggest improvements, or where no current demo exists design one

• Assist pre-sales leadership with implementing improvements and follow up to assess impact

• Go To Market – Considering Sales Plays from a Value Perspective for the entire sales team

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Delivering a product or service message that avoids the ‘harbour tour’ of features, especially with longstanding demos can be a huge challenge. People revert to what they know and what they are comfortable with so those feature dumps keep popping back up…

 

With years of experience of different solutions to different markets I will work with you to define or improve your overall demonstration and presentation. Where these are delivered as a team we consider the whole delivery meeting – not the demo in isolation as its vital the sales executive delivers their part of the story.

 

And story is another aspect often lacking in these meetings. The typical scenario of sales person does a few slides to introduce the company and something about the product with the pre-sales person delivering a demo is nowhere near as effective as a story woven between your two (or more) principal actors.

 

These services extend from the demo to the entire sales play for the team delivering your deals, but always focussed on value and outcomes.

 

 

Mentoring – performance improvement to demo craft excellence

 

In my previous roles I’ve mentored senior and junior pre-sales professionals at differing states of their careers and with different goals.

 

• A sounding board for pre-sales leaders to discuss strategy and ideas.

• A buddy for “new to pre-sales” people, or existing pre-sales people that want to accelerate their development.

• Service delivered online (camera on, video conferenced) or face to face if required and in the south of England/London.

• Sessions can be ad-hoc or any regular schedule, and can be outcome focussed on specific development or less formally structured.

 

 

Pre-Sales process and Sales Team operations definition or refinement

 

Pre-sales leadership is in a critical role within the wider sale team, and is governed typically by overall sales management and strategy. This context is always the starting point when considering any process and team improvements within the presales function to ensure they can be delivered effectively.

 

Bring some added experience and extra ideas to your Pre-Sales team improvement initiative. Having seen what works and does not work in businesses of different sizes I can support pre-sales leadership or individual team managers. This might be as a sounding board to discuss ideas (please see my ‘Mentoring’ page), or as support in a more structured approach around the process or delivery of pre-sales services where we analyse and then recommend on improvements, with implementation if required.

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Team building – selection criteria and Interviewing (screening through to panels)

 

• Understanding your sales team structure, operating procedures and value proposition to define the right pre-sales people or person for your business.

• Screening interviews to go a level deeper than an in-house recruiter.

• Panel support in terms of scenario definition, role play and delivery assessment.

 

Over the years I have recruited both experienced and new to role pre-sales people. And having trained new to role people I have learned its certainly no simple definition or criteria for what makes a great pre-sales person. You have to start with a clear understanding of your product or service value, alongside the team operation in delivering that, so we put the pre-sales role in the correct context.

 

This is how we generate the role definition and the skills and traits that underpin long lasting excellent delivery in that role.

 

From this we tailor the interview process and question coverage to gain a full view of each candidate and put them through a journey that will both assess their suitability but also give them an interview experience which seeds loyalty and excitement to ensure you attract and retain the perfect candidate.

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Contract pre-sales engagements for market testing and GTM definition

 

I will be your pre-sales person. Use my years of experience to test out a new market, or to really get under the skin of your operation and refine the messaging

 

With years of experience in the UK and European market places I am especially well suited to help advise US businesses looking to test out or launch in these geographies. Having worked for 7 US based businesses in pre-sales roles over the years I understand the cultural differences and nuances from both perspectives. Let me kick start your entry to the UK market by avoiding the speed bumps of too US centric a delivery or approach.