Hiring from industry can lead to a PreSales team's best hires. They understand an industry’s drivers intimately and can operate at a peer level with customers, leading to more trust, customer centricity and better solutioning. They also bring any PreSales team a new perspective, having been in the customers' shoes.
That said, it’s hard to identify those who can successfully make the shift into a PreSales role and for them to 'see it'; after all, it requires an open mind and a big leap of faith for any individual - successful and well-considered where they are - to make what feels like a significant and unplanned career shift.
David Schultz runs a global PreSales team and has been able to hire a whopping 50% of SC’s from industry. How have they done it?! During a fantastic conversation, we asked him about this, as well as discussing hiring through fast growth, whilst building a culture to be proud of. Big thanks Dave!