Leading PreSales | The Solution Engineering Leadership Show

Ava's team kept duct-taping workarounds onto a bought POC platform until one SE built the tool she actually wanted in an afternoon. Nate pushes back on skipping constraints, and together they work out how to pair unconstrained dreaming with a named brake so build ideas don't turn into distractions.

Give the next build idea a one-to-two-hour session with no constraints. Then have one named person ask whether this is your biggest bottleneck right now. If it's not, park it, and keep a weekly log of 'we couldn't do it' moments so it comes back with evidence.

🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

📅 Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call

Ava watched one of her SEs go from webinar idea to live landing page before lunch, work that once took her weeks of cross-team waiting. Nate pushes back on brand risk, shadow IT and customer legal. Together they work out which dependencies AI can remove and which ones are real.

Run a dependency audit: ask every SE when they last waited more than a week on another team, then check whether a template plus an AI tool could make that work self-serve. Take the list to the other team's leader before you build anything, and pitch it as fewer tickets in their queue.

🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

📅 Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call

Ava's SE brought a business case built on hours saved times an hourly rate, but the people were still on the payroll after go-live. Nate and Ava work out how to coach SEs to turn freed capacity into revenue, error cost, or avoided hiring that finance will actually believe.

Pull every business case your team sent last quarter and ask one question wherever you see hours times rate: which cost line shrinks? If none does, rewrite it as freed capacity and get the buyer to say what those hours turn into.

🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

📅 Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call

Nate reads a Head of SE posting that makes the new leader responsible for training, tools and feedback — then funds it with €1,000 a year, less than the same company gives people for donating to open-source projects. He and Ava dig into why that gap is read as a culture signal, and what to do before pay transparency makes every line comparable.

Open your live posting and write the euro figure next to every 'you will own / build / equip' line. If there's no number — or the number embarrasses you — fix the budget before you post, or cut the sentence.

🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

📅 Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call

Nate breaks down a second-line Head of Solution Engineering ad that quietly bundles five go-to-market motions, post-sales and partner building into one job. He and Ava work out how to scope-test a mandate like that — as the candidate and as the hiring manager.

Before you accept (or post) a second-line SE role, split the responsibility list in two with the hiring manager in the room: what must be true in twelve months, and what belongs on a three-year list with a date. Then write the name of the peer who owns each long-term item today — no name means it's yours by default.

🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

📅 Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call

Nate tears apart a publicly posted Head of Solution Engineering ad from a fast-growing automation vendor — two things it does brilliantly, two it gets badly wrong. Ava pushes back on publishing comp bands and on asking candidates to sign up for a number before they know the territory.

Open your current req and add a single line describing what success looks like twelve months in. Then walk your must-have list and delete anything a candidate can't answer with a plain yes or no.

🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

📅 Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call

Ava's strongest SE left after eighteen months from a team she loved, because the path to leading anything was never made concrete. Nate and Ava dig into why silence about timelines costs you your best people, and what an honest version of that conversation sounds like.

Book thirty minutes with everyone who has hinted they want to lead — outside the pipeline 1:1. Ask what they want to be responsible for and by when, then say the honest timeline out loud, even when it's ugly, and set a date to revisit it.

🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

📅 Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call

Ava almost passed on her best hire because a scripted demo in his second language buried him. She and Nate work out how to separate fundable gaps from structural ones \u2014 and how to attach a remedy, a budget, an owner and a date before day one.

Before the offer goes out, write one sentence naming the gap, then attach the remedy, the budget, the owner and the date. If you can't fill all four, you're not funding a gap \u2014 you're hoping.

🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

📅 Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call

Ava tells the story of her own first leadership job: the title, the bigger number, and a comp plan she couldn't read. She and Nate work out what a real promotion ramp looks like -- and why the new leader's silence is the least reliable signal you have.

Before anyone gets promoted, have them draft a 90-day phase plan with named milestones -- including one session on the commercial model -- and let them pick their own mentor from two or three people who have nothing left to prove.

🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

📅 Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call

Nate brings an exit interview where nothing was wrong: good product, good team, good manager — and the best SE in the region still left after five quarters. He and Ava dig into the invisible ceiling on scope and progression, and what leaders can actually do about it.

Twice a year, ask each SE what they're optimizing for right now, then answer honestly whether it exists here in the next eighteen months. If it's a yes, sponsor one concrete thing within ninety days — otherwise the yes is just a nicer no.

🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

📅 Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call