Leading PreSales | The Solution Engineering Leadership Show

Nate tells the story of a value-selling programme that permanently changed how he thought about price -- and why, three years later, it was the reason he left the company. He and Ava dig into how to design enablement around a real business model shift, and what has to change around it afterwards.

Before you sign off on any enablement, name the one thing in your operating system that has to change to match it -- and put a date on it. Then say that date out loud to the team.

🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

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Nate rebuilt his interview loop so candidates present a case study twice — once as a coached dry run, once for the panel — and the score is the difference between the two. Ava pushes back on the risk of rewarding mimicry, and they land on a two-question scorecard.

On your next opening, split the case study into two sittings — a coached dry run with one person, then the panel a week later. Score two things: what actually changed, and whether they made the change their own.

🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

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

Ava noticed her team throwing a party at the technical win and going quiet for the six weeks that actually decide the deal. She and Nate argue about whether the metric should stay, and land on what presales owes the deal after the POC is signed off.

Redefine technical win as a checkpoint, not a finish line, and write down two named presales activities that happen after it — then have your SE ask the AE what would help get it over the line.

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🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

Ava noticed her SEs improvising under closing pressure — over-explaining, over-promising, or freezing. She and Nate work out the norm that fixes it: never lie, but never answer an unqualified question reflexively either.

Write two lines your team can recite: we don't lie, and we don't answer a question we haven't understood. Then run one deal review per month where the only topic is what got promised.

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🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

Ava asked her CRO for three more SEs and got one question back: prove the twelve you have are on the right deals. She rebuilt the ask as a capacity model — and found one AE eating 38% of her team's hours.

Instrument presales consumption per AE for one quarter — one CRM field, four effort buckets. Then open a standing quarterly capacity review with your sales leader with a reallocation proposal, not a complaint.

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🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

A one-line strategy slide can redirect an entire go-to-market motion, but the retraining, domain language and demo assets all land on the SE leader. Nate argues for naming a second ICP as insurance long before anyone asks for it, and Ava pressure-tests whether a twelve-person team can afford that hedge.

Name your second ICP now, assign two SEs to it, and run one live deal a quarter in that segment even when it's a stretch. After every call, write down the words your team didn't understand — that list is your enablement plan.

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🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

Nate's CRO used the word "PreSales" once in a forty-minute quarterly review — to ask why the team is still called that. He and Ava dig into why the pre/post split is an artefact of an older business model, and what to propose before someone proposes it for you.

Put the question on the table yourself: where else in the customer lifecycle does our skill set create the most contribution? Then bring a narrow pilot — one lifecycle moment, ninety days, one number you report back.

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🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

Nate gets handed a fifteen percent AI efficiency target with no definition attached, and watches his regions buy eleven tools instead of creating capacity. He and Ava work out how to name the output of reclaimed hours before a single licence gets signed.

Pick one admin task per role, target twenty to thirty percent of that time, and write down what the freed hours buy before you buy the tool. Put a date on it — one quarter — and cancel if the hours went nowhere.

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🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

Ava comes back from a GTM leadership dinner where almost nobody knew the new AI labeling rules — and where one leader used AI as a sparring partner while another had ten agents calling prospects. She and Nate argue about blanket transcription bans, who should own AI for the revenue org, and where corporate brakes actually earn their keep.

Write a one-page AI position for your own department: allowed by default, allowed with human review, blocked with a named reason and a review date. Then put the blocked list back in front of legal on that date and make them say no again in writing.

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🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales

Ava ran an AI session with her twelve SEs and discovered they'd built plenty — but nobody could say what they did with the time they saved. She and Nate dig into why usage metrics feel like progress, and how to make outcomes the thing you actually measure.

For every AI workflow your team adopts, write two lines before they start: what outcome this produces, and where the reclaimed hours go. If the second line is empty, it's a hobby, not a business case.

🚀 Join the PreSales Leadership Community: serockstars.com/community

🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales