Two PreSales in a Pod

What if you treated your job search as a software sale? You'd need all the skills that great presales people have, and so you're one step ahead already - it's like you were leading up to this exact moment.

So you've done all your discovery and prep - right?

Special guest Mark Winey joins Mark Green and Mark McKinlay on a masterclass of making sure you're prepped and ready.

Find all three Marks on LinkedIn!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/markwiney/

Ever had to check yourself before giving feedback? Is your way actually the right way, or just the way you'd do it.

Leaders have to foster creativity and growth in others but sometimes things just have to be done the way you say. Getting the balance right is hard so we've brought in an expert.

Ben Pearce has seen it all, and now spends his time helping other people communicate in the best way - from talkative techies to silent specialists, he's seen what works and what doesn't.

(https://www.linkedin.com/in/benpthoughts)

What's more, we're very happy welcome new Co-Host Mark McKinlay (https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmckinlay) as we also thank Don Carmichael for his time as he steps back from hosting. Don't fret, he's still on LinkedIn! (https://www.linkedin.com/in/doncarmichael)

Come join us for a chat, drop us a line!

For the first time in Two Presales in a Pod history, all the presenters are together, live and in-front of the wonderful Demofestx London 2023 audience.

Join your hosts Mark Green, Don Carmichael, Adam Freeman and Tom Edwards as audience members share their journey into this wonderful presales profession!

There's even a giveaway, find out who gets it!

Goals and reviews can be crucial for the best running teams, but how many managers get them wrong and what are the best tips for getting them right?

Don, Mark and Adam discuss top tips and pitfalls of working with your team to create the right outcomes, rather than just 'tick the box' of doing reviews.

Find out more about SMART goals, OKRs and our key actions for you to try at the end!

Come find us on LinkedIn, and if you'd like to guest on the podcast we'd love to have you!

Hey - do you even do discovery right, and is it really enough?

Peter Cohan joins Adam to 'discover' How much discovery is enough?, and is a disco demo a good thing or bad thing?

We're all ace at doing discovery (or at least we think we are), but what if you doubt the quality of discovery by someone else?

Come join us on LinkedIn and add Peter, here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petercohan/

Today we tackle an important and difficult conversation. We were excited to welcome Lidia Vasileva on the show who if you don't know yet where HAVE you been!

Lidia shares her journey of growth into Presales from a more technical role, and how having a particularly creative mindset can be a boost to presales in the way problems are approached and solutions are presented. She's a champion of clarity and now even helps others tune their messaging to be more clear in business.

Both her roles have been in industries which are traditionally very male-dominated. The industry needs to be better at having the conversation about women in presales and not be scared of saying the wrong thing when trying to get it right.

So Adam and Mark get a dive into the conversation supported by Lidia - it's uncomfortable but it has to be, and there's no excuse for not trying to create a better world for everyone, whomever you are in our presales industry.

Continue the conversation on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/69409342 and connect with Lidia too! https://www.linkedin.com/in/lidia-vasileva/

Adam and Mark welcome Ian Merry, Global Head of Presales for Ideagen. His journey is a fascinating trip through many areas that made his understanding of people and our industry particularly impactful. So listen in to the key benefits of running a leadership team in a certain way, and helping people grow in the way they need and you need.

Thanks for coming on the podcast Ian - we loved having you on and it certainly got some great conversations going!

Don't forget to follow us for more great presales content and chat with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/69409342/

Bo Borland joins us to discuss presales playbooks, and given his experience orchestrating so many vibrant and effective parts of our world, Mark and Adam are keen to explore just how much the game has changed when it comes to organising strategic plays for your teams.

As a long-time leader now turned co-founder (Playbuilt), Bo's coined the phrase 'Teaming is the new selling' and how it adds to already strong selling motions to help all the players deploy different 'plays' for different situations. Plus, listen in to find out about a series of webinars focusing on how to team, how to play and of course, how to win.

Taking the initiative to try and make a difference to the world in which we live, and presales people are served better because people like Bo have a spark of passion and follow it to support us all.

Come find us on LinkedIn, Bo's page is right here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boborland

This episode Adam Freeman and Don Carmichael welcomes a very special guest, Peter Cohan.

We talk about how to identify a Champion within a Buyer, what might be motivating them, and how their previous experience of buying Tech changes their approach.

We look at whether it's even a Sales Engineer/PreSales Consultants job to enable a Buyer champion or whether that's just some Sales Execs do.

We talk about how the definition of a Champion and where you find them in an organisation has changed in recent years.

Focusing on the Enablement topic, we also discuss what a Champion might want from us, what we would want from them and how much we should be anticipating their needs.

Join us on LinkedIn to chat more!

There's lots of doom and gloom in tech, but we're feeling completely the opposite as there's so much to look forward to in our profession right now.

Don, Adam and Mark chat about why we're so excited to be in Presales, some of the key moments we can see happening across the industry and how to grab these great opportunities with both hands!

As presales / sales engineering leaders we're incredibly excited to be in a position to be able to affect such hugely beneficial change for our customers, and for the great people in our world.

So dive in and hear one of the most fun episodes we've recorded in a while!

Plus - Connect with us on LinkedIn!

#presales #salesengineering #excited