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Importance of Presales

Importance of Presales

by | Dec 3, 2019 | Presales

Importance of Presales

In today’s customer success-driven industry, business is in a constant quest for growth. But, they often overlook a promising opportunity within their organization: Presales. An integral part of the sales team, Presales plays a crucial role in not only acquiring new business but also lay the foundation to retain customers for a lifetime.

Presales operations kickstart when the potential customer has been identified. They carry out a specific set of activities that lead to qualifying, present product demonstration and help sales win deals as well as to renew.

More specifically, it refers to the technical side of the sales; responsible to demonstrate technical aspect and business value of the product.

As mentioned in my previous blog, I have dwelled into the details of the responsibilities and importance of presales in an organization.

Who is a presales engineer?

A presales engineer is a person who works alongside a salesperson to discover a customer’s business challenges and creates a unique solution to present back to their decision-makers.  They help prospects visualize the value and benefits through an engaging story. When executed well it equates to a sale for the business, ROI for the customer and long term relationship.

Break down of responsibilities

Two-thirds of Presale’s efforts involve technical activities (crafting solutions to customers’ problems) and the remaining one-third is for commercial activities (manage deal qualification, bid RFP).

  • Qualify leads by tagging with salespeople during visits or calls with prospects and clients.
  • Deliver a kickass demonstration or presentation exhibiting in-depth knowledge in their industry.
  • Keep the POC moving by contacting prospects pro-actively and answer any technical questions related to their product.
  • Gather product feedback or feature request from clients and liaise with Product Managers
  • Collaborate with sales and marketing for Sales Enablement.
  • Respond to RFP’s when the tender is out and help sales to manage the bidding process.

Importance of Presales

It’s the first “proper interaction the customer has with the product/solution so the pre-sales group sets the standard and tone for the technical support and engagement they will receive” throughout their lifecycle. They invest their time to have a deep understanding of the client’s needs. Presales have the ability to predict customer needs with greater precision and provide expertise before the purchase is made.

A well-run presales organization will have a lasting impact on the customer’s perception and attitude toward your business. Oftentimes, they have a significant influence on the customer during the renewal period.  

In conclusion, Presales is not about delivering technical closure for a sales opportunity.  The primary focus of presales is always to deliver far more value to the customer during every stage of their sales journey. The value should contribute to the achievement of the customer’s strategic goals. The likelihood of customer renewing or expanding depends on identifying these value-based outcomes for the customer.

Make a customer, not a sale

Make a customer, not a sale

by | Nov 19, 2019 | Sales

“Make a sale, you’ll make a living. Build a relationship, you will create a fortune.”

Sales are imperative for growing any business. Without sales, businesses struggle to survive in today’s competitive environment. However, traditional sales techniques like ‘Always be closing’, cause businesses to fall behind without a futuristic growth.

Before I share my opinions, I’m adding some stats from Hubspot on creating a positive sales experience, according to buyers.

  1. Listen to their needs (69%)
  2. Don’t be pushy (61%)
  3. Provide relevant information (61%)
  4. Respond in a timely manner (51%)

Sales techniques like ABC emphasize heavily to bulldoze through a sale. But, this increases the risk of losing the overall business as the requirements are not fully understood. The customer experience is quite dissatisfactory and this will cause a large impact on the reputation of the business.

“People don’t like to be sold, they love to buy” – Jeffrey Gitomer.

A Sales Superstar knows that a customer is for life. He takes mammoth efforts to build an ever-lasting relationship with the customer and that is what you call a positive Customer Experience. I have had the luckiest opportunity to work with many such Superstars. The conversation between them is quite interesting to observe as it focuses more on the customer’s problems and interests rather than a forced sales pitch. 

Experienced salesperson represents themselves as a knowledgeable person with solid domain expertise in the service they offer. Customers tend to listen to such an expert and this will make a huge impact on their purchasing decision and improve their outlook about the company. Trust and confidence are built forever before the deal is signed.

“After a positive experience, 83% of customers would be happy to provide a referral”(source). 

Don’t jump the gun by pushing through a sale. Instead, tailor the sales process to create a sense of control thus making it easy for the customers to feel that they are purchasing an experience instead of a service.

Customer support “Is it a cost center or a profit-making center?

Customer support “Is it a cost center or a profit-making center?

by | Nov 14, 2019 | Customer Support

Customer support is no more a cost center. It is actually a profit center.

I recently chanced upon an article comparing Customer Success to Support. The one that caught my attention in this article was “Customer success generates revenue while customer support is tagged as a Cost Center”. Traditionally, businesses have looked at customer support as an expensive division of the organization. It is considered a necessary evil. However, with more emphasis on Customer Experience(CX) these days, the tides are changing.

In today’s digital world, customers are empowered with technology than ever before. With a post, not more than 30 words, they either promote or destroy the brand. More than anyone else in the organization, they are constantly engaged with customer support. Hence, there is a need for businesses to realign their strategy. A couple of points to be considered during decision-making.

Focus to increase the customer satisfaction level

When problems reported by customers are effectively handled to their satisfaction, they tend to scale up your business more than those who haven’t reported a problem.

Customer problems are indeed opportunities.

The business has to look at customer problems as opportunities. It helps to narrow down and fix the services or products or business processes. It is an opportunity to increase customer experience and add revenue to the organization.

My experience

Having imbibed this quality of looking at every problem as an opportunity, I was assigned a difficult task to retain an unhappy customer. I had one last chance here to overturn the situation. From my discussion, I identified that the customer and his team were unaware of the complete capability of the service. After listening to their concerns, I empathized with their current situation and offered a two-day product level training. This training brought in the necessary product awareness which helped them realize the potential of the service. During the course of this interaction, flaws in business service were identified and fixed. This resulted in improving the overall experience of the service. As an addendum to the existing service, further opportunities were identified resulting in an upsell.

In conclusion, businesses have to come out of this old school thought that customer support is a cost center. This division is a treasure house as it holds critical data about your customer and their experience which provides immense value for your product, marketing and sales team – DIKW.

The First step in this Awesome Journey

The First step in this Awesome Journey

by | Oct 26, 2019 | General

Katherine Mansfield, an author from New Zealand in the early 19th century, once quoted – 

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.

Have you ever wondered the hardest thing that you did in life? In fact, at every stage of our life or career, we would have taken the hardest decision.

Let me go a step back and tell you that we have had done the hardest thing as a kid- the first step to walk, the first word, the first sentence without any errors as a child. And, there can be many more such examples. These things seemed hardest to us, without actually knowing that it was the hardest. We managed to come out of these with radiance and courage, as we were all naive to the world and we didn’t care much about risk. We never had thoughts on the aftermath of an action or decision. If I may ask you a question at this point, do we have the same courage and strength to risk our life and career?

Many in my friend’s circle were quite hesitant to say a firm YES to this question. I may not want to divulge or discuss the reasons behind the hesitation. However, one common thing that I found was everyone wanted to play safely without being risked on physical, mental or financial aspects.Where did this hesitation come from, while all along we have been thought to risk everything in our childhood?

The fear of failure grips us all. The hesitation to start anything new or afresh or change a situation stems from the fear factor in you. The onus is on our own self to overcome this fear factor. Take risks with caution to face one of the many new challenges that come in your way. Take the first step towards your goal and happiness and the rest will automatically fall in place as to how it did to all of us as a kid or a child.

“You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.” – Paulo Coelho

I have overcome my fear to take this leap in my career. 

DoyenThoughts is a hub for GTM team’s to network and exchange ideas that will help the business provide a great customer experience