These are just some of the descriptions of salespeople that presales folks have posted on LinkedIn. And here are how presales people describe themselves on LinkedIn:
“Authentic”
“Trusted advisor”
“Highly competent”
“Expert”
“Customer Focused”
“Problem solver”
“Collaborative”
“Honest”
“Highly skilled”
“Consultative”
Yes, a great many of the LinkedIn posts by presales folks tout their technical acumen, authenticity, being a “trusted advisor,” and other skills and attributes. Many of these claims are true for a portion of the presales population. However, some of the negative characteristics assigned to salespeople are also found in presales.
Wait. What?
How is this possible? Well, first, we need to stop the name-calling.
Stop Bashing Salespeople
“The salesman knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it.”
– Oscar Wilde
Granted, there are many salespeople who live up (or down, depending on your perspective) to the frequently used descriptors offered by presales people, including those above, plus being “coin operated,” clueless about their products and technology, interested only in getting the order, and so on.
However, there are also many excellent sales folks who have earned the same qualities typically assigned to presales.
They earnestly believe in their products and services. They are (sufficiently and frequently surprisingly) technically and product savvy. They are excellent team players who deeply respect their colleagues in presales, customer success, development, marketing, legal, accounting, and all the other vendor disciplines. They embrace the doctrine of buyer enablement. They live to see their customers succeed over the long term.
I was facilitating a Great Demo! Workshop at a customer site, when I made a humorous, but disparaging remark about “typical salespeople.” One of the participants, a salesperson, took offense and called me out for my comments. He pointed out that “These generalizations can be very hurtful and unfair…” and he was right!
He made me realize that I need to evaluate each person on their own merits. We should all do the same and stop systematically bashing salespeople.
Along similar lines, many presales folks have a perception that doing sales is easy. This couldn’t be farther from the truth!
Sales Is a Tough Role
“Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, and no trust.”
– Zig Ziglar
If you have never been in sales, it is difficult (if not impossible) to understand exactly how hard the discipline is. It is not just living under the sword of Damocles in the form of the constant pressure to achieve the quota. That’s just the tip of the proverbial sword.
Doing sales requires executing multiple overlapping, multi-threaded project management exercises. Each sales opportunity is a project with its own timeline, players, challenges, pitfalls, advances, delays, and outcomes.
Let’s use a demo as an example event. A good, experienced salesperson working on a large opportunity may invest hours preparing, researching, setting calls and meetings, doing discovery, and prepping their team for the demo. The corresponding presales player may invest a few hours to consume the discovery information and prep the demo, and an hour or two to deliver it.
Presales’ perspective is often, “I did the heavy lifting, now it’s all set up for the salesperson to close the business.” That is, very frankly, naïve.
Was the demo sufficient proof? Are there other prospective concerns that need to be addressed? Are the competition’s products perceived as a better fit? Is a privacy, security, and/or data review needed? Is the proposal correct? Has a business case been generated? Are the legal agreements acceptable? Is the prospect’s purchasing team demanding unfavorable terms?
And great salespeople don’t leave the project once the sale is completed. They have set expectations that need to be fulfilled, requiring excellent coordination with implementation, training, and customer success. Sales folks who are also account managers know that their easiest sales consist of expansion into existing, happy, successful customers.
Opportunity complexity has been increasing, as well. Buying committees today often include six to ten members, and internal prospect politics complicate the process. Combine long sales cycles of six to eighteen months, in many cases, with sales win rates of twenty to forty percent, and your sales team is facing challenging odds, indeed.