Making the Most Out of Pre-Sales Engineers for Value-Selling Techniques

For some, the personification of sales is a slick-talking, charismatic young man in a suit who can sell anyone a pen. However, as professionals know, the B2B enterprise sales landscape is more complicated. In enterprise sales especially, multiple teams are involved within the modern B2B sales framework – even more so with teams that take a value-selling approach.

Instead of just emphasising standard features or basic technical specifications, value-selling strategies focus on how a product or service can solve a customer's problems, improve their situation, or help them achieve their goals. It has become the dominant framework for most B2B sales teams, with 87% of companies incorporating value-selling techniques. 

The Role of Pre-Sales Engineers

With this approach comes a new raft of teams and skills needed to sell to the modern customer. Enter the pre-sales engineer. A pre-sales engineer is often the first point of contact for a potential customer next to the account executive and provides an important bridge from technical know-how to the real-world value of a product. 

These people are often responsible for product demonstrations, walkthroughs, and “proof of concept” demos for potential customers. Through these, pre-sales engineers combine technical knowledge and sales tactics to understand their prospects' problems individually and position themselves as trusted advisors. This helps the sales team in getting a better understanding of their prospect and also ensures that all leads are fully qualified before entering the pipeline further.

Information Counts

Pre-sales engineers are crucial in collecting information that teams can later use to build business cases. This is becoming increasingly important with value-selling methodologies, as customers are saturated with options and must also satisfy large buying committees. The value-selling process relies on positioning your software solution directly with the customer's needs and wants. 

To build mutual business cases, sales teams must understand the customer inside and out, including the problems of wider stakeholders involved in the buying process. They need to know things like: 

• Who are the key stakeholders in the deal? 

• How much power does the CFO have in the buying process?

• Have they had experience with similar solutions that failed? If so, why?

Pre-sales engineers are great at extracting this information, which is crucial to building the most compelling mutual business case later on. Good pre-sales engineers are excellent at linking customer problems to the product’s solution and value in a way that people can easily understand. 

As a result, prospects can often be more open with pre-sales engineers as they see them as more objective, reliable, and neutral than frontline salespeople. By providing this forum, pre-sales can set the framework for the best value case possible and help push the deal over the line.  

Minoa

According to some estimates, a solid pre-sales team can drastically improve a company's performance and increase win rates by 50%. However, making the most of their potential requires a platform for effective collaboration that uses the information they extract to the best possible end. 

We built Minoa around the value-selling methodology, which allows pre-sales engineers to move the conversation forward and customise business cases from the ground up.

If you’d like to learn more about how Minoa can help pre-sales teams, please book a demo here.