Episode Transcript
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(00:09):
Welcome everybody to Software Sales Simplified Move to
Success, your weekly podcast to catch up on the latest and
greatest in the world of enterprise software sales, to
get insights and to learn techniques to become a better
seller. Whether you're seasoned,
professional or new to the industry, please make our
podcast your weekly place betteras a seller.
I'm Kevin Dondell. I'm joined by my good friend,
(00:32):
colleague and and partner in crime, Matt Long.
Matt, how you doing this week, Sir?
I'm doing great, Kevin. Thanks.
Now together, Matt and I have over 50 years of experience with
enterprise software selling and implementation, and we're very
happy that you've joined this podcast with us today.
This week, we've got a very interesting guest, a good friend
(00:52):
of mine and Matt's as well in Chamberlain.
Dustin, we're going to go and turn over the floor to you in
just a second. But before we do want to remind
everybody, if you like our podcast and you like the content
we're coming up with, please like, follow, subscribe, leave a
comment and let us know what youthink about the content itself
because we want to make this your one stop shop for the
latest and greatest in software sales.
(01:13):
Dustin, how are you doing? My friends?
Good to see you. Yeah, Thanks, Kevin.
Thanks, Matt. I'm doing pretty good.
Well, we were really glad that you agreed to come on the show
today. You and I obviously have worked
together for quite a quite a fewyears in the past and we've shed
more than our fair share of of stories that we could be telling
online. But the thing that really
(01:34):
intrigued me about wanting to bring you on is you've got a
very interesting story to talk about because you actually
started originally as a customerof software solutions in the
space that we all work in and then migrated over into the role
that you have today. So I know a lot about you.
I know you pretty well, but you know not a lot of folks that are
listening to the call know that.So please, take the floor, take
(01:56):
a moment and tell people who youare and what you do and where
you work. Yeah, let's do it.
I'll give you the 10,000 foot view.
So yeah, practitioner turned presales right.
I think that, you know, maybe that's the title of this one,
but at the at the end of the day, it couldn't be more true
Better part of 15 years startingmy career at bestbuy.com and
(02:18):
utilizing, you know, kind of thethe OG tool along with other dev
OPS tools for site monitoring and website would be the tea
leaf system. So administering that bad boy
for many, many years under the yellow tag of SPY and then again
continuing the practitioner getting recruited over to
(02:39):
zappos.com where they also needed some expertise.
I know back in the day, a lot ofpeople said, you know, you
basically needed a, you know, a PhD in rocket science to
administer tea leaf. And some days that was true,
right? But the other thing I was
reflecting on too, to kind of round this out and I'm sure
we'll talk about it maybe a little bit more is a lot of
(03:02):
people say when you go from practitioner to pre sales or
sales, I've gone to the dark side, right, It's.
That embrace, definitely. That's the phrase and I was
reflecting on that thinking. You know, I think it was just
natural career progression alongthe way and ultimately multiple
different companies and roles inthe pre sales side and most
(03:25):
recently of of many years there once I came over to pre sales,
managing A-Team, coaching A-Teamand really enjoying that aspect
of it the last couple years. Well, I know that that's kind of
where you and I first, I think we had a passing acquaintance
with each other when you were atBest Buy and at Zappos.
And I think that's where we first had our first touch base.
(03:47):
And then, you know, obviously a few years later when I was
running pre sales at Click Tail,that's when you made the
migration to come over and I wasapproached not just by you, but
advocates for you inside of our own sales organization.
They're like, this would be a great guy to bring into our
team. And I'm just curious, like
that's definitely switching to the other side of the table.
(04:08):
We won't call it the dark side because I'm, I'm with you.
I, I don't know if it necessarily qualifies, but what
was your experience like? Because you've already shared a
little bit about it. Like sometimes you needed the,
you know, the, the science degree in order to be able to
work with the solution. What was it about your customer
experience that made you think, you know, I think this is
something I want to to go into What was, what was, was there
something good about it, something negative about it or a
(04:30):
mixture of both that made you think that that would be an
interesting career change? Yeah, honestly, it's looking
back at it. I heard, you know, similar
people say certain things to me along our interactions of
different jobs, different Co workers and what a lot of people
had said and I just never made the jump myself without the
encouragement that you talked about was you could sell
(04:51):
anything you want. What insert analogy there?
And, and I, I always took that as a compliment.
I was passionate about it. I liked doing it.
I kind of liked the mental hustle, if you will.
And so really at the end of the day, making that transition, I
think especially from the context of practitioner
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day-to-day on the client side and then being able to provide
maybe the services and value andvision that I know I would
always want on the practitioner side made it even that much
easier for me to actually do thetransition.
Yeah. Dustin, curious, what was your
background prior to your role atBest Buy?
Did you have a tech degree or what?
(05:35):
What did you study? Yeah, it's, it's funny, right?
So I did a lot of things right. I, I did a lot of testing out of
different computer programs and,and classes went down the path
of audio recording engineering and during, during that time
actually still working, maintaining part time at Best
Buy. And so it was one of those
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things where it's like, I you got to make a decision.
Are you going to go into computers hardcore?
This whole Internet and website thing was really heating up.
Even Best Buy did a relaunch, I think they originally launched
and you can go back to the Wayback Machine, call it 97 or
so when they launched. And then they relaunched and
rebranded the website in early 2000 when it was the.com boom.
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And that's when I made the decision.
It's like, all right, there's anN I'm going in head first.
Technology, DevOps, online tools, monitoring, the whole the
whole deal. So that was a pivotal moment for
me to just say I'm a technologist.
I was building my own computers,you know, modding the computer
cases with windows and lights and, you know, now you can buy
(06:45):
those things. Back then you couldn't got your
fingers trying to make it look cool.
But yeah, that's that's kind of the story there.
Well, that's great. I'm kind of reliving a little
bit of that because I started also in the, well, I started in
the late 80s with PC's and stuff.
So I had to date myself. But I'm sitting here with my
desktop computer open on my deskas we speak trying to fix
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something like it's bringing back all these bad memories from
back then. But the interesting thing I
found was that a lot of people in tech sales, whether it's pre
sales or AES didn't necessarily come from a tech background.
That's I'm always interested into what your journey was like.
I think more so now these days, people are coming from tech and
from programming and things intopresales.
(07:29):
But back back in our day, I mean, Kevin, I think we talked
about this before you were pre law, There's other people.
I was an artist, right? I had a fine art degree.
So I think there's a lot of skills that are inherent in the
position that aren't really written down on paper, but we
find we have we need as part of the process to become a good
seller. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
(07:51):
I think, you know, just to just to add to that a little bit, you
know, reflecting on different, different trainings, different
programs, everything that we allgo through.
If you're at a different companyand then you go to another
company, they've got a sales methodology, they've got a
process and all of it comes backdown to kind of what you said,
the different backgrounds and things that your experiences
(08:13):
that you've had. There's definitely a skill set
right that specific to pre sales, you know, whether it's
spoken or unspoken, you need to have these particular skills I
think to be successful. Well, you're, you're opening the
door to the to the question then, right.
So what are the, and I can hear Liam Neeson talking in the
background right now. What are the particular set of
(08:36):
skills that you're thinking about here?
What's your formula? Do you do you think there is
one? What makes a good pre
salesperson from that perspective?
Absolutely. I think nowadays it's changed a
little bit, right but but it hasn't in the same respect.
You can have two different personas in the pre sales role.
Let's just say we've got type A and type B type A is going to be
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somebody that maybe has a littlebit of that technical
background. Maybe they've built a website,
they know HTML and CSS and they can get into the selectors and
and all of that great stuff a little bit, right?
Knows some JavaScript, knows howto modify some of that code.
And then you've got type B wherethey don't necessarily have that
technical background to what youwere talking to, Matt, but
(09:23):
they've got the other skill sets, right.
So to your point, Kevin, I've got a very particular set of
skills that can be two completely different things.
But what does need to cross pollinate there is and there's a
couple things in my mind, emotional intelligence,
listening skills, the ability torelate to the prospect or the
(09:44):
client. And I say all of those things,
again, coming from the practitioner side, from the
spectrum of just being a, a super user, an admin all the way
to wearing multiple hats where I'm essentially the champion
economic buyer, decision maker. All of those things that
resulted in some cases in in a really nice upsell renewal, even
(10:08):
when I was on the prospecting side.
No, I, I wholeheartedly agree. I think that there's an, it's
just like making a sword, right?It you have to amalgamate the
right types of skills and the people that can bring those
different skills together are the folks that will excel in
this, in this role, right? I agree with everything that you
said there about the fact that there's a type A&A, type B.
(10:30):
And I do think that they do needto learn how to play in each
other space, right? They, they need to learn how to
come over to those different things.
I always used to say when I was running teams, I can teach a non
tech person tech and I can teacha tech person the, the
philosophy and the psychology ofselling.
Yeah. But it's up to them to embrace
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it. And if they can't bring those
together, there's going to be a gap, there's going to be a
weakness. So I wholeheartedly agree.
Yeah. And just to add on to that
really quick, Kevin, you know, let's let's call it what it is.
I mean, in my experience, it's easier to teach a non-technical
person technical skills to checkthe boxes AB and C, But in many
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cases, the other aspect, if you can't teach someone to be a
salesperson, if you can't teach them to, you're always selling
right. You have to be a technical, get
a technical champion, get a relationship together, have a
rapport with those people that those set of skills are the the
ones that sometimes ultimately you say, wow, well, I've tried
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to teach those, but this person,they just can't get it right.
Yeah. I'm curious, when you were a
practitioner, were you part of the evaluation and purchasing
team for these solutions? And if so, I'm just curious,
what things did you pick up fromthe sales side in terms of
things you liked or didn't like or things that really hit home
(11:56):
with you or didn't? And because I imagine that would
be great information to have when you become a seller, right?
Because then you know how these things have across because a lot
of us have never really sat on that other side and been sold
to. Yeah.
So what did? What was your experience there?
Yeah, no, it's that's a great question, Matt.
I think so the answer is yes. And my experience, you know,
(12:18):
geez, things have changed post COVID, you know, travel isn't as
prevalent as it once was. And so, but back when I was on
the practitioner side, you got introduced to your AE that was
managing the, the account many times they brought their boss,
the RVP and that happened multiple times trying to tee
things up for, you know, the inevitable renewal and, and the
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growth, the growth strategy of upsell cross sell.
So I saw it unfold, but at the time I didn't know the process.
I didn't know what was being done, so to speak.
I got to say it was to me, it was a it was a great process, a
good eye opener. It was really in some aspects as
traditional as you could think, right.
We had a meeting, they came in the the pre sales person at the
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time showcased some new featuresthat we didn't quite have yet or
didn't purchase yet. And hey, could you use this?
Does it look valuable? And you know, I'm sitting there
in the room like, yeah, like I'mthe administrator at the time.
I'm like, give me all the tools.This is exciting.
And then you've got my boss in the time that was kind of
teaching me the ropes on the practitioner side of sales in
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not so many words, like calm down, don't show all your cards
here. Right.
And then as that process evolved, I became more of the
decision maker, more of the, thebudget holder, so to speak, and
all the other aspects of of thatcourtship, if you will.
Right. Hey, let's go out to lunch.
Let's talk about the status, by the way, who's all available?
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Let's go out to a nice dinner. Those things really built
relationships. And again, you're on site,
everybody's in the office, it's easy to do Nowadays, it's a
little bit different. It's like pulling teeth with
disparate teams and everyone's remote.
And so you have to go about it alittle bit differently nowadays.
But all that being said, my experience was really pretty
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good when I was on the practitioner side.
I have no complaints. And now seeing it on the other
side, I smile because I can. I can pinpoint everything that
took place up into the point where contract execution,
everyone's happy, including the seller and everybody right, his
boss, whoever was forecasting that deal, the entire company.
(14:32):
So, OK, so I get exactly what you're saying there.
So now you've seen it through both sides and you've
experienced it viscerally about what those two seats are like
relative to their position and their point of view relative to
closing software. So let's talk about something a
little bit more fundamental to that then.
How in your mind what is the contribution in that
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relationship because you're all getting as they say, getting
sweaty for the software solution, What is the
contribution of pre sales in thesales cycle to getting you as a
stakeholder in that decision to that degree of excitement and
engagement to the purchase? Yeah, good, Good question,
Kevin. A lot of things come to mind
(15:16):
immediately and I'll just say a few of the words, the buzzwords
in my brain, trusted advisor, collaboration, technical
resource. Ultimately, in some
relationships, I can say from mypast experience, future friend,
future colleague, these relationships that you're
actually interacting with, you know, we say it all the time,
right? Like, man, it's a, it's a small
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world in software sales. And that's still true today,
even though where I'm currently at in my vertical, yes, there's
competition, there's a handful of players in the space.
That's true for anybody. And so, you know, again, just
seeing what I've seen, you know,never burn a bridge because
you've got a, I've got a ecosystem of people that you
(15:59):
need to sometimes rely on or definitely want to keep reaching
out to. So let me follow up on that
because I get what you're sayingimplicitly because I've walked
the walk, So is Matt, but for anybody who maybe hasn't walked
the pre sales Rd. they may have a hard time understanding that.
So you know, you're talking about you call them out as
buzzwords. How do you become that trusted
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advisor as pre salesperson? What are some of the tactics
that you get engaged with? Yes, speaking from my
experience, I was very lucky. I got attached to some really
good sellers to start. And you have to be we talk about
skills for pre sales. You have to be coachable.
You're not I'm not the best nobody on my team is the best
(16:41):
nobody that's watching this video is the best have some
humility, right? And so I think at the end of the
day, those skills of always being able to improve or know
that there's always something you could change if you don't
ever get set in your ways. My nose, it's especially Kevin
you and I've probably had this conversation in the past like if
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switch it up, if it's if it feels good and it feels
comfortable, that's great. If it's continuing to work and
progress things for the deals, even better.
But in that one instance where it starts to go off the rails,
you adapt and change and flip the script, right?
And again, those are the hard skills because everybody likes
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to just stay in their comfort zone.
Yeah, I mean in in enterprise sales, obviously usually there's
an AE and an SE and a minimum working together, right.
And you're both selling. The nice thing about the SC is
you're kind of covert sales. So you are you automatically
have a position of trust much more than the AE.
So taking that mind, what activities and what sort of
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motions does pre sales take thatare really critical you think to
advancing enterprise deals? Because I've seen it where the
AE just taps and the SC is just doing demos and answering
technical things that work. Sometimes I don't think it's as
effective. So what would you say a really
good SC or our team of AE and SCwould look like?
(18:07):
Absolutely. So the key structure there to
your to your question Matt is plan, prep, dry run, right.
And what I mean by that is a killer duo of the SCAE pairing
is going to be open to that feedback, adapt and change your
your plan before you meet with the prospect or the customer.
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So prep call, maybe it's multiple prep calls, maybe it's
a dry run. And you know, at the end of the
day, here's the key part to that.
Remember in enterprise pre sales, we've got a four to one
ratio, usually minimum, if not more sometimes.
So talk about visibility at batsand the ability to understand
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what works. You know that AE or that
partner, they only have a purview of their deals, their
pipeline and what they're comfortable with.
So it goes both ways. As I said, it's very important
for pre sales to be adaptable, coachable man to have a good
team. It's just as important for the
AE to understand that their pre sales gets a lot more visibility
(19:15):
across the entire company of what's what's really going on in
the ecosystem on the given day instead of it could have been a
week or hopefully not a week plus but since since the AES had
an interaction with a prospect. So that being the case, all
right, and I understand that we used to refer to it as the dance
sometimes in our conversations, right, with dance between the AE
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and and as that partnership getsenriched, the dance becomes more
elegant and becomes more smooth.To continue the analogy, that
being the case, and now that you've sat in the manager's
chair for a little while, no, I'm curious as to your
perspective on this in preparation for that happening,
you see organizations hiring on the AE side and hiring on the
pre sale side. What do you think is the biggest
(19:58):
mistake that organizations, the most common mistake that they
make with respect to who and howthey're they're recruiting their
pre salespeople? Yep, It goes back to what we had
talked about a little bit earlier in my opinion, where you
know, the persona that I, I've seen, I see some of these job
descriptions, right? They come across on LinkedIn or
whatever, the persona some of these companies are looking for.
(20:21):
It's like a PhD in rocket science and has built, you know,
75 websites using AI generation and, and AI compute and what you
know what it's like, what do you, what do you think this is?
You need someone that, like we said, has the soft skills,
right? And if you've got the soft
(20:41):
skills, the rest of that for anygiven company and their
technology stack for what they're trying to sell is
learnable, is teachable, right? To your point, Kevin, And so the
persona is very important, especially even when they're
interviewing, like make sure that you have a wide range of
interview panelists, like presales directors, managers,
(21:02):
really Co workers, because everyone's going to pick up on
something different. And whether you get the red pen
out or the green pen on what youdid or didn't like about that
person in the moment, there's going to be some red flags of
like, I think this is the wrong persona here.
I don't know what we're trying to hire.
Well, with that having been said, so it's like you're
definitely picking up I think onsome of the changes, the gross
(21:24):
changes overall in all aspects of selling that are happening in
the market right now. What are some of the changes
that you can call it specifically from your role as
being a pre salesperson? How is what's really changing
the most with respect to sellingenterprise software today?
What are the some of the biggestdeltas you're seeing?
Yeah, I think at the end of the day, and it doesn't matter what
(21:45):
vertical it is, quite honestly, everybody's trying to eat, eat
each other's lunch, right. The competition is getting
fiercer. The differentiators are getting
minimalized because whether it be funding or otherwise,
everyone's got to be almost at status quo or at par to be able
to take that market share. So it's, it's just getting, it's
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getting difficult, more difficult, right.
And you have to be able to, to reference sell better.
Talk about the differentiators and in the moment kind of on the
fly, if we talk about that persona, and this goes back to
even in my current role, like coaching, reviewing calls,
picking up on those nuances, youhave to be able to adapt on the
(22:28):
fly and you have to be convincing and you have to be
sincere. They know that the AAE is the
sales guy or gal and you're not.You can be real.
How many times have I been on a caller or you guys have been on
a call and the AE said somethingand you cringe and you maybe
looked at the camera like, did they just say that?
(22:49):
And then you have to say, actually, you're right, he's
absolutely right. But here's how it actually is
and here's how we actually do it.
We can still get to the same endresult, don't get me wrong, but
technically, no, not this, but this so delicately correction of
some statements that might have been said.
But again, that goes back to youget on discovery calls nowadays
(23:12):
or you get on demonstration calls where they can go off the
rails quickly if you've got a detractor on the call.
And you have to be able to adaptand change and know the
ecosystem almost down to the minute of what somebody else is
offering or what somebody else is is saying in an in an RFP, if
that makes sense. Yeah.
(23:32):
I mean, there was a saying back in the day, I don't know where I
heard it first, but like 2%, it's just a 2% difference
between you and your competitionand how are you going to
maximize or how are you going todifferentiate?
Usually it's not because of product or features or things
like that. It's it's sales execution,
right? Are you responsive?
(23:53):
Do you listen? Do you give them the things and
the answers they're looking for?All these different types of
things are think that really make a difference.
And I think today more so than ever, right?
It's like you like on paper, theall the products look the same.
This one has little this, this one has a little that, but it's
like it's pretty much the same thing.
So it comes down to do they trust you?
Do they want to do business withyou?
(24:14):
Are are you a company that they feel comfortable going into
partnership with for long term? So I don't know if you you
feeling that as well, but that'scertainly what I picked up
towards the end there. Absolutely.
And you bring up a good point. You just made me think about it
back to when I was on the practitioner side and getting
sold to right. You know that dance started and
sure it was in person and travelwas a thing and everybody was in
(24:37):
the office, but it spoke volumeswhen they always showed up and
when it got closer to time to execute on the contract and make
sure that everybody's feeling comfortable, man, just everyone
coming in every week, every week.
How you doing? In some cases, and this actually
happened, you need to deploy thethe SWAT team, right?
(24:57):
I need five people to come in and find some earth shattering
recommendations so that we can solidify this upsell potential
with with our current customer. And to your point, Matt, I see
the exact same thing today. It's what is the ecosystem look
like? Is the company investing enough
(25:18):
in the resources and the teams to do that that dance that we
that we talk about to be able tomake them feel warm and fuzzy
and that we're not going to be out of business tomorrow.
We're in it with you. We we're just as we have just as
much skin in the game as you do,even though you know, obviously
we want them to sign the check. From that perspective then
(25:40):
Dustin, do you think that so like again, we've said this
before in some of our other episodes prior to you joining us
today with the more things change, the more they stay the
same with respect to some of thechallenges people are having.
And what you're talking about there is classic value selling
to the to the organization. But based on the perception and
(26:02):
I would say the velocity at which sales cycles are moving at
today, do you think that there is an increased or a decreased
demand on the pre salesperson? You think their importance is is
increasing or do you think it's,do you think it's not become
we're not as important as we used to be in the sales cycle?
(26:23):
So I'll answer that in two ways.The first one is the most
accurate way right out of the gate, which is increasingly more
and more critical and important for the sales cycle.
And it goes back to the personasthat we talked about the skills.
You know, if, if we talk about the ramp in general for any
company, the ramp for an accountexecutive is, I'm gonna call it
(26:46):
just just for easy math, 25% of the ramp it takes to get a pre
sales professional up to speed at any company, right.
And once you're there, you know,pre sales is usually there for
the long haul. We, we, we see this through.
We like the technology. There's other reasons why we're
bought into it. And then the other aspect to
(27:08):
that is, again, look at, I thinkit was Salesforce or some
company announced like they're moving away from account
executives. They're going to take their best
and their brightest pre sales and morph them into the new
account executives. So if you have a pre sales
background and you're a trusted advisor and you've got that
emotional intelligence and you can speak the language, well,
(27:31):
now you're an AE at Salesforce. I'm pretty sure it was
Salesforce. But that's my point.
That's how important that role is.
Correct me from wrong, but didn't you have an opportunity
to choose whether to become an AE or an Essie at at the
company? And why did you choose to stay
in Essie? I guess.
Yeah, Yeah. That's funny.
That's a good question. He's actually blushing.
(27:53):
I. Am I am because it goes back to
remember when everyone kept telling me like man, you could
sell anything to anybody and inherently I like it.
It's a passion. I get excited about it.
It's kind of like the Chase, butI'm also a self-proclaimed
proclaimed technologist, right? And there is something to be
said about wanting to stay the course of being true to who you
(28:16):
are and ultimately being that trusted advisor.
I like building those relationships.
Not that not to discount the other path.
I've seen great AES have the longevity and the consistent
relationships for years and in the future with their customers
and their prospects. So it's not that.
It's just that I like the balance of being able to be, you
(28:40):
know, the go to guy with the answers.
And when I say something, someone's like, well, you know,
obviously that's, that's correctbecause it's coming out of
Dustin's mouth, right? Versus if I'm perceived as a
seller, people might second guess me.
And I don't, you know, maybe in the back of my mind, I'm like,
you know what? I'm not ready to make that jump.
I want to continue to be the expert that that I feel proud
(29:03):
about. Makes perfect sense.
So what would you say then is your guiding, what's been
guiding your career path now? Because like now you, you're up
in in management and leading teams.
What's kind of the guiding principle through your career?
Path. Now that's a great question.
You know, I think the, the progression has been because
again, it's even different than being in the field every day,
(29:26):
right? And so to your point, Kev, the
passions have turned the table alittle bit.
Now, since my experiences of alldifferent kinds of management,
right? In the field, RVPS, everybody
you interact with, you gain a lot of insights and you gain a
lot of good things to remember. And so now managing A-Team and
this is what I strive for every day.
(29:48):
This is why I log in. It's to be the coach, to be
someone that somebody is willingto pick up the phone because
they know I can talk to Dustin about this or I can bounce the
idea if nobody's available and I've got time on my calendar.
Let's you and me do that dry run, right?
I'll give you critical feedback.I'll give you kudos where I see
(30:09):
you absolutely crushed it because everybody needs that
too. And I want to be the type of
leader that continues to exemplify what people want when
they're in a job well. That being the case, what would
you say is kind of your, if someone came to you right now
and said, hey, I'm thinking about going to pre sales, what
kind of advice would you pass along to them?
(30:32):
What kind of direction would yougive them?
Yeah, depending on where they are and where they are with the
skill sets that we've talked about, I would, I would double
down on that. And I would say if it was an
internal candidate trying to transfer from a different
department, that's a little different than external, but the
same principles apply. Right.
Let's let's assess why you want to do that, why that's in your
(30:54):
in your thought process. And then I can either help you
prove or disprove what you think.
I've heard your career has been kind of crazy, right?
A little a little windy road andand you're here now.
How is it and why? And so to kind of finish that
thought process and answer to you, Kevin, I think just make
(31:14):
sure that people A know what they're getting into.
B have the passion. Because you know, if you're in a
pre sales role, you're a passionate person and you're,
you're willing to, let's just say, be patient and understand
that you have to sometimes take deep breaths along the way and
(31:35):
and then start it all over again, right?
Because we all deal with different personalities.
And that's a huge another piece of this.
You have to be able to put all of your mental angst aside and
be a professional and show up every day to be able to execute.
Whether you can finish each other's sentences and you're the
dynamic duo or you guys just, you know, do your prep work.
(31:59):
You're on a call, you do your post analysis and that's it.
You don't really interact outside of those key check boxes
for working an opportunity. Yeah.
You know, one of the most defining questions I think of
our time right now in software sales is the use of AI, right?
Not only in, you know, creating software and all the different
(32:19):
functions around that, but also in the sales process.
I'm just curious from your perspective as a sales manager,
how much do you use AI or where do you see AI helping in either
sales execution or even sales management of the pre sales
process? Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's
a great question. You know, from the sales
management process and and my particular role, I'm starting to
(32:41):
see it in the coaching tools, right, the Co pilots and the
gongs where it's I still want tobe able to provide that value,
valuable feedback and we need todo our checks and balances,
right. But we get the AI summaries, we
get the Cliff notes of how the call went and now they're
getting into the part where theycan even pull out the buzzwords.
(33:02):
Are they talking about this enough in general?
Are they talking too much compared to the prospect?
Now, if it's a demo, that's one thing.
But if you see all the calls andyou know your particular pre
sales person is doing fine, but you actually see a red flag on
the AE and they're going through50 slides and they've used 40
minutes of a 60 minute call. Hey, that's a different coaching
(33:24):
opportunity. So doesn't matter what that what
the use case, those uses of AI are actually becoming more and
more valuable for sure and. On the execution side, I mean,
as they're like prepping, because I remember I used to
write a lot of white papers and you know, kind of business
summaries and things like that. And it's a lot of work, right?
(33:46):
It was a lot of work to do. I've just recently started just
using AI more and more and find out, you know, if you give it
really good prompts and stuff like that, you can actually get
it pretty close to what you wantin a fraction of the time,
right? So are there particular
deliverables from the SC perspective or things that they
can use AI for now that you're seeing?
Yeah. So you know, I can't remember
(34:08):
the name of it, but yes, RFP response tool database.
So keep feeding the machine all the data and it'll start to be
able to recognize, scan and giveyou the the proper results.
And that's another thing that was a huge, still can be,
depending on the format, a huge time suck.
You know, we talk about the UPS and the downs of being a pre
(34:29):
sales professional responding tosecurity reviews and RFPs is not
one of them. And so, so if you've got one of
those tools as we do, as long asyou can feed it enough valid
data, that definitely starts to shorten those cycles and you
don't have to worry about that as much as carving out a day
plus of your time to get it done.
It's interesting you would say that because I know that there's
(34:51):
there's a group, there's a voiceout there in the industry right
now that thinks that pre sales can be supplemented, if not
fully replaced by using AI toolsand that that doesn't need to be
a component of their go to market strategy.
That being, what would you say? I have a very strong response
for people who say that. You can probably well imagine,
(35:11):
but what would you what? What would be your response to
people who think that they can do that?
I would say listen to this podcast.
I mean, I think I've given 50 plus examples of why that won't
work. And again, right persona, right
passion to be in the role. All of that has to to apply, but
no, there's no way. I mean, just the way the
(35:32):
technology evolves within somebody's company, you know,
think about that. You talked about it, Matt, just
now with being able to build white papers and stuff.
Think about their marketing departments, think about all
these other departments that areresponsible for some of that
content. Like no, who's going to do it?
There's no way. And I've, I've used ChatGPT and
(35:52):
and optimized some things with some prompts.
It still is not perfect. It's far from perfect.
And so if you put in the contextKevin essentially replacing the
pre sales role, I would really just have to laugh for the rest
of this podcast Can't be done. I'm with you and I remember
somebody asked me that question not too long ago on a podcast I
(36:15):
was a guest on. And my perspective was when
you're dealing with a pre salesperson, you're dealing with
a person who's an interesting hybrid.
On the one hand, coin operated as you say, they like the hunt,
they like to chase the deal. And on the other hand, you have
a person who has to solve the problem, they have to solve the
puzzle. That is just as much, and in
some cases more of the motivation behind what drives
(36:37):
every action that a pre salesperson is engaged with in
that sales cycle. They want to ferret out the
reasons. They want to understand the
minutia, the detail, the consequences.
So when you turn around as the pre salesperson and give the
story back to the customer, you're building a narrative that
explains precisely why that customer needs your solution and
(37:00):
you're doing it in their terms. And you're saying it not because
the financial reward, although it's definitely in there, but
because you solved the puzzle, you got the answer right.
And that's not something you cansay that AI is going to be able
to do. Not only that, but if you're
talking about it in the context of just replacing the role
right? Let's take it a step further.
(37:21):
We all know this to be true. Pre sales has the additional
skill set once they've been in the role of essentially they
could step in and be the implementation team, they could
be the customer success team, They could be, you know, all of
these departments. Because ultimately those are the
hats that given a scenario in a particular sales cycle or upsell
(37:43):
cross sell, you have to put thatad on.
Because if you're at a customer and they're saying, well, not
only do we not want to add additional capabilities from
your company, you know, we're actually not seeing that that
much value from your company forthe last six months.
Shocker, right? It happens.
And then they put on the customer success hat and say,
why, what's going on? Is it adoption?
(38:05):
Well, no, we just haven't been able to get this one thing to
work that you showed us when yousold it to us.
And we've been going back and forth with support or customer
success. And then to your point, Kevin,
in the moment, well, I, I just fixed that for you.
It took Me 2 seconds because I know now.
Now are we good? Is this going to help you?
Oh my gosh, yes we've been. Where have you been?
(38:26):
I should have kept you on the account the entire time and had
daily calls with you. But that's the type of trusted
advisor wearing multiple hats that you ultimately get in the
persona and the position of a pre sales professional.
Absolutely, absolutely. I couldn't.
I could not agree with you more as that flexibility and
versatility and and willingness to, to help that I think that
(38:49):
makes the big difference. I would love to keep talking all
afternoon with you and you know,and we have done this before for
hours and hours on end together face to face.
But we do need to bring our, ourepisode to a close.
One of the things I'd love for you to do is if people want to
reach out to you and, and discuss more about what it means
to be a pre salesperson. What does it, what is that?
(39:09):
What is the right mix of skills and how can organizations do
that better? How can they reach out to you?
Absolutely. Easiest is and I think you can
share this just link link in with me, right?
Absolutely in the description. The link to your profile will be
right there in the description. So if people want to reach out
to the big brain that is Dustin Chamberlain, they will be able
to do so. Let's do it connect and I'm here
(39:32):
as a as a resource and to bouncequestions for for anyone that's
curious. Well, Dustin, thank you very
much for coming in and answeringour questions in today's
episode. But folks that hit that is a
wrap on our episode today. Matt, anything you'd like to say
to Dustin or before we go and wrap up for the day?
No, it's just great catching up.Dustin.
(39:53):
It's been a while, so I'm glad we could have this conversation
today. Likewise.
Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Kevin.
Appreciate it. It was definitely great catching
up. So ladies and gentlemen, if you
like what you saw today, listen to go ahead, like follow,
subscribe, leave a comment and let us know what else you would
like us to bring onto the show, other topics and so forth.
And if you would like to know more about the methodology you
(40:13):
hear Matt, Matt and I talking about all the time on the call,
by all means, please go to our website.
You can download and buy a copy of the book, right?
They're winning faster. The move framework for
enterprise software sales success.
You'll be able to get it right there off of our website.
But folks, it's been a pleasure,Dustin.
Thank you for being here, Matt, as always, Sir, it's great
(40:35):
talking with you. Can't wait to have another
conversation with you net week. Next week, we'll have another
guest right here on our show. And until then, everybody, take
care. Have a great week.