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Perhaps you can relate to a situation from your past. You are eight years old and attending a large family holiday dinner. It is time to eat, and as the adults and teens find their way to the big table, you see it. The dreaded children’s table. Your older brother or sister gives you that smug look as they sit down with the adults. It isn’t until years later that you finally get a seat at the big table. For today’s technology companies, presales leadership often feels like that eight-year-old child when it comes to having a seat at the product roadmap, sales forecast, resource analysis, and planning tables. What a travesty!  It is time that everybody grew up and realized that presales leadership belongs to each of those tables. 

If you can relate to this sentiment, consider attending a webinar I will be leading on the topic Wednesday, February 17th. In the meantime, let’s examine those tables and why it is in every organization’s best interest to get them there. 

In-person demos have disappeared since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pre-sales and Sales professionals are headlong in building bridges to customers using virtual platforms, but many of these virtual demos are missing some key components that will transform the event from a good demo to a winning demo. It is stating the obvious that in-person demo practices don't all translate to virtual. That said, many professionals are executing virtual demos like they did in-person.

When your executives take the virtual stage at your upcoming Sales Kickoff (SKO), a story needs to be told. Here’s the scenario. 2020 has been an unprecedented year and your company is not only standing, it is roaring! Your key metrics are healthy and your forecast is solid. Now here’s your choice. You can either present the usual, charts, graphs and numbers or, you can captivate and engage your sales and client success organizations with a story that paints an image of your past and your future. Guess which one will be more effective?

Virtual Sales Kick Off (SKO) season is about to begin and, if you’re like many powerful sales organizations, you’re looking for big results post-session. In the past, your on-site events were filled with energy and sessions that motivated the team. Here are some ideas to consider that we have found will add some flavor to meat and potato virtual, SKO breakout sessions.

There is a surge of firms offering virtual soft-skills training since the onset of Covid-19 and Social Distancing.  If you are considering scheduling your precious and expensive resources into one of these courses, here is a list of nonnegotiables for anyone offering this form of training.

✓Proven Satisfaction Metrics

Courses designed initially for in-person events will not be effective in a virtual setting unless they are entirely re-engineered. Insist on customer satisfaction metrics that compare their virtual training with their on-site offerings. Require that they back up those statistics with their sample size. Anyone can claim a high satisfaction index from one or two clients that are “friendlies.”  The satisfaction scores must be within two percent of each other to warrant further consideration of their offering.