pre sales architect or consultant

1. So You Want to be a Pre-Sales
Architect / Consultant
K. Mohamed Faizal and Alvin Lau
Microsoft MVP
24th October 2015
t: #business365sg

2. Please complete the evaluation
http://j.mp/b365-sg
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4. Questions?
1. What is Pre-Sales all about ?
2. Do we need any sales experience?
3. Are there any mandatory learnings to enter
the field?
4. What are the career prospects?

5. What is Pre-Sales all about ?
Simple answer is
any function or task
that is performed
before the actual
contract is signed

6. Account Type
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20:5:2:1
Is it existing account ?
Do you have coverage?
Is the deal is seeded ?
Do you have any relationship ?
Is people know who we are?

7. 5 rules of Pre-Sales Engineering:
1. You are a member of the sales team
2. You are not a salesperson
3. You must be Business Relevant
4. You must be Technically Knowledgeable
5. Know your audience

8. What is Pre-Sales all about ?
1. Pre-sales is all the stuff that happens to develop a sale
2. Initial Contact between the Sales Team and the Technical Expert
3. Fill the gap between the functional and business requirements of the Customer
4. You don't have to be a sales person but you do need to understand sales cycles.
5. You do need to be the "expert" in your field and understand how your product works.
1. Most products these days are not a one size fits all and most successful business are in solution
oriented sales.
6. pre-sales consultant closely tied to the sales team but support them in a technical way.
7. Pre-sales consultants are instrumental in technical sales cycles as they are able to analyze
the customer requirements and assist in developing a proper solution.
8. Pre-sales technical consultant, Job to make sure the solution fits the customer
requirements and will work properly once implemented.

9. What is Pre-Sales all about ?
1. Pre-sales professional thus needs to understand what the end
customer is looking for, access the Sales requirement along with the
Sales person and work with the technical team to deliver this
requirement in a document.
2. These solution then need to fit the business objective, technical
objective and financial objective of the client,
3. Which means tailor the proposal to meet what the customer needs,
explains (or helps sell) this solution to the customer, helps close the
deal or sale and often stays on to ensure that the delivery team or
product specialists that follow him provide the intended solution.

10. What is Pre-Sales all about ?
• Pre-Sales is not a role a person can plan to be in from the start of his
career. Its something that one can 'evolve' into after passing a decent
time in technical group, gaining some business acumen and learning
many soft skills like presentations, proposal writing, communication,
influencing etc etc.

11. Are there any mandatory learnings to enter
the field?
• No = No course or Certification required
• Yes = You must know the tools & techniques

12. Tools & Techniques
• RFI – Request for Information
• An open enquiry that spans the market seeking broad data and understanding.
• RFQ – Request for Quotation
• An opportunity for potential suppliers to competitively cost the final chosen solution(s).
• RFT – Request for Tender
• An opportunity for potential suppliers to submit an offer to supply goods or services against a
detailed tender.
• RFP – Request for Proposal
• Sometimes based on a prior RFI; a business requirements-based request for specific solutions
to the sourcing problem.
• BQ – Budgetary Quotation
• ITQ - Invitation To Quote
• Bulk Tender – Set for a period
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13. Tools & Techniques
1. Initial visibility in the sales pipeline
2. Initial Contact:
3. The Request for Information (RFI) and Request for Proposal (RFP)
4. Presentations
5. Demonstrations
6. Face-to-Face Meetings

14. Tools & Techniques
Initial visibility in the sales pipeline
Sales person will reach out to you for assistance, education, involvement,
or just to discuss the opportunity with you
Sales stage is formally managed through the sales pipeline that can take
the form of a spreadsheet for small companies, or a software system with
processes around it in medium to large companies
• Initial Contact:
sales person contacting the prospect and getting them to agree to a
conference call, demo, initial preliminary discussion, or face to face
have observed that a face-to-face meeting this early on is the exception,
but it does happen and more times than you would think

15. Tools & Techniques
• The Request for Information (RFI) and Request for Proposal (RFP)
• A Request for Information : is just that, white papers, brochures, on-
line demo, or most of the time, completing a RFI that the prospect
has submitted to your company and most likely others.
• Request for Proposal (RFP) which is similar to the Request for
Information, but is much more detailed and inclusive because it’s just
that, a request for a proposal that you as a company will have to
deliver on. The RFP isn’t just a response to questions about your
product, technology, services, functionality, implementation, security,
and support; it’s a proposal

16. RFQ - Documents
Company Background
Products Offered
Services Offered
The Overall Solution
Showcase Customers
Thought Leadership / Awards / Industry Recognition
Prospects Overall Requirements
Prospect Questions
Architecture
Functionality
Standards Complied To
Security
Development Lifecycle
Professional Services
Project Management and Roadmap
Implementation Methodology
Implementation Estimates
Partners
Hosting
Support and Maintenance
Change Request and Product Features Methodology
Customer Conferences and Committees
Pricing
Legal

17. Presentations
• You will be required to make presentations on every aspect of your company and it’s products,
solutions, and services at some time
• Presentations and demonstrations, you are center stage in front of a demanding audience that
wants to be educated, entertained, and interacted with.
• Sales is about relationships and being able to interact with one or many people in demanding
situations
• Keep in mind that the customer will use the presentation as a point of reference in the future,
so major points of interest should be captured, but the details should be elaborated upon by
you.
• Remember, the business requirements are most likely driving the meeting and your
presentation should address the business requirements and how your product / solution can
technically address the business requirements.
• You will always run into the situation where you don’t have enough time to present what you
want to. This requires that you continuously trim your presentation to present only the salient
points of interest to the prospect or that you feel are important enough.

18. Face-to-Face Meetings
• Practice makes perfect and the better you are able to present your
solution and interact with multiple personalities and show a level of
confidence the better off you will be.
• Think of a politician at a press conference. Most of the time it’s a
professional and cordial event, but usually there is always that “one”
moment when someone presents a question, comment, or objection
that can throw you off. You have to be able to handle it
professionally, show your credibility, and interact in a constructive
manner.

19. • All of the steps outlined here require everyone to be at the top of their game, but
demos are that event that require experienced resources, planning, coordination,
and fall back procedures in case something goes wrong. Too many times the
demo is lacking because prior planning wasn’t taken and the lack of coordination
can lead to confusion and the perception or reality that you as a company are
disorganized.
Tools & Techniques

20. Skills
• Technical Knowledge, functional knowledge with some Domain experience
• Presales Professional because you need to have technical skills in your domain of
expertise, but also Sales skills and preferably also knowledge in PM (Project
Management) and BM (Bid Management).
• It's a very unique set of skills, you have to be technical to understand what would
be the best way to design the solution and with perfect customer facing skills at
the same time. The most difficult bit it to "translate" customer words into a valid
requirement

21. Skills
• During the whole sales-cycle you act as a trusted adviser and interface between
your prospect,
• Your technical expertise, industry knowledge, and your capability to explain
technically complex things in a simple and comprehensive way, are making you the
perfect sparring-partner for contacts in IT as well as special departments.
• Your tasks cover amongst others analyzing customer specific processes, answering
RFIs/RFPs, preparing & executing of product demos, giving speeches or
participating in panel discussions on fairs and events, analyzing competition, and
regular meetings with product management to improve our products.

22. What is the career path of a pre sales consultant
• Pre-Sales Consultant >>> Senior or Principal
• OR
• SME
• Solution Manager ,
• Bid Manager,
• Proposal Author,
• Estimation Specialist,
• Practice Head
• Marketing Head

24. Please complete the evaluation
http://j.mp/b365-sg
http://business365.azurewebsites.nettwitter: #business365sg

25. Thank you to our sponsors!
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26. Reference
• http://www2.wwt.com/united/art-pre-sales
•
• https://www.linkedin.com/groups/What-is-career-path-pre-
2123766.S.103947640?qid=045d5c31-074e-4fed-b421-
acc357e5defc&trk=groups_most_popular-0-b-cmr&goback=%2Egmp_2123766
•
• https://www.linkedin.com/groups/What-defines-PreSales-
64542.S.93540970?qid=999be0c5-0c7e-4bd0-a713-
d743a5c42a8d&trk=groups_most_popular-0-b-
ttl&goback=%2Eanb_68591_*2_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1%2Egmp_64542
•
• https://www.linkedin.com/groups/IT-ITeS-Pre-Sales-
2173749?gid=2173749&trk=vsrp_groups_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A1975200
61403765608614%2CVSRPtargetId%3A2173749%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary