PreSales Collective

Mahathi Deapoli, a Principal SC at Salesforce Public Sector with 9.5 years of experience, shares how she built visible, repeatable impact by proactively learning AI, building a LinkedIn presence, and operating at the next level before being promoted. She describes how self-directed curiosity about Einstein and generative AI led to high-profile opportunities including delivering a keynote demonstration at Dreamforce. Her core message is that career advancement requires intentional action, community building, and sharing your playbook with others.

Jack Cochran interviews Shamil Turner, global technical solutions leader at Figma, about the convergence of pre-sales and post-sales roles. Turner shares insights from his transition from being Figma's first SE to leading post-sales technical solutions, discussing how storytelling, curiosity, and discovery are critical skills that transfer across both functions. The conversation highlights how consumption-based pricing models are driving companies to blur the lines between pre-sales and post-sales responsibilities.

Amin Ibrahim, Head of Solutions Consulting for North America and APAC at Enable, recounts leading a pre-sales team through a devastating 40% company-wide layoff at Hootsuite in August 2022. His team of 50 was reduced to 8, while simultaneously being tasked with delivering 5,000 outstanding hours of customer training. Over nine months, the team accomplished the near-impossible before leadership reversed course and rebuilt the pre-sales function.

Tom Banton, VP of Solutions Consulting and Enablement at Lean Data, discusses his nonlinear career path in pre-sales, including multiple deliberate step-downs in seniority to pursue deals, enablement, and passion projects. He shares how focusing on strengths over weaknesses and actively nurturing his professional network drove his career trajectory. The conversation emphasizes that career growth isn't always vertical and that financial risk can lead to greater long-term reward.

The speaker encourages individual contributors (ICs) to proactively identify pain points in their own workflows and experiment with tools and prompts without waiting for leadership direction. They argue that grassroots experimentation can organically influence operational processes. The core message is that meaningful change doesn't require a leadership role.