PreSales Collective
MurmurCast publishes AI-generated summaries of PreSales Collective’s YouTube episodes — 4 summarized so far, covering Avoiding overpromising in sales deals, Needs assessment and discovery process, Building long-term client relationships and trust, Handling quarterly sales pressure and leadership expectations, The power of saying no and strategic deal walkaway, Cross-functional collaboration to solve customer problems. Each summary distills the key insights, topics, and takeaways so you can decide what’s worth your time before pressing play.
PSC Unscripted: How Teams can Win Better Deals Without Overpromising
Steve Evans, VP of Consulting Sales at NetSmart, discusses how sales teams can win better deals by avoiding overpromising and instead building trust through honest needs assessment. He shares a real example where his team reduced a 4,000-hour proposal to 200 hours by properly understanding client needs, resulting in better outcomes for both parties and stronger long-term relationships.
Becoming Inevitable: How SEs Build Visible, Repeatable Impact
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.
The Convergence of Presales and Post-Sales: A New Career Path with Shamil Turner
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.
Startups, Scaleups, and Storytelling: The Wild Ride of Building (and Rebuilding) Presales
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.