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.
Summary
Jack Cochran hosts Steve Evans in an unscripted discussion about avoiding overpromising in sales deals. Evans shares his 20+ year background working at the intersection of sales, pre-sales, consulting, and implementation, explaining how his early frustrations with overpromised deals in implementation led him to develop a philosophy of "living without surprises." He argues that overpromising may seem beneficial short-term but always backfires, damaging client relationships and company reputation. Evans illustrates this with a current example where his team initially prepared a quote for 4,000 hours at $200/hour but instead took time to properly understand the client's needs through deeper discovery questions. This led them to propose a 200-hour solution instead, saving the client 3,800 hours while still providing real value and building trust. He emphasizes that treating clients as partners rather than transactions leads to better long-term business outcomes, including contract renewals, referrals, and expanded opportunities. When addressing quarterly pressure from leadership to close deals regardless of fit, Evans recommends getting creative by involving cross-functional teams (product, engineers, SMEs) to find solutions that don't compromise integrity. He stresses the importance of active listening and not immediately saying "no" to requests that don't fit standard frameworks. However, he also acknowledges that sometimes walking away from deals is the right answer when client needs cannot be genuinely met. Evans concludes that saying "no" strategically can be more powerful than saying "yes" to everything, and that honesty and partnership-oriented approaches ultimately drive better business outcomes and personal career growth.
Key Insights
- Evans shifted from implementation-side frustration about overpromised deals to pre-sales leadership, adopting a personal mantra to never surprise either the implementation team or customers with unrealistic promises
- In a current deal, Evans' team discovered they had prepared a 4,000-hour proposal but through proper client discovery and understanding their actual business needs, reduced it to 200 hours, delivering the right solution while saving the client 3,800 hours
- Evans argues that clients remember how they were treated and the feeling of partnership more than specific words or processes, and will follow salespeople between companies and refer them based on whether they received honest treatment
- When facing quarterly pressure to close deals, Evans recommends creative problem-solving by involving product, engineers, and SMEs rather than simply saying no to non-standard requests
- Evans contends that "the customer is not always right" and customers often don't know what's actually right for them, requiring salespeople to have open dialogue to discover true needs rather than automatically accepting all customer demands
Topics
Transcript
[0:05] Welcome everyone to this episode of PSC Unscripted. I'm Jack Cochran, General Manager of Pre-Sales Collective, and I'm filling in for one of our regular presenters who was unable to attend today. So I work completely without a script, as does our guest. So, we are all learning and adapting as we go. And while you're joining, if you want to chat, write in the chat where you're from. And if you're watching this on tape, know that you can join us live. We run these episodes every Thursday. But let me introduce our guest today [0:36] . With me is Steve Evans, Vice President of Consulting Sales at NetSmart. Today we'll discuss how teams can negotiate better deals…
Full transcript available for MurmurCast members
Sign Up to AccessMore from PreSales Collective
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.