Live at Sol/Con 2026! Four Skills Driving Sales Outcomes with Rew Dickinson
Rew Dickinson presents a framework of four core skills that drive sales outcomes for solution engineers: Knowledge (understanding how customers make money), Storytelling (connecting prospect pain to solutions), Discovery (asking better questions to uncover real needs), and Leadership (confidently guiding customers despite being agreeable by nature). The session emphasizes that SEs are often underutilized and should see themselves as leaders rather than subordinates to sales reps.
Summary
At SolCon 2026, Rew Dickinson, founder of Alpha PreSales, delivered the first-ever live Pre-Sales Podcast episode with audience participation. Dickinson drew from 17 years in tech sales to explain why solution engineers are the most influential people in complex sales cycles, sharing a personal story from selling to Starbucks where a lack of briefing between himself and his SE paradoxically resulted in better customer engagement and revealing a key insight: his job was to work for his SE, not the other way around.
Dickinson introduced a four-layer framework addressing skills beyond product expertise. First, Knowledge emphasizes that SEs must understand how their customer's business makes money before entering meetings—not just product specifications. He cited data showing most leaders report only 25-35% of their teams can articulate this before a demo, and highlighted a hiring approach that prioritizes domain expertise, sales acumen, and consulting skills above technical acumen.
Second, Storytelling is redefined away from narrative structures like the hero's journey and toward a specific framework: presenting the painful annoyances prospects face without the product, introducing the solution, then painting the vision of the afterworld with it. Dickinson critiqued common SE behavior of spending 25 times more saying "could" than "should," comparing it to a waiter offering every menu item instead of recommending dishes.
Third, Discovery was demonstrated through an interactive iPhone trade exercise showing that value exists in the gap between where someone is and where they want to be. The core insight: customers often don't know what they want, so SEs must uncover pain through better questions like "If I shadowed your team for a week, what would I see slowing them down?" rather than "What are your current systems?" Dickinson noted that discovery call participation among SEs is inconsistent, with roughly 50% receiving no dedicated discovery reps.
Fourth, Leadership addresses that SEs, being naturally agreeable and empathetic, often work subordinately to sales reps despite having greater tenure and institutional knowledge. Dickinson emphasized that taking opinions (e.g., stating assumed priorities and letting customers correct them) is a leadership skill that builds customer engagement. He argued that SEs should feel empowered to guide sales strategy rather than simply execute demos, noting the disparity in tenure: SEs average 1-3 years while sales reps average under two quarters.
The session concluded with actionable takeaways for both individual contributors and leaders, positioning SEs as guides and authorities within sales processes rather than technical support roles.
About this episode
<p dir="ltr">In this live podcast episode recorded at Sol/Con 2026, Rew Dickinson, CEO and founder of Alpha Go-To-Market, joins co-hosts Jack Cochran and Matthew James to present a framework of four core skills that drive sales outcomes for solutions engineers. </p> <p><strong> </strong></p> <p dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong>Follow Us</strong></span></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Connect with Jack Cochran: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackcochran/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackcochran/</a> </p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Connect with Matthew James: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewyoungjames/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewyoungjames/</a> </p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Connect with Rew Dickinson: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rewdickinson/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/rewdickinson/</a> </p> </li> </ul> <p><strong> </strong></p> <h2 dir="ltr">Key Topics Covered</h2> <ol> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">The SE Talk-Time Problem: How Gong call analysis reveals SEs dominating conversations with product talk instead of listening</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">The Starbucks Story: Rew's revelation that SEs are often the most influential person in the sales cycle</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Knowledge Layer: Why SEs must understand how prospect companies make money before demos</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Storytelling for Pre-Sales: Shifting from product-centric to prospect-focused narratives</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">The iPhone Value Exercise: Live demonstration showing value exists in the gap between current and desired state</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Discovery Beyond Requirements: Creating vision with questions like "If I shadowed your team for a week, what would I see slowing them down?"</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Leadership and Taking a Stance: Why SEs need to be prescriptive ("you should") instead of offering endless options ("you could")</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">The Tenure Gap: SEs average 7 years versus sales reps at 2 years—and why SEs should leverage this expertise advantage</p> </li> </ol> <p> </p>
Key Insights
- Dickinson argues that solution engineers are the most influential person in the sales cycle, more so than sales reps, because customers open up more readily with technical credibility and trust.
- Most SE teams (65-75%) cannot articulate how their prospect's company makes money before entering a meeting, which prevents them from connecting product value to actual business outcomes.
- Storytelling in sales is not about narrative structure but about the progression from prospect pain without the product, through the solution, to the vision of success with it—focusing less on the product and more on the prospect's situation.
- The typical SE intro as 'technical expert' or 'demo team' significantly underrepresents their actual value and capability within the sales process.
- Customers often don't know what they want, making discovery calls critical for vision creation rather than just requirements gathering; asking directional questions like 'what slows your team down' yields better insights than 'what are your current systems.'
- Taking a confident stance and stating opinions (even if wrong) is a leadership skill that helps discovery, as customers will either confirm or correct, providing truth either way—versus asking open questions that might get non-committal responses.
- SEs average 1-3 years tenure while sales reps average less than two quarters, meaning SEs typically have significantly more institutional knowledge and customer insight than their sales leadership.
- A hiring profile that prioritizes domain expertise, sales acumen, and consulting skills ahead of technical acumen resulted in 75% of one team understanding customer industries and business models before meetings, compared to the 25-35% average.
Topics
Transcript
This is a very special edition of the Pre-Sales Podcast. Hello, everyone. Welcome. My name is Jack Cochran, General Manager of Pre-Sales Collective and co-host of the Pre-Sales Podcast, along with Matthew James. This episode was the first time in Pre-Sales Podcast history we've ever recorded an episode live with people in the room with us when we were at Solcom 2026 in August. It was outstanding. It's so much fun to be recording these things while actively getting feedback from the audience, talking to people, hearing their questions, and incorporating all of that interaction live into the episode. We fully captured everything people were saying by repeating things back. So you're not going to miss really any of the…
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