Pre Sales and supporting customers
In one of my avtars as a columnist for Express Computers’ I had written a column on Pre-sales in software service organizations (Re: “Pre-sales support is a necessary evil"). Though it has been nearly two years since it was published, I continue to receive comments on the article, perhaps because of the relevance of the topic. One such note is from Mr. S (below)
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Dear Mohan,
Hope you are doing well. I work for Indian IT Company and am placed Onsite (in UK).
I have about 8 years experience in IT Industry. Now my problem is my company asking me to take new responsibility of Pre Sales support. I am trying to gather information about Pre Sales. I read your article in IT People. It is very impressive.
I am worried about How to start to work on Pre Sales and What to do? and How to do? I never had touch with Sales People.
I am under pressure to fulfill my new responsibilities. Please guide me to achieve this.
1. What is the first step I should do.
2. How best I can fulfill my company expectations.
Your help would be really valuable to me at this stressful time.
Awaiting for your Reply
Regards
S
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Well, instead of responding only to S, I have decided to blog on the topic. This way others can either concur with my views or post comments. Right?
In the article, I had mentioned how consulting companies were increasingly asking consultants to contribute to pre-sales support, preparing project proposals, and responding to RFPs (Request for Proposals) and RFIs (Request for Information) and the like. I had given several pointers in the article. I have also dwelt on the topic in my book.
Perhaps the most important tool for Mr. S and his peers to consider is the aspect of leveraging the organizational resources. Simple, when responding to client queries in a pre-sales role, you are not an individual but an ambassador of your company.
For instance, at Infosys, our consultants have several tools including
- An elaborate (award winning) Knowledge Management portal accessible to employees across the globe. The taxonomy is intuitive and searchable. Typically people responding to proposals scan the KM portal for internally published data and references on projects, technologies [more about it online or in my book]
- Email groups: There are several e-mail groups of experts (functional, technical and others). Responses are near-real-time as they can be!
- Bank on researchers and internal experts: At Infosys, there are several research groups – technical, functional and business focused – whose focus is on helping client facing teams address client issues and challenges including responding to pre-sales queries. You will need to find your internal research groups in your organization whom you can ping.
- External research: this will help in landscape scanning, getting information on competitors, market trends and the like. This could be formal or informal research (depending on the nature of the query, cost, budget and time required to respond)
I realize that some of the suggestions above are skewed towards larger organizations (like Infosys) that have invested in research and support for pre-sales and customer servicing. However, managers at smaller organizations also have similar, though informal, researchers and ‘thought leaders’ they can bank on. You will have to network with peers in your organization to discover the support mechanism available to you.
Perhaps one of the most important criteria I have personally observed to be helpful is the RTQ and ATQ principle:
- RTQ = Read the Question. Refer to what the client is asking for in the proposal
- ATQ = Answer the Query: After you have read and understood the question (and researched on it) you should focus on just Answering the Query. And remember: say “NO” “NA” or “info not available” if you don’t have the answer. Saying so will help you more than hurt you. Nobody (least of all your client) wants to spend precious time reading an answer to a query they did not ask!
Hope this helps
Comments
Your RTQ-ATQ principle is quite correct. This applies to just about any form of business communication. I think the most important characteristic required in a pre-sales roles is that one ought to be an effective communicator.
Posted by: Vinaya HS | October 25, 2006 1:05 AM
I m working in the IT industry from 8 years, want to know more about what all the pre-sales activities involved in the projects, kindly give me full proper information about the tools or url of any sites which tells more about pre-sales...
thanks...
Posted by: Manjunath | December 19, 2006 5:03 PM
Hi,
Thanks for your inputs, really helpful...How to Tap the Big Accounts working for a $3M company ?
Thanks in Advance
Vijay
Posted by: Vijay Kumar | November 15, 2007 9:04 PM
I was asked to provide pre sales support to my company. I work for a news channel based in Kolkata, India. How do I go ahead? Please send some of your valued suggestions on this.
Posted by: snehesh choudhury | February 28, 2008 3:10 PM
Could you shed more light as to whether there is any Business Development/Client Interaction involved in Presales. Is it a sector specific thing or horizontal?
Posted by: Vaibhav | March 4, 2008 12:47 PM
Pre sales is really an exciting and challenging role. It's a point where Technology meets Business; it involves exercising grey cells, coordination, communication, winning a client and opening the floodgates of wealth for the company u r working for.It also requires loads of patience and perseverance.
Posted by: Arvind Kumar Srivastava | April 16, 2008 6:36 AM
Based on the stream of queries I received, I decided to elaborate on the topic further (published here online:
“Viewpoints on Pre Sales, Sales support at Software Service Firms ”). This is a working draft that I will continue to revise, so keep your queries and comments coming.
Posted by: Mohan Babu K | April 16, 2008 12:40 PM
I am into sales and marketing field for a manufacturing comapny for the last 3 years. I read this article. It's an eye opener. Pre sales software industry is more about documentation, preparing proposals, etc. It's not like following a typical sales cycle. The objective of sales in both the industies might be the same i.e. identifying the need of the customer and satisfying the need in the best possible manner.
Posted by: amit | June 8, 2008 12:37 PM
Are there any areas in presales process that have greater importance than the others and what are the ways to improve them.
Posted by: Pulkit Singhal | May 4, 2009 9:45 AM
Mohan,
I read your article and the blog. I am at the exact juncture where I have a pre-sales offer from my organizaton and also the option to continue my existing technical work if I decide to reject it. I have done some pre-sales support in the past which resulted in positive outcome. But a full time pre-sales role is something I am unable to decide on. Your articles have given me a good insight. In your experience, does pre-sales positions in service industry eventually HAVE to become Sales jobs? Can you please comment on the trend...
Posted by: KM | June 30, 2009 2:44 PM
Mohan , i have read ur article regarding presales/sales. I am an IT professional and want to go ahead in an mba. post mba i i want to enter presales/sales in IT. what is the long term career growth i can look for?also in case i have some personal query ..can u plesae provide ur mail id.
thnx in advance
Posted by: v | December 18, 2009 9:57 AM