“What exactly is it that you do?”
I’ve been asked this question many times since I started doing Presales in 2000 and I always find it difficult to answer.
The things we do are pretty constant – Demo, Present, Architect, Sell, Educate, Partner, Advise… – the amount and mix of these things is constantly variable though from week to week, role to role, quarter to quarter. Perhaps that’s why it can be such an interesting and demanding role.
In this part of the blog I will try and pull together some of the things that make up a life in Presales (or Systems Engineer, Solutions Consultant, Technical Sales, Sales Architect or the current favourite, Cloud Architect – there are a myriad of job titles for what is essentially the same thing!).
The Hype Curve describes it well. We often ride the ‘Peak of Inflated Expectation’, come against the ‘Trough of Disillusionment’ as we seek to bring about the Plateau of Productivity for our clients!
