IT Pre-Sales

[Delta3D]

Hey,

Anyone here transitioned from technical IT consulting to IT Pre-Sales?

I'm currently a consultant that specialises with VMware/DataCore/Veeam and the likes. A bit of cloud knowledge, but by no means an expert, enough to get by.

I'm getting increasingly bored of my current role as finding it's difficult to progress in my company, so considering some future possibilities.

Would love to hear if anyone here is in IT Pre-Sales and advice on transitioning or knowledge to learn?

 

[TechMinerUK]

Hey,

Anyone here transitioned from technical IT consulting to IT Pre-Sales?

I'm currently a consultant that specialises with VMware/DataCore/Veeam and the likes. A bit of cloud knowledge, but by no means an expert, enough to get by.

I'm getting increasingly bored of my current role as finding it's difficult to progress in my company, so considering some future possibilities.

Would love to hear if anyone here is in IT Pre-Sales and advice on transitioning or knowledge to learn?

Hey, so I wouldn't say I've transitioned into pre-sales however pre-sales does make up a "decent enough" part of my role at work on a weekly basis.

What I would say is that in most cases I don't think it is a case of just "doing pre-sales" 24/7 as in order to spec up the best possible solution you need to have a good understand of what is out there, how it works and the potential issues and quirks that the sales documentation often doesn't cover meaning that you need to have some on the tools experience on a regular basis.

From my side I'm mainly 365/Cloud SaaS which I decided I wanted to specialise in a few years ago, it helps with the pre-sales as my colleagues who work with more traditional stuff (Hyper-V, VMWare) or Azure IaaS stuff will cover off those workloads and I cover off the 365 stuff.

In your scenario with VMWare/Veeam being your specialisation you can continue with that or if you want to move into something else start to specialise in another area which are interested in e.g. Azure, AWS etc. I would say don't be scared to pivot into new areas but in pre-sales it really does help if the solutions you are scoping are in an area that you enjoy as it makes learning the "nitty gritty" much more interesting and enjoyable.

Other than that to start moving into pre-sales if you are in the MSP landscape you can speak to those who already work in that role to help take the load off of them or start to play more of a part in the initial scoping and quoting stage, most places now seem to be expecting a hybrid of that combined with the regular roles of installing and supporting anyway

In terms of knowledge to learn, just try to learn as much as possible about the area you are working in and how it applies to your standard customer base, for you in VMWare I'm guessing it would be compatible hardware, hardware with known bugs etc when paired with other setups, licensing tiers etc

 

[Delta3D]

Hey, so I wouldn't say I've transitioned into pre-sales however pre-sales does make up a "decent enough" part of my role at work on a weekly basis.

What I would say is that in most cases I don't think it is a case of just "doing pre-sales" 24/7 as in order to spec up the best possible solution you need to have a good understand of what is out there, how it works and the potential issues and quirks that the sales documentation often doesn't cover meaning that you need to have some on the tools experience on a regular basis.

From my side I'm mainly 365/Cloud SaaS which I decided I wanted to specialise in a few years ago, it helps with the pre-sales as my colleagues who work with more traditional stuff (Hyper-V, VMWare) or Azure IaaS stuff will cover off those workloads and I cover off the 365 stuff.

In your scenario with VMWare/Veeam being your specialisation you can continue with that or if you want to move into something else start to specialise in another area which are interested in e.g. Azure, AWS etc. I would say don't be scared to pivot into new areas but in pre-sales it really does help if the solutions you are scoping are in an area that you enjoy as it makes learning the "nitty gritty" much more interesting and enjoyable.

Other than that to start moving into pre-sales if you are in the MSP landscape you can speak to those who already work in that role to help take the load off of them or start to play more of a part in the initial scoping and quoting stage, most places now seem to be expecting a hybrid of that combined with the regular roles of installing and supporting anyway

In terms of knowledge to learn, just try to learn as much as possible about the area you are working in and how it applies to your standard customer base, for you in VMWare I'm guessing it would be compatible hardware, hardware with known bugs etc when paired with other setups, licensing tiers etc

Thanks, I feel like I have a lot of the technical side of it under wraps.

My role is that of which is kinda hybrid, I do everything from start to finish. Just frustrating as when comparing to other companies, the salary is wildly underpaid.

Currently at an MSP, will probably look at reaching out to some pre-sales people on LinkedIn for advice too.

 

[TechMinerUK]

Thanks, I feel like I have a lot of the technical side of it under wraps.

My role is that of which is kinda hybrid, I do everything from start to finish. Just frustrating as when comparing to other companies, the salary is wildly underpaid.

Currently at an MSP, will probably look at reaching out to some pre-sales people on LinkedIn for advice too.

It sounds like you are probably already there then to be fair, unfortunately when it comes to salary for some places the only way to get uplifts is to start pursuing other opportunities and then see if you want to move or if you are happier with a counter offer.

 

[HangTime]

What is the main driver for this, is it the lack of progression and feeling underpaid or do you genuinely want to pursue Presales?
Or to put it another way, if you could do a similar technical role in another company with more pay and better prospects would that appeal as much as Presales?

In a similar vein to TechMinerUK I've not worked directly in Presales but 10+ years ago I used to be a Consultant that would support the Presales process as we didn't really have dedicated resources for that. Personally I didn't particularly enjoy it as you'd have Sales people looking to paint the happy path all the time so you were sort of caught between wanting to approach things methodically and identfying risks etc balanced against the need to maintain confidence and get engagements over the line. You'd basically have a person calling the shots from your end that lacked much true understanding of technology and delivery in contrast to delivery projects where you'd (hopefully) have a programme/project manager that was au fait with the challenges, how long things take etc. That said it depends a bit on the project, the client etc and it can be quite exciting looking at new greenfield stuff.

 

[EvilRob]

Presales for the vendor (i.e. VMWare or whatever) is probably a great, well paid but also demanding role. I went into presales for a software vendor after a few years in services/consulting and it was a great decision that led to more senior corporate roles in the future. Working in a few different functions is a great way to build experience of how a company overall works and what it needs to do to be successful.

Your technical knowledge will likely stand you in good stead with building trusted relationships with customers. The difficult part, as alluded to above, is balancing everything you've learned up until now with selling - when to speak up vs when not to, how to phrase limitations and propose other ways of doing things instead, how to articulate how product capabilities provide value/solve problems rather than just implement solutions to problems that others already defined. Maybe you already got a lot of that experience doing some presales in your current role.

 

[Ev0]

Been doing pre sales at vendors for just over 10 years now, absolutely love it and wish I’d known what it was like sooner so I’d have started down that path earlier.

I prefer vendor pre sales, main focus on particular products/solutions, but you still obviously need knowledge beyond that to succeed.

Not as much of a fan of the MSP/services side myself, but that’s just me!

 

[jake9891]

I've tried at my previous company to get into Pre-Sales, for similar reasons, lack of advacement or clear path for advancement in my role - I was doing internal IT mostly 2nd and 3rd line support with scripting, automation and any other special projects were given to me. I was told after the interview that I don't have enough "customer facing" experience. The argument I've made was everyone in our company are my "customers", I engage with everyone at different levels of expertease, manage expectations, do training and walkthroughs of anything new that comes on-board, etc, but apparentely all of that wasn't enough. I haven't been given any specific feedback what I could do to get the required experience they are looking for. Left the company for a better paid IT job few months after.

 

[OspreyO]

I've tried at my previous company to get into Pre-Sales, for similar reasons, lack of advacement or clear path for advancement in my role - I was doing internal IT mostly 2nd and 3rd line support with scripting, automation and any other special projects were given to me. I was told after the interview that I don't have enough "customer facing" experience. The argument I've made was everyone in our company are my "customers", I engage with everyone at different levels of expertease, manage expectations, do training and walkthroughs of anything new that comes on-board, etc, but apparentely all of that wasn't enough. I haven't been given any specific feedback what I could do to get the required experience they are looking for. Left the company for a better paid IT job few months after.

Hard to break out of being type cast (pigeon holed) without moving, and leaving all that baggage behind. Smart move.

 

[khrall]

I've been doing various degrees of Pre-Sales roles for the last 10 years, currently working at one of the top VARs in the UK, very much focusing on the skillset you mention.

I would say that these days the role is a lot less "technical speeds & feeds" and much more sales/customer orientated - whilst being able to translate the technical to a wider audience. Soft skills are key to a presales function.

There are some great podcasts and books available, search for presales in spotify under podcasts.

 

[HangTime]

Hard to break out of being type cast (pigeon holed) without moving, and leaving all that baggage behind. Smart move.

Pigeon-holing is one of the biggest blockers to productivity (exploiting labour) I've seen in industry. Employees are frequently defined by the [perception of the] role they are doing, with no consideration as to what expertise they may have that isn't currently being leveraged, what historical experience they may have in other organisations etc. If you hire someone to do job X, that does not mean their capability is restricted to the confines of job X or job X+1 (next rung up the ladder in that specific field).

 

[Throrik]

Pigeon-holing is one of the biggest blockers to productivity (exploiting labour) I've seen in industry. Employees are frequently defined by the [perception of the] role they are doing, with no consideration as to what expertise they may have that isn't currently being leveraged, what historical experience they may have in other organisations etc. If you hire someone to do job X, that does not mean their capability is restricted to the confines of job X or job X+1 (next rung up the ladder in that specific field).

The difficulty is lots of companies exploit this too, people doing something that is the next rung up, but not paying them for it. Or taking on additional responsibilities etc, without additional renumeration. I learnt this the hard way. It did me good in the end, but I had to leave places to get the benefits.