Leading PreSales | The Solution Engineering Leadership Show

Fifty Times Faster, Fifty Times Wrong [16]

Why AI is making your discovery gaps bigger, not smaller. Nate shares an experiment from one of his SE Managers: two teams used the same AI demo tool with identical timelines. The team that did structured discovery first booked next meetings every time. The team that skipped it shipped polished demos that went nowhere. WHAT NATE AND AVA DISCUSS * Why AI amplifies bad discovery instead of replacing it * The pain chain: a fifteen-minute gate that transforms demo quality * How the AI productivity race is quietly killing the discovery skill THE MOVE Before your SEs touch any AI demo tool, require a one-page pain chain. Start with the surface complaint and walk it up until you land on a metric the CFO actually cares about. No artifact, no demo. ---------------------------------------- 🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales [https://paths.to/presales] 📅 Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call [https://calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call]

The SE Who Rewired the Team [15]

What happens when one curious SE on your team quietly rewires the whole job. 🎙️ Live webinar May 21: Tim & Jan on building a PreSales team that drives revenue — not just demos. serockstars.com/webinar [https://serockstars.com/webinar] Ava's team runs on an agent orchestration setup that one of her SEs — Marcus — built on three weekends. Nate pushes on the hard questions: standardization, coaching, hiring, and what happens if Marcus leaves. WHAT NATE AND AVA DISCUSS * What Marcus built: agent orchestration wired into CRM, deal conversations, knowledge base, and the product via MCP server — spins up a tailored demo environment in four minutes * The standardization tension: the floor goes up for everyone (even the two-months-in SE) but the ceiling — reading the room, catching an exec's pause — is still human * The coaching and hiring shift: stop coaching the template, coach the judgment. The "organized operator" profile just got cheap * The bus factor: what if Marcus leaves? A real risk Ava actively manages through pairing and documentation * Nate's enterprise reality: six-month security reviews mean he can't ship this yet — so he's starting with the context layer, a fight he can win this year THE MOVE Find your Marcus. Every team has one — the SE quietly obsessed with AI, building scripts on the side. Give them oxygen; they'll build the future of your team faster than any vendor ever will. And as a leader, start thinking now about what the ceiling looks like — because in eighteen months, everyone's floor will be the same. ---------------------------------------- 🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales [https://paths.to/presales] 📅 Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call [https://calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call]

Prep the People, Not Just the Demo [14]

Why your demo prep survived everything except the actual demo 🎙️ Live webinar May 21: Tim & Jan on building a PreSales team that drives revenue — not just demos. serockstars.com/webinar [https://serockstars.com/webinar] Your SE ran a dry run, sent a strategy reminder, and built a tight agenda. Five minutes in, an AE went off-script and the whole flow collapsed. Why does this keep happening — and what can SE leaders actually do about it? WHAT NATE AND AVA DISCUSS * Why dry runs rehearse content but not behavior — and why that gap kills complex demos * The "rules of engagement" conversation: scripting reactions, not just presentations * Giving AEs an active role during demos instead of asking them to stay quiet THE MOVE Stop telling your AEs to be quiet. Give them a job — like owning the live question log — so their energy protects the demo flow instead of blowing it up. And build your rules of engagement into the dry run itself, not a Slack message after. ---------------------------------------- 🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales [https://paths.to/presales] 📅 Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call [https://calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call]

Are We Even Doing the Huddle? [13]

Why doing the thing badly is better than not doing it at all 🎙️ Live webinar May 21: Tim & Jan on building a PreSales team that drives revenue — not just demos. serockstars.com/webinar [https://serockstars.com/webinar] When Nate asked his SE Director about pre-demo huddle quality, the answer was simple: they are not happening yet. Ava tried building the perfect huddle template and nobody used it. Together they unpack why getting the behavior to exist matters more than getting it right from day one. WHAT NATE AND AVA DISCUSS * Why the perfect template kills adoption — and what happens when you strip it down to just talk to each other * How the habit itself teaches people what good preparation looks like, without a formal agenda * Nate's three-question minimum for scaling huddles across 200 SEs without creating bureaucracy THE MOVE If your team is not doing pre-demo huddles, do not build the perfect template. Make the conversation mandatory. Track that it is happening. After a few weeks, introduce the minimum questions that actually matter. ---------------------------------------- 🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales [https://paths.to/presales] 📅 Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call [https://calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call]

Your Best SE Has Never Been Coached [12]

How to introduce feedback to a veteran who has never had it 🎙️ Live webinar May 21: Tim & Jan on building a PreSales team that drives revenue — not just demos. serockstars.com/webinar [https://serockstars.com/webinar] When a new SE leader inherits a veteran with deep product knowledge but years of unchallenged habits, the instinct is to list what needs fixing. But that approach turns a trusted expert into a reluctant trainee. Nate and Ava explore how to coach someone who has never been coached. WHAT NATE AND AVA DISCUSS * Why experienced SEs often already know the gap between their best and their average — they just need someone to draw it out * The difference between correcting someone and helping them do more of what already works * When self-awareness is not there: using data to open the door while keeping coaching question-based THE MOVE If you are inheriting a veteran SE who has never been coached, don't start with what's broken. Ask them what their best demo looks like. Let them find the gap between their best and their average. That is where the coaching begins. ---------------------------------------- 🔗 Resources & Links: paths.to/presales [https://paths.to/presales] 📅 Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call [https://calendly.com/serockstars-tim/discovery-call]