CEO @ Alpha Presales | Teaching smart people to talk less and sell more. The smarter your sales engineers are, the more they need this.

I run Alpha GTM – our mission is to help you sell more without being "salesy." 

Prior to this, I did: Engineering -> Consulting -> Presales -> Sales. 

I've trained thousands of sales leaders, reps, and SEs from 23 different countries. Through my training, I've learned that the best sales professionals are not successful because they "sell" – they're successful because they lead. 

That's why we teach Leadership. 

If you follow my content, you'll get playbooks to help you and your team master Leadership, Discovery, and Storytelling so you can sell more effectively. Be a Leader. Own the sale.

Rew Dickinson

CEO | Professional selling without being “salesy”

Every Sales Engineer who joins a company should hear these words from their manager on Day 1: 

1. I don't expect you to have all the answers
2. I don't expect you to be right all the time
3. I don't expect you to be perfect

I DO expect you to: 

1. Do your best.
2. Get better every day.
3. Listen more than you talk.
4. Ask questions even if you feel nervous.
5. If you don’t know the answers, get them. 

We set this unrealistic expectation that SEs are supposed to know all the answers, and when they don't they feel awkward. 

That's why most of them try to control the meeting by talking the entire time. 

What'd I miss?

My average sales cycle was 4.5 months. My company's average was 9. I always used 2 documents to help me do this: 1 you've probably heard of, and 1 you probably haven't. I teach both in my sales workshops. Here's why they matter and how to do them: 

The Problem: 

Most clients think the best way to evaluate software is to: 
1. Look at the generic stuff that Gartner publishes -> 
2. Line up 5 potential vendors -> 
3. Get demos from all of them-> 
4. Realize they all look the same -> 
5. Downselect to 2 vendors -> 
6. Do a bakeoff -> 
7. Realize that they forgot to include their actual workflows in the bakeoff ->
8. Do a follow-up POC to close the loop on their remaining questions -> 
9. Get ready to make a decision -> 
10. Realize that some person from Enterprise Architecture, Security or IT has to do something ->
11. Start engaging legal at the very end of the evaluation -> 
12. Get delayed 4 weeks...because...lawyers -> 
13. Finally, sign a contract. 

It's like thinking that the best way to drive from Seattle to LA is through New York. 

It's absurd, but most clients don't know that because most clients have never bought your product before and don't know how to do it. 

That's why in all my sales workshops, I teach the team how to create a Visual Evaluation Plan (VEP).

NOTE: This is not a Mutual Action Plan. Mutual Action Plans are amazing when the client already likes you, but they're far too detailed for early-stage prospects where you're not the vendor of choice (yet). 

To create your VEP, do this:
1. Map out the slowest sales cycles you've been through
2. Map out the fastest sales cycles you've been through
3. Visually draw what the fastest sales cycles looked like in a way workflow that you could present to a customer. 

Then show the VEP to the client and say, "We've worked with [numberOfCustomers] customers and found that the fastest and most efficient way to get through an evaluation is to follow this process. How does this compare to what you had planned?"

Nearly every time I do this, the client thanks me. 

It gives them a plan. 

Be a Leader.

Just wrapped up Sales Kickoff with Planful in Palm Springs, CA. This was my 8th SKO of the year, and Planful did the opposite of what most companies do at SKO...

They spent almost all their time focused on their customer – not their product, not their positioning, not their competitors. 

In fact, we did two sessions focused on the most important thing (OUR CUSTOMER): 

1. Customer Value Discovery
We did a 2-hour, deep, hands-on session on how to discover what customers actually need, not just what we want to sell.

2. Knowing our Customer and Owning the Sale
We did a 2-hour interactive workshop where we broke down each industry and the buyers Planful serves, to help guide them through the sales process more efficiently. 

I love working with sales leaders like Steve who are more focused on their customers than anything else, because that mindset shows up in everything they do.

Thank you, Steve, Mel, John, Emily, Ben, Andrew, and Ameesh, for finally getting to meet this team in person!

P.S. Not a bad place for SKO, huh?

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Founder

Sales + Sales Engineering

Consulting + Software Engineering

Financial Analyst

Helping CROs and CSOs run a predictable GTM

Planful

SVP Sales

CEO @ Alpha GTM

In my SE training, I always ask how many SEs have heard of the 3 Whys. Less than 50% of SEs raise their hand. Here’s why that matters for SE teams and how to apply the 3 Whys in Sales Engineering. 

---

The 3 Whys are the 3 questions that a prospect needs to answer if you’re going to sell anything to them: 

- Why do anything? 
- Why do it now? 
- Why do something with this vendor? 

Until the prospect has mentally answered these 3 questions, they’ll never buy. 

The problem is that most SEs give demos that only answer one question for the prospect: 

- Why do something with this vendor? 

They leave out the 2 more important questions: 
- Why do anything? 
- Why do it now? 

This is why SC discovery is so critical. 

We can’t just give demos and talk. We have to ask questions and tell stories, because those things help customers answer: 
- Why do anything? 
- Why do it now? 

For example, if you sell an expense management solution and a client tells you that they have a manual process for doing expenses, you don’t jump right into the demo. 

Instead, you say, “How long have you been dealing with this?”

They’ll probably say, “It has been like this forever.” 

That’s when you say, “Is it getting better or worse?”

They’ll probably say, “It’s getting worse because we’re trying to do more face-to-face meetings.”

Now that you asked them, it helps them realize that not only are you the right vendor, but that if they don’t do something, and do it now, their problem is going to get worse. 

---

Lesson? 

If you can move from just showing solutions to asking questions, you can help prospects go from answering just one question: 
- Why do something with this vendor? 

To answering all 3 Whys: 
- Why do anything?
- Why do it now?
- Why do something with this vendor? 

P.S. SE Leaders: For monthly tips on how to improve presales, join 200+ presales leaders who get our newsletter: https://lnkd.in/eKaaGeZr

I watch 100 sales presentations a year. And almost everyone gets this wrong. They try to "sell value" by talking about the product. But the value isn't in the product. It's in the prospect. Watch this to see where "value" actually comes from and how to sell a lot more of it.

If the idea of "storytelling" in sales confuses you, watch this video.

I talk about the most important component of storytelling (creating contrast) by giving a simple real world analogy. 

Then I give an example of how you can apply this to B2B sales. 

I've had sales leaders use this exact video to teach their team the basics of storytelling.

If you're in Sales or Sales Engineering, your job is not to convince. Early in my career, I thought it was. Here's what I learned (plus, why the best AEs and SEs are rarely the most convincing)...

---

I was the SE on one of the biggest accounts in my company's history ($48 million). We needed the Retail Group, the Financial Advisory Group, and three other groups to all agree that our solution was the right one.

Earlier in my career, I would have focused on giving the most compelling demos and POCs to all these groups. That works, to a degree. But once I got more mature in sales, I realized that the most powerful thing you can do in a sales cycle isn't to convince or persuade the person in front of you – it's to coach them. 

For example, I found out that one of the Solutions Architects that we were selling to had worked for 3 out of the 5 groups that we needed to get onboard. 

So rather than try to convince him, I decided to coach him. The client had asked us to do a POC, but I set up a workshop with the Solutions Architect where I taught him how to build out a workflow completely on his own. 

I would do this often because I've found that when people build something, it's way easier for them to present it to their peers. 

For example, have you ever tried to give a presentation that someone else built? It's miserable. You're nervous the whole time because you didn't build it yourself. 

Once this Solutions Architect built the solution, he owned it. Then he went around to the four other business groups and showed them what he built.

He became my internal seller. I didn't try to convince him, I coached him instead.

When you convince people, you're not equipping them to convince anyone else. But when you give them what they need to sell internally, they can sell when you're not in the room.

Every time I'm working a deal now, I'm asking myself: "How do I turn the people I'm selling to into my internal sellers?"

Stop convincing. Start coaching.

This was one of the best things I've ever heard a Sales Leader say...

I was in Dallas, TX, with Motorola, and we were teaching storytelling to the Solutions Consulting team. 

That's when the SVP of Sales, Jeremy Smith chimed in and asked the SCs...

“Do you know where we can get these customer stories from?“

The team responded:
- "Marketing!"
- "Our website!"
- "The CS team!"

Jeremy said, "yes, yes, and yes."

But then he said the best answer of all...

“Go meet with the customer directly. You can go on-site. You don't have to ask your sales rep for permission."

I loved this because there are so many SC teams that I talk to who feel like they work FOR their sales reps – You don't. 

You have every right to do what's right for your customer.

Be you.

Last month, I did an SKO where several sales reps in the crowd would chime in and add their 2 cents to the discussion. 

Afterwards, one of the Solutions Consultants (SCs) pulled me aside and asked me, "How do you speak up in a big group like that?" 

I asked him, "What makes you think that you can't?" 

We chatted for a bit, and I ultimately told him this: 

Many SCs are afraid to speak up at SKOs or in big groups. Sometimes it's because they feel like the event is for the sales reps, and sometimes it's just because they're nervous speaking in a large group. 

Either way, remember this: 

1. It is quite often that SCs have MORE experience than sales reps at the company. For example, the average SC tenure tends to be 3-7 years at a company, whereas the average AE tenure is only about 18 months. 

2. If you have something valuable to share with the team, you don't have to wait for your turn to share it. You're on the sales team, too. You can contribute whenever you want. 

SCs have a voice. Don't be afraid to use it.

This sales meeting started horribly. The sales rep briefed the SC on the opportunity 2 minutes before the prospect joined the call. Somehow, they pulled off a miracle together, largely because the SC was an absolute beast with 10 years of experience and knew how to lead. 

Here are 3 things that the SC did that show just how valuable SCs can be in sales: 

1- The SC got the prospect talking early. Notice how he peppered in questions early on. This got the prospect talking and sharing problems, so that when he demoed, he was aligning to those problems, not talking about features. 

2- About halfway through the demo, the prospect started to "sell herself." The SC recognized this, stopped demoing, and immediately pivoted to a businses conversation to help her build her business case. He "sold" less and started asking questions again. 

3- Toward the end of the meeting, the SC went from "selling" to "leading." He talked about how expensive it is for people in her role to engage outside consultants for help with things they could figure out themselves with the right software. Then he asked her how often she has to go to consultants for answers and she revealed how often and how much it costs. It immediately justified the investment.

This is an incredible example of SC leadership in a deal. 

Sales Reps: prep your SCs before the call. 
SCs: don't just demo, be a leader.

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I always hated the saying, "Time kills all deals." It's true. But it's selfish. Let's look at why, and what we should do about it.

In my consultative sales workshops, I always ask the team 3 questions: 
1- How long is your sales cycle?
2- How long is your implementation? 
3- How long before adoption/proficiency? 

Since most of my customers are selling big platforms, the answers are often: 
• 9+ months for the sale
• 3+ months for the implementation
• 6+ months for adoption

That's 18+ months before they get "value." 

Think about that for a second...

That means our customers are sitting in pain for 18+ months. 

So yes, "time kills all deals," but if we think about it from our customer's perspective, it's even worse! 

The longer we take to sell, the longer our customers are in pain!

This is why the absolute worst thing you can do as a consultative seller is react to your customer. Yet I see sales teams do it all the time: 
- Customer wants a POC, they get it
- Customer wants a demo, they get it

The real problem is that customers often don't know what they want, much less what they need. 

As a sales professional, you have to be able to constructively push back and lead your customer. 

They need your guidance and expertise. 

If you can't push back and lead them, you're not just hurting yourself, you're hurting them. 

You're the doctor. They're the patient. Never forget that.

Salespeople: Your tone says everything. So if you're, 
- Starting the meeting by apologizing for giving the corporate deck, or
- Racing to get through the corporate deck, or
- Telling people "I only a few slides..."

Stop. 

If giving the corporate deck is valuable for the customer, then don't apologize for doing it. 

If it's not, then skip it.

This was a really bad demo. I watch hundreds of them a year, and these 3 problems come up again and again. Here's how to fix them. 

---

PROBLEM 1: "Teaching," and not talking about VALUE.

In my training, I teach the Alpha AAA Framework (Audience, Annoyance, Afterward). Before you jump into a feature/solution, always know the Audience, their Annoyance, and what their life would look like After your solution is in place. If you do this, you have the basics of a story. If you don't do that, you're just selling features, not value. 

PROBLEM 2: Talking too much.

Breathe. 11 minutes and 19 seconds is way too long for anyone to listen to a demo. Simple tip: plan out your questions before you demo. For every solution you plan to show, write at least 1 question to ask before or after you show it. 

PROBLEM 3: Reacting, not leading.

Both sales reps and SCs mess this up. They're trying to be nice, so they offer more information. I can't tell you how many times I hear meetings end with..."We're happy to dive deeper into any of these things." Rarely do prospects need more information, they usually just need to build a business case. Help them with that. 

What other problems do you see?

Solutions Consultants when their Sales Rep starts talking about architecture...

Last week, I got to spend a day in DC with the Bloomberg SC team at their SKO. Here's why I loved it: 

1. Most SC training is focused on talking (demos). We did the opposite. We focused on discovery and dove into the Alpha Value Discovery Methodology. Because that's where deals are won and lost → discovery, not talking. 

2. We got to do this workshop style, not lecture style, so everyone was up and moving around, digging into business problems and uncovering value for their clients. Collaboration always wins.

3. This SC team has experienced pros, not rookies. The best thing you can do in that type of situation is create an environment where they can share their brilliance with their peers. We did exactly that. 

Thank you, Mackda, Jenna, Kara and Andy, for having me. Your team is absolutely amazing.

Senior Manager, Solutions Consultants - Tax at Bloomberg Industry Group

Senior Director of Sales Readiness and Enablement, Bloomberg Industry Group

Results-Driven Commercial Executive | Passionate about Building Teams | Running and Baking Enthusiast

B2B sales is the best job in the world. It's also the hardest. The most thankless. And the most strategic. But most people don't understand that. 

Most people think you just hire people who are convincing and like talking. 

But that's not at all what you do. 

In B2B sales, you have to hire people who are:
- good at listening
- good at asking questions
- good at getting people talking
- good at getting 15-25 people with different priorities to agree on something
- good at writing
- good at letting other people do the "selling" (SEs, CSMs)
- good at managing projects and stakeholders
- good at having business conversations
- good at asking people for money
- good at navigating relationships
- good at dealing with politics

...and good at taking it on the chin over and over and over again without taking it personally. 

To be successful in B2B sales, you don't need talkers - you need Leaders. 

This is exactly why I love it. 

P.S. What'd I miss?

This is a behind-the-scenes look at what I do when a company asks me to run their sales kickoff (SKO). 

Lesson for all sales enablement professionals -> if you want people to remember what you teach them at SKO: 

1- Make people compete as a team (not just listen to a lecture)
2- Reinforce the training after SKO

P.S. What has been your most memorable SKO ever?

In the past month, 2 of my clients (1 VP of Sales, 1 CRO) have told me that their team is not selling at the CFO level. If you are trying to sell to CFOs and other C-Suite Leaders, here are 4 questions that you should be thinking about helping your client answer...

1. What’s the problem we’re trying to solve?

2. What’s the reason for the problem?

3. What’s it costing our organization? 

4. If we don't solve it now, so what? 

Until these 4 questions are answered, most executives don't even want to talk about solutions.

In other words, you could have the best product, but it doesn't matter because the problem isn't big enough to solve.

Zerto

Under my leadership, a team of six solutions engineers (consultants/presales) across APAC is dedicated to virtual machine cyber recovery solutions using our Zerto continuous data protection software. We are committed to helping customers create data protection solutions that quickly recover their most critical virtual infrastructure datasets with our CDP and AirGapped CyberVault solutions within a robust Cybersecurity framework.

The team spans Australia, Singapore, Korea, India, Indonesia and multiple ASEAN countries. Performing business value discussions, RFP responses and proof of concepts (POC) execution with clients throughout the APJ region

Creating in-region partnerships with distributors, ISV partners and Zerto/HPE authorised partners

Head of Sales Engineering APAC

PreSales Collective

The presales collective is a community of technology specialists coming together and sharing ideas around sales engineering best practices and experiences.  This is a volunteer organisation where participation is via one-to-one networking and local social and training events.

PreSales Collective Volunteer

Automation Anywhere

Key Achievements:
+ Hosted and presented seven in-person thought leadership C-level executive briefings across Australia and Singapore
+ Co-hosted and presented at the first-ever partner advisory board in APJ (25 Attendees)
+ Business process automation thought leadership theatre presentation at Gartner Gold Coast - Sept 2022
+ Created a multi-touchpoint csat engagement model and helped raise cNPS 10 points QoQ.
+ Led the in-region deployment of Vivun - for presales data-driven sales execution

Team Leadership & Expansion: Directed and coached a diverse team of 5 presales consultants dispersed across three countries (Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong), strengthening regional coverage and broadening market reach. 

Presales Excellence: Championed a culture of data-driven excellence by tracking salesforce activity, managing proof of concepts, and monitoring key performance indicators. (OKRs and KPIs)

Customer Escalation & Support: Entrusted as a primary point of contact for high-priority customer escalations, rapidly resolving complex issues to elevate CNPS scores. 

Employee Development Plans: Crafted customised development plans for direct reports to foster professional growth, enhance career development and encourage long-term retention.

Strategic Account Management: Collaborated with cross-functional teams to devise and implement strategic account plans for clients. Oversaw an annual SaaS revenue run rate quota for the region of 15M USD within Enterprise Accounts.

Director of Solutions Consultants, ASEAN and Australia

Dell EMC

Key Achievements:
+ Optimized presales GTM coverage in the region through the use of the ACRM (Adoption Curve Resourcing Model) to over-achieve all revenue quotas with 145% attainment in FY22 ($100M+); 
+ 20% of direct reports promoted in FY21 through a custom-designed and enhanced mentoring coaching program. Two high-performance team members were accepted to an external MBA program.
+ Organized and delivered cyber security training on Dell's ransomware solution to over 300 partner attendees across APJ with 23% software revenue growth
+ Published a technical whitepaper for Dell Technologies in collaboration with public cloud vendors.
+ and obtained outstanding employee NPS scores (100% in FY22, FY21 and FY20).

•	Team Leadership: with a team of 13 Specialist Presales Engineers across Australia and India, cultivating a thriving workplace championing success, collaboration and knowledge sharing.

•	Industry Engagement: Exercised thought leadership by presenting at multiple high-profile customer events (DellEMC Forum Australia and India).

•	Customer Satisfaction & Escalation Management: Driving customer satisfaction (NPS) across the region by creating weekly hot account escalation reviews and working with the worldwide escalation manager to address concerns. Designing communication strategies for account coverage to maintain cNPS levels.

Director Sales Engineers - Australia, New Zealand and India at Dell EMC

Key Achievements:
+Performed a strategic territory alignment change in 2019, leading to a revenue growth (33%) to over $70M.
+Added a first-level manager to my reporting line within the business to enhance opportunity execution and team member growth for Southeast Asia.
+15% of direct reports were promoted in 2019 through a designed career growth coaching program.
+Co-created and delivered partner enablement program across five APJ countries with over 200 attendees in FY19.
+Obtained outstanding employee NPS scores (100% in FY20, FY19).
+ Deployed and executed a program to train a worldwide technical specialist team (40 members) for Data Analytics.

Key Responsibilities:
•	Team Leadership & Growth: Led a team of 20 Specialist System Engineers across the APJ region (ANZ, SEA and India) and hired a first-line manager.

•	Talent Acquisition & Team Expansion: Oversaw interviewing and hiring new team members in three key countries (Singapore, India and Australia). Ensuring team readiness and precise talent fit to drive continued growth in unstructured data storage.

•	Customer Satisfaction Management: Owned full responsibility for customer satisfaction engagements across the assigned territory while partnering closely with the worldwide escalation manager and customer service organization.

Senior Manager Sales Engineers (Presales) - Australia, New Zealand, SEA and India

+ Contributed to 33% YoY growth and record revenue of 35M USD in 2016.
+ Achieved EMC Presidents Club 2016 for dedication and achieved results.
+ Drove 6 new EMC logo wins, including major victories at Enterprise clients with multiple deals 500K+ USD.

Solutions focus on Media and Entertainment verticals, Financial Services, Healthcare and Data Analytics platforms leveraging HDFS hosted on Isilon.

Responsibilities include architecture design, validation, customer escalations and satisfaction engagements.  Guiding complete solutions to meet the customer's needs provided by EMC and EMC partners.

Advisory Systems Engineer

Managing a cross-Canada-based team of highly trained network-attached storage specialists focused on EMC's Isilon platforms, EMC's Software-defined storage solutions, ScaleIO, ECS and ViPR Controller.

Solutions focus on Healthcare, Media and Entertainment verticals and Data Analytics platforms leveraging HDFS hosted on Isilon.

Responsibilities include architecture design, validation, customer escalations and satisfaction engagements.  Guiding complete solutions to meet the customer's needs provided by EMC and EMC partners.

Emerging Technology Presale Solutions Architects Manager - Canada

Responsible for solution designs and consultation for customers to take advantage of the EMC VNX and Isilon storage products and maximize the investment in technology.  

Strategic account planning and guidance to my team members to create an effective technical organization within EMC.

Mid-Tier Team Lead Specialist - Canada

Strategic selling and promoting of the EMC midrange storage offerings in unified and cloud storage for eastern Canada.

Unified Storage Specialist

Responsible as a product advocate on all IBM Storage hardware products such as XIV, N series, DS series disk, Tape and Networking  SAN and IP-based products.  My role involves interacting with sales specialists, technical services team members and IBM-authorized business partners.

Storage Business Development Manager

Architected solutions leveraging IBM's Nseries product, interfaced with customers, partners and hardware sales specialists.

National Sales Leader

Storage Brand sales for IBM hardware division.  Providing technical architecture for SAN and NAS designs for large and small IT companies.   Lead specialist on IBM DS4000 product and the IBM N series OEM product from Network Appliance.
Responsible for the technical sales strategy for opportunities to sell IBM hardware and software components.
Responsible for the creation of competitive presentations and papers to assist in sales opportunities for IBM technology.

Advisory Field Technical Sales Support - IBM FTSS

Technical Support Rep in the AIX and System p post sales support centre.  Handled customer problems and escalations on product usage and assisted with product defect resolution.  Focused on the AIX operating system as a second level support specialist.

Technical Support Representative

Data it's just not going away.

Want to understand more about your data? Do you need help in a sea of technical terms? What does it all mean for you? To understand and interpret the daily information overload, people need a bridge for technology and business to operate as a cohesive unit. I can be your bridge to understanding.

I love looking at all types of data from various sources and creating a narrative for what it means to the masses. It could be performance statistics from an infrastructure deployment, training AI models for object detection, the impact on automation for a business process or pouring over my latest cycling metrics as we drink coffee at the end of the group ride. 

I'm a seasoned technical leader of teams of 20 with over 20 years of experience across globally diverse cultures and regions, fostering partnerships with high-performance technical specialists and sales leadership to deliver on revenue targets growing from 30M USD to 100M+ in five years.

I have a natural curiosity about technology and a thirst for learning its impact on today's world. Creating relatable technology messages through storytelling in person or virtually is an area in which I excel and enjoy delivering.

A people-centric approach allows for building deep partnerships with team members, sales leadership, product management, customers, partners, and marketing organisations, which is at the core of my success. I've consistently nurtured relationships that drive mutual benefits.

I am excited about connecting with like-minded professionals who are passionate about data, technology, leadership, and cycling.

Let's connect and explore how our combined skills and experiences can create new opportunities and drive impactful outcomes.

taplio

The Battle

Rew Dickinson

Jeffrey Wiggins

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The Battle

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