Presales Podcast by Presales Collective 54. The Technical Win w/Richard Armstrong
May 31, 2021
Richard Armstrong, Head of Americas Solutions Engineering at Cloudflare, dives into the concept of the technical win. He highlights how this idea can clarify accountability for Sales Engineers. Discussing the shift from on-prem to SaaS, he shares the importance of technical validation and its role in the sales cycle. Richard emphasizes the need for measurable impact from SEs and advocates for embedding validation steps in CRM systems. Additionally, he offers insights on building trust between SEs and sales leadership, and the future of tech structures in pre-sales.
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Define The Technical Win Precisely
- A technical win means the technical buyer believes the solution will work in their environment and will recommend it to the economic buyer.
- This separates technical validation from budget approval and clarifies SE accountability.
Choose Lowest-Risk Validation
- Achieve technical validation with the least risky and time-consuming option that convinces the technical buyer.
- Use references for simple validation and production POCs only when absolutely necessary.
Create A Pre-Sales Toolbox
- Build a pre-sales toolkit with POC best practices, success criteria, timeframes, and scope controls.
- Capture templates from trial-and-error and enforce discipline to avoid scope creep.