[Part 3/3]: Strengthening client value and enhancing leadership presence

Presales transformation must begin with the Presales Executive taking the lead, clearly driving the initiative forward by articulating the underlying motivations and strategic reasons for change. The success of this transformation relies heavily on strong, visionary leadership from the executive level, ensuring that the broader leadership team understands the purpose and goals of the shift. A key part of this leadership is communicating a well-defined success formula to the presales team members, who are ultimately the ones on the front lines, engaging with customers in the field. The executive’s ability to inspire and align the team with the transformation’s objectives will be critical in ensuring that presales professionals are empowered to drive impactful customer engagements, fostering long-term business success.

This leadership-driven approach ensures that presales transformation is not just a top-down mandate but an integrated effort to equip teams for greater value delivery in their customer interactions.

If the foundational elements of professional customer engagement—such as effective communication, genuine enthusiasm for your product, understanding why the customer is buying rather than just focusing on what you are selling, and listening more than speaking—are not in place, then any supplemental training aimed at improving presales skills will be of limited impact. Presales professionals who lack the desire to engage deeply with the customer’s needs and motivations will not benefit from learning how to deliver a demo more efficiently or automate processes using product screenshots. Without these fundamentals, even the most polished demo delivery techniques will fall flat because they fail to resonate with the customer’s core business drivers. True customer engagement starts with understanding and empathy, and no amount of tactical training will compensate for a lack of genuine, value-driven interaction.

Enhancing leadership presence in customer interactions means projecting authority, confidence, and strategic influence. It involves visibly taking charge, guiding discussions, and positioning yourself as a strategic partner by communicating clearly, actively listening, and aligning insights with customer objectives. How can a presales leader help the customer realise true value from their solution?

Replacing individuals on a team without a clear, strategic intention may seem like an easy and quick fix, but it’s often a dirty solution that overlooks the complexities of true team transformation. Building a high-performing presales team is a complex and hard process, requiring thoughtful leadership, investment in growth, and a long-term strategy. Transforming an existing team means working through challenges, developing skills, and engaging in a collaborative environment. It’s far more challenging than simply swapping out team members, but ultimately, it’s the most effective way to achieve sustainable success and meaningful impact.

It’s easy to walk into a client meeting with an existing customer and perform a solid discovery session, looking for upsell opportunities—something that will satisfy most account executives. However, at the same time, it’s just as easy to do nothing significant and leave no real impact. The key lies in balancing the act of giving — listening, understanding their needs — and taking — introducing value-driven solutions — while ensuring that the interaction leaves the customer with a clear sense of partnership and growth potential.

First and foremost, we need to slow down the deal in order to speed it up. This requires us to approach the opportunity with clear intent, bringing organisation and structure rather than rushing to meet every request from the customer or account executive. By aligning our actions with the customer’s true needs, we teach our team that committing to everything isn’t the right approach. In the long run, this intentional method develops better decision-making and delivers more impactful, sustainable results for both our team and the customer.

We’ve said it many times and will continue to repeat it: asking the client for their objectives in your very first encounter may seem, as a presales leader, like a meaningful way to drive the agenda and showcase your leadership. However, this approach can often lead to confusion and even intimidation, especially in a room full of stakeholders. It’s important to recognise that discussing objectives is not just about asking the right questions; it’s about timing and framing. Your team should be the ones leading this important conversation throughout their discovery process, ensuring that it is organically integrated into their interactions rather than presented abruptly, which can leave the customer feeling overwhelmed or put on the spot.

In any customer engagement, the principle of giving before taking is essential. It involves offering value and a genuine understanding of the client’s business before seeking something in return, such as information or commitments. This concept directly ties back to the previous section on asking customers for their objectives. Posing that question too early—before you’ve provided value or shown a deep understanding of their context—can feel like you’re prematurely “taking.” Instead, by leading with value through thoughtful discovery and offering insights tailored to their needs, you earn the right to ask about objectives. This approach creates a balanced relationship where trust is built through giving first, setting the foundation for a more meaningful and mutually beneficial dialogue.

This approach provides you, as a presales leader, the opportunity to help your team discover new use cases during customer engagements. In turn, it allows for a personalised follow-up with a thank you message, while also offering more value in your communication. This method reinforces the importance of staying engaged with customers, teaching your team to be more proactive in maintaining ongoing, meaningful interactions that drive deeper connections and future opportunities.

Typically, sales teams will not introduce the presales leader to all of their accounts, often focusing on the largest and most strategic opportunities instead. This selective involvement ensures that presales leadership is leveraged where the potential impact is highest. As a result, in the busy schedule of a presales leader, follow-up strategies are adjusted to remain manageable and efficient. Prioritising the most significant deals and maintaining structured communication ensures that presales leaders can provide strategic oversight without becoming overwhelmed by numerous smaller engagements, all while driving key accounts toward successful outcomes.

For a presales leader, taking proactive actions during client meetings is essential to elevate discussions to the executive level. Gaining access to meaningful conversations with senior executives requires more than just showing up with a title; it requires building trust and demonstrating value over multiple interactions. A single meeting is rarely enough to unlock these high-level discussions. Instead, presales leaders must use each engagement as an opportunity to listen carefully, ask insightful questions, and show a genuine interest in understanding the customer’s business challenges and objectives. By consistently positioning themselves as strategic partners, presales leaders can progressively earn the credibility needed to engage with decision-makers at the executive level. Ultimately, it is not the title that creates these opportunities, but the consistent demonstration of presence, empathy, and value in each customer interaction.

Account-to-vendor persona mapping involves strategically aligning the various personas within a customer’s organisation—such as decision-makers, influencers, and end-users—with the appropriate specialists on the vendor’s team. This mapping ensures that communication and interactions are tailored to the needs and preferences of each key stakeholder. As a presales leader, you have a significant opportunity to proactively promote this evolving trust and rapport building by taking it to the next level, where you can clearly understand and engage with the different customer personas.

By doing so, you position yourself as a bridge, facilitating the alignment between the customer’s needs and the expertise within your own organisation. This approach not only strengthens your relationships with decision-makers and influencers but also ensures that the right vendor team members, from account executives to technical consultants, are effectively engaging with their corresponding customer counterparts. Additionally, as a leader, you create mappings that align to the communication preferences of these personas, ensuring a more personalised and impactful engagement with each individual involved in the decision-making process. This increases a deeper trust and positions you as a strategic partner in driving long-term success.

Reflective feedback in the context of presales coaching involves guiding your team to self-assess and critically reflect on their performance and interaction during customer engagements. Encouraging individuals to recognise their strengths and identify areas for improvement with being told explicitly what to do.

Leaders ask open-ended questions to drive self-awareness. This approach promotes continuous improvement, autonomy, and personal ownership, allowing individuals to learn from challenges and grow independently. Through reflective questioning, presales leader guide team members to adapt and take charge of their development.

While everyone can theoretically be coached, the effectiveness of coaching depends on several factors. These include the individual’s willingness to learn, having a growth mindset, clear goals, and self-awareness. Additionally, the person’s coachability—traits like openness and humility—also play a key role. Successful coaching requires the individual to actively engage in the process, while a skilled coach adapts their approach based on these factors.

Today, coaching is seen as a vital part of modern presales management, supporting the shift towards more collaborative, adaptive, and people-centric approaches.

Since we explored that coaching can be demonstrated through examples and encouraging growth through practical applications, let's continue understanding whether everyone can be coached.

Many individuals mistakenly believe they have a growth mindset when, in reality, they are confusing effort with learning. They equate working hard or putting in effort with actual improvement, without focusing on meaningful learning outcomes. Carol Dweck’s concept of the false growth mindset addresses this issue, where people adopt the language of growth, such as praising effort, but fail to recognise that effort alone is insufficient without real progress or strategic learning. This mindset shift requires a move from being performance-driven — focused on simply doing more work — to being learning-driven, where the emphasis is on adapting, improving, and achieving new insights through challenges. The true growth mindset involves linking effort with results and understanding and leaders have the opportunity to guide individuals towards learning from that effort, thus ensuring they progress rather than remain in a cycle of superficial achievement.

The principles of coaching are not confined to formal management or leadership roles, as effective coaching does not require positional authority to be impactful. In fact, these skills can be seamlessly transferred into customer engagement scenarios. Just as coaching fosters growth and self-awareness in team members, it can be used to guide customers toward discovering their own needs and opportunities. Through active listening, open-ended questioning, and reflective feedback, you can create a consultative dialogue that helps customers better understand their own challenges and how your solution aligns with their goals.

In this context, coaching becomes a powerful tool for building trust and influencing decision-making. By guiding, rather than directing, you empower the customer to arrive at their conclusions, making the solution feel more like a collaborative discovery than a sales pitch. This approach strengthens relationships and positions you as a Strategic Partner, without relying on authority to drive the conversation. Additionally, a presales leader can demonstrate to team members in these client situations just how effective coaching customers can be, providing practical examples that show the power of guiding a customer’s thought process, rather than simply presenting a solution.

In leadership, the principle of giving before taking is foundational to building trust, inspiring collaboration, and fostering growth. A true leader understands the importance of offering value, guidance, and support before seeking personal or professional gains. This approach not only strengthens relationships but also reinforces the leader’s commitment to the success of others, whether in team dynamics or customer interactions. Equally important is maintaining a growth mindset—remaining open to learning, adapting, and embracing new challenges. Being receptive to both coaching and being coached enables leaders to evolve continually and apply their insights in practical ways, enhancing their presence and effectiveness in front of customers. This reflective approach empowers leaders to confidently guide conversations, demonstrating the power of coaching as a practical tool for driving deeper, more meaningful engagements.

As a presales leader, it is essential never to lose sight of your roots—the journey from being an engineer to stepping into a leadership role. The experiences and technical expertise you gained during those formative years are invaluable and should be cherished. Embracing deliberate and continuous learning from these past experiences not only helps you evolve as a leader but also provides a foundation for guiding and inspiring your team. By embedding these lessons into new experiences and opportunities for your team, you create a culture of growth, innovation, and shared learning. This connection to your roots not only strengthens your leadership but also helps ensure that the team remains engaged, inspired, and aligned with the goals of both the business and its customers.