OAKLAND, Calif., Aug. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vivun and PreSales Collective have joined forces to rethink the future of the PreSales profession, inviting the community to standardize around the term “Solutions Consultants” rather than “PreSales,” and offering a new strategic place for the role inside modern B2B organizations.
Companies can’t hire PreSales fast enough, a rapid growth that can be attributed to the increasing hands-on nature of sales, and the ability for PreSales to help buyers address use cases, identify value propositions, and accurately answer questions about product capabilities. But titles for the group are all over the board: variations in “PreSales” titles number in the hundreds – solutions architect, sales engineering, and of course variations on “PreSales” itself.
To better understand, benchmark, brand, and build a community for the profession, the job title needs to be standardized and its role needs to be reimagined. Therefore, Vivun and PreSales Collective have co-authored a manifesto that offers a potential way forward.
New Title: Solutions Consultant. The very title “PreSales” implies that the profession only touches the customer journey prior to the sale. That may have been true in the 70s and 80s, when “PreSales” people were wheeled in to demonstrate mainframes to prospective customers, but it’s not true in 2022. When Vivun and PreSales Collective examined the multitude of titles that exist in LinkedIn, it became apparent that “Solutions” is at the heart of most of those titles. Standardizing around the title “Solutions” moves away from the idea that these job titles represent demo assistants and rather embodies the ability to champion the buyer’s journey with expert knowledge and authentic human connection.
“We’re excited about offering the ‘Solutions Consultant’ title as a potential way to standardize the way people refer to the members of our community,” said James Kaikis, Co-Founder of PreSales Collective. “It’s impossible to create fair equity benchmarks or even recruit for this role when titles are so all over the map. And although the ‘Sales Engineering’ title has its place in very technical groups, we also find that title to be a barrier to entry for new members of the profession, especially minorities and women, so we believe the title Solutions Consultant to be more fair for everyone.”
New Department: the Solutions Organization. The current org structure of modern B2B tech companies is a traditional one that reflects the B2B selling of the past and fails to represent the changes that have occurred in recent years. Instead, the manifesto proposes the addition and creation of the Solutions Organization, otherwise known as the Solutions Org, as this name better represents the role of PreSales and where it’s headed. Each person under the Solutions Org is a product expert who interfaces with the customer at some point in their journey. So, in addition to the actual “before the sale” team members, this group would also contain professional services, business value consultants, and the team members supporting the customer. This last point means the currently standalone Customer Success team would be transferred to the Solutions Consultants role, at least those who aren’t simply pure-play managers and who are experts in the product; Customer Success as we know it would be absorbed by Solutions.
“Our profession has always been at the heart of a company’s strategy, touching nearly every other department in the organization. Creating the Solutions Org recognizes that strategic importance and enables our profession to truly take advantage of our impact across the entire selling cycle, from initial interest to purchase to renewal and expansion,” said Matt Darrow, Vivun co-founder & CEO. “We’re renaming our own ‘PreSales’ group internally at Vivun, and our leader will now be the VP of Solutions. We’re excited to set an example and lead the way with regards to these important changes.”
New C-Suite Role: The Chief Solutions Officer. For companies surpassing 100M+ ARR, a new executive leadership role called the Chief Solutions Officer (CSO) should be created to oversee the entire Solutions Org. This role will be accountable for revenue and how to get it faster and more efficiently, and will be maniacally focused on the buyer experience. From a reporting standpoint, with the CSO in place as a direct report to the CEO, the Solutions Org moves away from the purview of CRO – because while CROs are great at understanding the sale, they’re typically not product experts or even highly technical.
The full manifesto is entitled The Future of PreSales: Reimagining the Profession. It contains a wealth of additional insights. Read the Full Manifesto Here.
About Vivun
Vivun is a global provider of Buyer Experience (BX) software. Its AI-powered platform supports a family of products that enables B2B businesses to meet the demands of today's sales-proof buyer, differentiate from the competition, and accelerate revenue. With the Solutions organization at the forefront of the buyer experience, companies can align Sales with Product, provide repeatable workflows for the team, deliver on-demand product expertise, and win more deals with transparency and trust. Leaders at Okta, Autodesk, Dell, Snowflake, Elastic, Fivetran, and Harness are powering incredible buyer experiences with Vivun. To learn more visit www.vivun.com
About PreSales Collective
PreSales Collective is a global community of over 25,000 PreSales professionals brought together to help one another grow and learn. We aim to elevate the PreSales profession by setting the standard of excellence, ensuring PreSales is recognized as an essential contributor to organizational growth, and supporting all PreSales professionals who are charting this course. PSC is designed to empower the PreSales community with the resources, relationships, and opportunities they need to become the best versions of themselves - inside and outside of work. For more information visit www.presalescollective.com
Media Contact
Greg Howard
VP Marketing, Vivun
T – 510-289-8533
greg.howard@vivun.com
