🦔">My unvarnished guide to solution engineering • Max Halford<br>Table of contents<br>Introduction<br>I joined Carbonfact as a first employee. In a nutshell, it’s software that takes in raw ERP and PLM data, and spits out environmental reports. I got pulled into many Sales processes and customer onboardings, in addition to building the software. As the company grew, so did my expertise, which made me relevant for selling to and managing big logos. We signed a lot of well-known brands in the fashion industry.<br>Nowadays I feel more or less comfortable interacting with customers. But I was awful at first. I know because one of the cofounders gave me harsh feedback after a call with our first serious customer. I still remember slamming the lid of my computer when we debriefed. What I perceived as harsh feedback at the time turned out to help me grow quickly.<br>I used to be a regular data scientist assigned to internal projects. Talking to prospects and customers got me out of my comfort zone. You owe them a service, and they expect you to deliver something. If something goes wrong they’ll go above your head to your founders, at which point you start feeling the heat. It can be quite harsh. But it can also be rewarding when things go well.<br>Every project is different, but there are tricks of the trade to pick up. I really like Jim Donovan’s Secrets to Optimal Client Service lecture. He gives out 11 pieces of advice:<br>1. Never use jargon.<br>2. Pause - slow yourself down.<br>3. Look for opportunities to give the client advice that is not in your interest.<br>4. Ask open ended questions.<br>5. Be positive.<br>6. Be careful about mixing business with socializing.<br>7. Be humble.<br>8. Be available - be responsive.<br>9. Take a position - tell the client what to do.<br>10. Control the meeting.<br>11. Have an agenda, get the client to buy into it, and take notes.<br>I think this is an excellent starting point. Each piece of advice resonates with my experience. But Jim Donovan is a bigwig at Goldman Sachs, and I’m just a solution engineer at a small climate startup. I therefore wanted to write down my own advice, based on the battle scars I earned.<br>There are three phases which I got to experience:<br>Presales — the customer is still a prospect. The goal is to get their signature. They are deeply in need of reassurance.<br>Pilots — the customer likes you, but they want you to prove you can walk the talk. They give themselves the right to leave with no strings attached.<br>Onboardings — the customer has picked you, but you need to onboard them into your solution for them to be fully reassured.<br>The goals at each phase are not the same. Also, the relationship you nurture with the customer changes when a contract is signed – contracts will do that. Your attitude should also vary according to the level of trust going your way. Therefore, each phase has to be treated differently, and adaptability is key.<br>Presales
I didn’t get any bonus when we signed a contract, so my livelihood didn’t change whether or not we gained a new customer. That took a lot of the stress away from meeting prospects. But it didn’t make me less motivated: I genuinely enjoyed partnering with the Sales team, and convincing prospects we were the right solution for them. I found it rewarding when we turned them into customers.<br>Regardless, presales is to me the least stressful phase. To make an analogy with relationships, it’s like flirting. Everyone is on their best behavior and the conversation is very polite. This is because nobody owes each other anything – yet. And even if the prospect ends up picking a different solution, there’s always the option of them coming back to you down the road.<br>Presales is all about value perception and building trust. The people in front of you are desperate to pick the right solution. Picking the wrong one could cost them their job. Signing with you is a big deal to them. Having empathy for that goes a long way.<br>Understand who’s who
You’ll normally partner with a member of your Sales team. This teammate is in charge of figuring out the lay of the land, by mapping the prospect’s organization chart, and identifying the decision makers. If they’re part of an organized team they’ll follow a framework like MEDDIC. You don’t need to concern yourself with this. Your focus should be on convincing the people your Sales buddy succeeds in putting in front of you.<br>Your Sales buddy’s incentive is financial. They want to sign the deal, almost at any cost. They appreciate having you with them, because you know more about the product than they do. But they are worried you don’t have Sales instincts, and can screw the deal by being too honest.<br>What you should avoid is having your Sales buddy make an impossible promise. Promising something that doesn’t exist yet but will/could happen is different from promising something that you know will never happen in the years to come. The latter...