Making SEAMless Sales – How Sales & Presales Can Work Together Seamlessly

The need for a shift

In recent years, there has been a significant shift in buyer behaviors within the Business to Business (B2B) sales landscape. Numerous books emphasize the importance of aligning sales strategies with the buyer’s journey, with a focus on making the buying process seamless and buyer-centric. Garen Hess’ ‘Selling is Hard, Buying is Harder’ underscores this need for a buyer-focused approach in modern sales practices (2020).

The key takeaway is that for businesses to succeed, clients must be willing to invest in and utilize the solutions offered. While guiding buyers through their journey is crucial, revenue generation in the new ‘consumption economy’ often extends beyond the initial sale. Qualification, discovery, demos, and closing the deal are foundational steps, but true success lies in ensuring client success throughout their journey.

Despite recognizing the need for change, many sales and presales professionals struggle to adapt due to outdated organizational structures and lack of support. The traditional division of labor between sales and presales further complicates this shift towards client success. To address these challenges, we must transform our sales ecosystem to prioritize client success while streamlining sales and presales interactions.

This book offers practical guidance for sales and presales professionals at all experience levels, providing actionable steps to bridge existing gaps and prepare for the evolving buyer-centric landscape. ‘Making SEAMless Sales®’ introduces a framework and mindset to enhance collaboration between sales and presales teams, empowering organizations to embrace necessary tactical and strategic changes. By equipping sales teams with the right mindset and tools, we can drive client success and thrive in the evolving B2B sales environment.

With the permission of John Care (Mastering Technical Sales), Peter Cohan (Great Demo! and Doing Discovery), and Steve Bistritz (Sales Opportunity Snapshot and Selling to the C-Suite), I have curated the most relevant interrelated elements of each methodology and combined them with my additional offerings and experience.  If you have participated in any of these workshops, you’ll benefit from learning the key aspects of the others.  If you haven’t attended any of the workshops, you’ll get to experience the best of each.  If you are in sales, you will learn more about the presales role, and if you are in presales, you will learn more about the sales role.  Everyone in a customer-facing role will benefit.  The goal is to help everyone work together better – Making SEAMless Sales®.