Hi everyone,
If you're new to this community introduce yourself so we can get to know you. I'll start.
I currently lead the Solutions Consulting team at Outreach based out of Seattle, WA.
I joined the PreSales Collective to learn from, and network with, other PreSales professionals. Since I'm working on scaling my team at Outreach I'm looking for new and innovative ways to improve our performance through improving our demo frameworks and our disco/scoping workshop and POC/Pilot processes. I'm looking forward to learning from all of the experienced SEs in this community!
I hope to meet you all (virtually or in-person) soon!
Hi Yuji! It's a pleasure to meet you! My name is Larson Stair and I am the CEO of a demo enablement solution called Demoflow based out of Denver, CO. We help pre-sales organizations create standard, scalable processes around how they present their own software, ultimately helping to scale presale excellence to the rest of the org. I found out about the PreSales Collective via James and Chris White last week. After learning more about what James is trying to build I knew I wanted to be involved in the community. It seems like a great place to learn about presales best practices and other processes that have been put in place for high functioning teams. Excited to be apart of this!
Hi Everyone,
I'm a Stonehenge Archaeology Guide who also happens to have 30 years Technology PreSales experience starting out delivering complex, enterprise demos at small resellers and partners to 8 years running EMEA PreSales enablement at SAP and Oracle to now running a company completely focused on training and coaching PreSales skills, best practices and techniques and advising PreSales leaders on strategy, organisation, operations and tools
Two thumbs up to Yuji and James for getting this off the ground. Our profession has sorely needed a global community, collaboration and support tool like this. LinkedIn PreSales groups have been popular but just haven't had the content, curation, dedication, engagement and interaction needed to ensure we all get value from every single visit.
I'm a mind reader, even before Yuji and James setup the first call on this I told them 'you're going to build a global PreSales community tool aren't you?'.
Really excited to join this community and together learn from each other, explore best practices and develop our craft and profession to the same kudos as Sales.
Love the video @Don Carmichael! Check out Don's articles on the blog when you have a moment.
Stonehenge Archaeology Guide - WOW! I did not know!
@Greg Holmes I was very close to having a career as an archaeologist but, even as a teenager, realised that there are many more and better paid jobs in technology. Having said that, prehistoric archaeology has been a passion all my life and I was very lucky to get the chance to train and then qualify as one of the very few Stonehenge Landscape guides for the National Trust (who own the 2000 acres around Stonehenge). I run a series of longer ( ~3 hour) walks around the major archaeology features of the Stonehenge landscape.
Hi everyone!
I am a Senior Manager within Trintech's Finance Transformation (PreSales) team. I began my career implementing and then doing PreSales at an SAP SI/reseller, always with a focus on solutions for Finance. Along the way, I became a Chartered Management Accountant and now specialise in selling accounting-related SaaS solutions to large enterprise organisations.
A big part of my role today is finding new ways of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of PreSales within my company. I am passionate about learning and continuous improvement. What better way to learn than from our peers? For that reason, I am excited to see what the PreSales Collective can bring and to learn from others in the same profession from around the world.
Nice to meet you Thomas. I just read an article about Trintech partnering with Workiva to help centralize data and streamline the financial close process. That seems like a great partnership!
Hi Everyone! I'm Hannah Bloking, and I have been in the wonderful world of Sales Engineering for the better part of a decade, now.
I have had the fortunate opportunity to work in the role at a variety of companies, ranging from small start-up to large enterprise. My background is in customer experience applications, and have expertise in the CRM industry. I am passionate about consistently delivering the best customer experience possible, to both my customers and my sales counterparts.
I have enjoyed progressively getting involved in the most complex and strategic opportunities at the companies I have worked for, as well as developing an increasingly more influential relationship within my Sales Leadership teams.
My passion for the role and spreading awareness about careers in pre-sales led me to collaborate with @Yuji Higashi (Outreach) and Gary Newe (F5) to co-found the Emerald City Sales Engineers, a Seattle-based networking group.
One thing led to another, and I've been fortunate enough to start to connect more and more with the global pre-sales community and meet a lot of you - and I'm looking forward to meeting many more!
Hi Hannah! Haven't had the the opportunity to meet formally, but I joined Sugar after you left. Say hi to Trevor! Hope you and the fam are doing well.
@Daniel Leeman great to see you here! Trevor says, “hello!” :-)
Hey SEs!
I'd like to thank everyone for introducing themselves and getting involved in The Collective. It is so great to see people come together around our profession.
On that, I am James Kaikis and am currently a SE leader at #Salesforce. Prior to my experience at Salesforce, I was the first SE at #Showpad and built the SE organization out over 4 years. Life in the startups was really great because I learned what to do and what not to do time and time again. Fail fast and fail often they say? :)
After 15 years on the West Coast and 5 years in San Francisco, I'm currently located in Chicago and have founded the Chicago Pre-Sales Community, a local group aimed at growing the profession of PreSales in our growing tech hub.
I'm extremely passionate about helping people grow and develop and bringing like minded people together. Learning from all of you and your experiences are what I am most looking forward to!
Welcome to #TheCollective!
Hello fellow SEs and presales leaders. Joined Optimizely almost 6 years ago as the first dedicated SE for the European region (based out of Amsterdam). Currently, leading a team of SEs at Optimizely across multiple offices in EMEA as the Director of Solutions Engineering. I have had the pleasure of being able to work with excellent SEs, Sales and SE leaders in the field throughout my tenure. My goal is to create and retain an empowered and accountable team. Building a remote (HQ is in SF) organization from scratch has been a lot of fun and provided big learnings. Happy to support folks who are just starting out, or others.
Hey everyone! Awesome to see a community forming! I've been following several of you on LinkedIn for awhile, and I'm excited to see an online community sprouting (I can't say there are tons of us in Fargo, North Dakota). I've been involved with CRM solutions for seven years. As many of us do, I come from a varied background in teaching/sales/professional services/software dev/product management. I've been working as an architect at SugarCRM and previously was selling Microsoft Dynamics. Looking forward to great discussions and the advancement of our craft!
Hello everyone! My name is Danya Elvins and I am a recently promoted Solutions Consultant at the Seattle-based startup, Suplari! At Suplari we help organizations, particularly procurement teams, gain visibility over their spend data. I started with the company as a Customer Success Manager and soon found an interest in working with our sales team and helping on product demos. After just eight short months, I was asked to make the transition and join the PreSales world of Solutions Consulting. I am new to this field but so far loving it!! I would love to network and meet experienced professionals like yourselves and continue to learn about this exciting career.
Cheers!
Hi folks,
Currently a Sales Engineer/Solutions Engineer for D2L, an edtech company in the LMS space, bridging both Higher Education and Corporate Learning.
Mostly looking to connect with other presales folks - I've had some great mentors thus far but they've mostly been through relationships at my current company, so looking to get some different perspectives and best practices.
And a quick thanks to those responsible for putting this thing together - looking forward to learning.
Hi all, I started typing up an introduction and then saw that I could upload a video, and thought why wouldn't I just say hello that way. So here you go. Delighted to be a part of this community and excited to engage!
All the best, Chris...
Nice one Chris - I did the same on my profile, but not as detailed as yours (but does have music!)
Just watched yours Mark. Well done. I'm now inspired. To be continued...
Nice video Chris! Looking forward to April 7th.
@Mark Green love your profile and intro video. Setting the bar high!
Hi all, great to meet you.
I'd been following Yuji on LinkedIn and saw his announcement about this community, so I had to join!
I'm Michael, currently a Solutions Engineer with CircleCI. I'm a little newer to presales having joined only a year ago. Looking forward to learning from the many experienced professionals and leaders here!
Welcome Michael!
Hi Folks,
Excited to be a part of this community and glad to see community being used as the forum for collaboration! A little about myself; I'm currently at Khoros (previously Spredfast+Lithium) and have over 8 years of experience as a sales engineer, working in the community/digital workplace, energy, and transportation sectors.
Looking forward to learning and collaborating with you all.
Hi All!
Looking forward to learning from each of you and sharing ideas on how we can continue to improve and perfect the PreSales craft.
I lead the Solutions Engineering organization at Conga based out of Broomfield, CO and met Yuji on LinkedIn. I'm passionate about growing and developing teams and speaking to others about how they can motivate their teams.
Hey folks,
I am the head of our global sales engineering team here at Mixpanel. I've been at Mixpanel 5+ years since the infancy of our SE organization. Being a part of this community is very new to me! I look forward to learning about the challenges that leaders face in retaining and upleveling talent, as well as best practices for honing our collective craft.
✌🏽
Hi Everyone!
I am a Senior Solutions Engineer at Salesforce. I'm actually new to Salesforce, only been here 2 months but I've been a Solutions Engineer for the last seven years of my career. I am located in Chicago and so excited to see the group growing quickly all thanks to @jameskaikis and team for that!
I am super excited to connect with more pre-sales folks so I can continue to learn and grow. What we do is hard and learning from each other is so vital to our continued growth and really the growth of the role itself!
Looking forward to getting to know everyone!
Ben
Hello!
I am a Solutions Engineer at Salesforce. I have been in the Salesforce ecosystem for 3 years now but have only been in the solution engineering realm for 1. I am located in Indianapolis, IN and happy to join this great group!
Hi everyone! I'm the VP of Solution Consulting at Mavenlink, having been an SC leader in many other companies and an individual contributor SC for many years before then. I'm hugely passionate about our craft and value in the sales process and I'm really looking forward to connecting with you all here and on Linkedin. Big shout out to Yuji, James and the team who put this community together. Matt Finch