Acquiring pre-sales skills

Pre-sales is a critical phase for complex technology procurement, whereby the customer collects detailed information to make a buying decision. In the customer organization, a solutions architect is involved in the pre-sales cycle to validate technology and infrastructure resources from various vendors. In the vendor organization, the solutions architect needs to respond to customers’ requests for proposals (RFPs) and present a potential solution to acquire new business for an organization. Achieving this requires a specific skill set.

Key skills

Pre-sales requires a unique skill set that combines strong technical knowledge with soft skills, including the following:

• Communication and negotiation skills: Solutions architects need excellent communication skills to engage customers with the correct and latest details. Presenting precise details of the solution and industry relevance helps customers understand how your solution can address their business concerns. Solutions architects work as a bridge between the sales and technical teams, which makes communication and coordination a critical skill. Solutions architects must also create agreements by collaborating with customers and internal teams, which requires excellent negotiation skills. In particular, strategic-level decisions have a significant impact across multiple groups. Solutions architects need to negotiate between the teams, work on trade-offs, and develop an optimized solution.
• Listening and problem-solving skills: Solutions architects need strong analytical skills to identify the right solution per customer need. It’s important solutions architects listen to and understand customer use cases by asking the right questions to create a good solution. Solutions architects need to understand gaps and develop a solution for immediate business impact with long-term return on investment (ROI). Performance is more important for some customers, while others may be more focused on cost based on their application’s user base. The solutions architect must provide the right solution per their customer’s primary key performance indicator (KPI) goal.
• Customer-facing skills: The solutions architect often needs to work with both the internal and external customer teams. They influence stakeholders at all levels, from C-level executives to development engineers. They present solutions and demos to senior management, who look at your proposal from a business perspective. C-level executive support and commitment to initiatives always result in the success of the adopted solution, which makes customer-facing skills very important. The C-level executive needs details of the solution in a defined time-bound meeting, and the solutions architect needs to utilize the allotted time to their best advantage. You will learn more about the executive conversation in the next section of this chapter—Presenting to C-level executives.
• Working with teams: The solutions architect establishes a relationship with the business and product teams. To prepare an optimal application, the solutions architect must work with the business and technical teams at all levels. The solutions architect needs to be a good team player, share ideas, and find a way to work across teams.

The skills mentioned above are required for pre-sales and applicable to the solutions architect’s day-to-day job functions. Solutions architects come from a technical background, and, being in such a role, they need to acquire critical skills to communicate at an executive level. Let’s learn more about executive conversations in the next section.

Presenting to C-level executives

A solutions architect needs to handle various challenges from a technical and business perspective. One of the most challenging tasks can be getting executive buy-in.

Senior executives such as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Heads of Line of Business (LoBs), and Chief Information Officer (CIO) are regarded as C-level as they have a tight schedule and need to make lots of high-impact decisions.

As a solutions architect, you may have many details to present, but your C-level meetings are time-bound. A solutions architect needs to get the maximum value from their meeting in the allotted time slot. The primary question is: How do we get senior executives’ attention and support in a limited time?

Start by explaining your agenda and planned meeting structure. Executives ask lots of questions to utilize their time properly, and your agenda should convey that they will get the chance to ask clarification questions. Following that, the key to an executive presentation is summarizing the primary points in the first 5 minutes. You should prepare so that if your 30-minute slot is reduced to 5 minutes, you should still be able to convey your points and get buy-in for the next step.

Support your summary with facts and data that align with their industry and organization. Keep the details with you in case they want to dive deep into a particular area; you should be able to pull up and show all the relevant data.

Don’t present everything in detail by stating information that may seem relevant from your perspective but doesn’t make much sense for an executive audience. For example, as a solutions architect, you may focus more on the benefits of the technical implementation. However, senior management focuses more on ROI by reducing operational overhead and increasing productivity.

Tailor your demo or presentation to resonate with the customer’s field and domain terminologies. Incorporating terms and concepts familiar to them not only fosters trust but also affirms that you have tailored your technical solution to address their unique industry challenges effectively.

You should be ready to answer the following questions that concern executives:

• How will the proposed solution benefit our customers? Business revolves around the customer. Executives look at their company’s growth, which is only possible if their customers are satisfied. Make sure to do your research on their customer base and their needs. Be ready to present benefits backed by reliable data.
• What assumption did you make to baseline the solution? Often, these meetings are at the initial phase when you need more details. Solutions architects always need to make some assumptions to baseline the solution. List down your hypothesis in bullet points, and have a mitigation plan if things don’t work as per your assumptions.
• What will be my ROI? Executives are always looking for ROI by determining the total cost of ownership (TCO). Be ready with data to provide an estimated cost of ownership, solution maintenance costs, training costs, overall cost savings, and so on.
• What happens if we continue as it is today and do nothing? Senior management may go into extreme vetting mode to identify ROI. They want to understand if the investment is worth it. It would be best if you are ready with your market research—for example, technology trends, customer trends, and the competitive situation.
• What will our competitor’s reaction be regarding your solution? Competition is everywhere, and often, the executive worries about it. They want to understand if your solution is innovative to beat the competition and give their organization the edge. It’s better to do some upfront research and add competitive data relating to their industry and customer base.
• What is your suggestion, and how can I help? You should always have a crisp list of action items as the next step while providing your suggestions. You need to get buy-in from executives and make them feel involved by asking for help. For example, you can ask the CIO to connect you with the engineering or product teams to take an overall solution to the next step.

Let’s next look at the leadership skills a solutions architect should have as a technical leader for the organization.