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Max Lüpertz, Business Owner at Presales Rockstars · Pre-Sales Pathways

• Chris: Hello and welcome to Presales Pathways, the podcast that showcases highly successful pre-sales professionals and the different career paths that they've taken. I'm your host, Chris Clark, and on today's episode, I'm joined by Max Lupert, business owner and demo coach at Presales Rockstars. Now in pre-sales we sit at the intersection of the two most important aspects of any business, product and sales. And in theory, you would think that means we have the perfect set of skills to launch our own businesses. And yet it's a leap that relatively few people actually make. But Max is one of them. For years he's been coaching SEs on how to improve their demo skills through workshops, courses, and tools. If you're someone who's been interested in launching your own business or perhaps just building a brand that gives you the option to do so in the future, you'll definitely want to hear Max's story. So let's get into it. Hey Max, good to see you. Thanks for coming on the show. Max: Hi Chris, thank you. Thanks for having me. Chris: So Max, as I understand it, you know, most people that come on this show started outside of pre sales and then found their way into pre sales. But am I right in understanding that your first role was actually in pre sales? Max: yeah, that's correct. it wasn't intentional. to maybe share a little bit of background information. I do have a master's degree in entrepreneurship and innovation management. So confession to make, I'm actually not an engineer. I don't know how about you. So I'm I'm a business guy. and when I was graduating from university, I was either looking for a job in innovation management, in consulting or in sales, because I got some good feedback during Chris: Okay. Nope, beyond that. Max: During my studies and running some entrepreneur workshop that apparently have a talent for sales. so innovation management, sales consulting it was. And at one point in time I found a random job at a random job board, which was called pre-sales consultant innovation management, which kind of ticked all my boxes. and and I applied. It was actually the the only CV I ever sent, the only application, the proper one I ever sent in my life. And this is how it all started in Chris: Okay. Max: pre-sales. I really didn't know what I was getting myself into, but that that was the starting point. Okay. do you know how the first tool customer? Yes. I think if you if you look at it, it it was pretty much a stereotypical pre-sales role where you were considered the product expert and you were always brought in on an ad hoc or more transactional basis, like hey Max, we have got this demo meeting coming up tomorrow, and and occasionally there is an RFP. Chris: Okay. And so you started your first role, talk us through what what what was it like? Max: So I was always brought in a little late, did did my thing and then disappeared. and yeah, this this is what I did for about one year, which well it it it was cool because I got to know a lot of different businesses and industries and and to to better understand their business, to prep for my demos and and the RFPs. So this is what I really enjoyed with an agnostic tool. but at one point in time I felt a little frustrated because this lack of ownership and responsibility and even accountability was was not what I was after. Chris: Okay. So so you did the pre sales role for a year, slightly frustrated by that lack of ownership and accountability. So what came next? Max: Exactly. So I did it for about a year. and I always felt like, you know, the things that my salespeople are doing. I I think I I c I can do it myself, maybe even better. and about after a year, one of our senior salespeople left and and I volunteered to take their place. and this is how I became an accounting executive. however, most of my own pre sales work I was I was doing. myself because I knew the product, I could do the demos, and I've I felt actually quite comfortable in this situation. like being being the one man army doing doing all of that kind of stuff. yeah. I I thought being an accounting executive was easy. it it's not that easy it's it's it's different from from being a pre sales consultant or solution consultant. This is how we got named after about a few weeks. Chris: Yeah. I actually wrote a post about this recently because I find more and more people are considering or even making that transition now from pre-sales into sales. as you said, I think a lot of people's starting point there is, well, I'm already doing a lot of this stuff, right? They see the AE or the sales rep in their meetings, they think, I'm actually running a lot of this meeting, why don't I just do the full thing? Curious to know what what what what did it feel like actually making that transition and were there aspects of that role that were very new or maybe you hadn't appreciated whilst you were in pre sales? Max: Yeah. I didn't know how tough it could be in in sales because well when when when I when I joined the sales team, I got a couple of opportunities from all my colleagues. But of course they they didn't give me the very best and most valuable opportunities. at one point I was I was in charge of Asia Pacific working odd hours Sunday nights because nobody else wanted to work on in that area. and the first couple of Chris: Mm-hmm. Max: weeks or months had been really tough because you have to build your timeline and and people will be checking in on you every single time during a pipeline call and then you have to talk them through your deals. And if there is no pipeline, this can be quite frustrating. And and then even if you're trying your very best and you're writing a hundred of an emails a day, you're trying to call people, there were just many days where I'd been working for eight, nine, ten hours and I made zero progress. And this requires some resilience at times because it it it can get tough and frustrating. You always have to get back up again. And and this was a part I didn't really see as as a pre-sales consultant because again, you were always brought only brought in when there was a deal on the table already. But getting to the point of having a customer talk to you, potentially even commit to a demo, that takes time and a lot of convincing, just just to get the meeting in place. Chris: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's funny, in in pre sales sometimes we look at the deals that the reps bring to us and think, wow, this isn't qualified but you don't really appreciate the hundreds or even thousands of other people that the rep has spoken to that didn't even respond, right? So there's Max: I exactly. I I was always complaining about demos that weren't properly qualified, but eventually I ended up in a situation myself where I was prospecting with one customer for eighteen months and I finally got somebody on the phone who agreed to do a demo. But I had zero insights. But still like I said, I I I I called these people a hundred times, I wrote two hundred emails. We we gotta do that demo even if we don't have information. So suddenly I I I was b well, I did it my own then later. I did the demo myself, but I I was in the very same situation and sometimes Chris: Mm-hmm. Max: It is what it is. You can't like force them to go through your process every single time if they only wanna see a demo. Well you gotta do Chris: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Cool. So so you do pre sales and then you move into the to the sales role, some of which is familiar but a lot of that is is new. So then what what comes next? Max: so at one point in time, after I was working with Asia Pacific a lot, all remotely of course, I never even made it a closed significant business in Australia, but I've never been there, unfortunately. at one point I was working the UK market and I was traveling to London once or twice a week. and at one point decided next next career move for me would be to maybe become the local UK representative and establish our UK office. And luckily, again, because I was by that point in time capable of both the the pre-sales role and the the sales role, my pitch pretty much was like, hey, you only need me on the ground. I I can I can cover both parts and let's see how it goes. And then for about two and a half years I lived in and around London like tripling or even quadrupling our UK sales figures. And this was another Super exciting, great time. I love the city. it's been so inspirational to me just walking around London, meeting all these local people in their offices rather than remotely. that that was quite interesting for two and a half, three years until Brexit happened. and then unfortunately I I had to move back home. Chris: Okay, got it. But you now run your own business and we'll get to that i in a moment, but you were sort of I guess in a way establishing your own business within another company beforehand then. Did did doing that role setting up the UK prepare you well for running your own business or was it quite different? Max: Yeah. it was quite different still. yeah, you're absolutely right. I felt a little bit like an intrapreneur, being like I was allowed to do different things in the UK and it was quite successful. I was making good money. but I always wanted to do my own thing. And again with with Brexit and then later COVID, there there was just like one opportunity for me to to really start my own business adventure. so yeah, you you learn sales is probably one of the most required or Chris: Mm-hmm. Max: the most essential skills when running your own business. So of course being an account executive and and being a foreigner in a foreign country helps build that skill. that was probably the best learning for me. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. And so you talked about Brexit as well as the pandemic potentially being instigators for you actually starting your own business. I know when we had had a discussion before, you talked about the importance of building a network before starting your own business. Maybe that's something that people don't appreciate. But I would I would love to hear how did you get started with building that network? At like at what point did you start doing that work? Max: Yes. So at one point in time, especially when when I was in the UK, I was becoming more successful than our other local country managers, despite they had like a team of four or five people and I was on my own for most of my time. I was I was trying to figure out what it was that I was doing differently. And apparently one thing was about my demos or having a rigorous process in place. and I just started to share my observations on LinkedIn as as a as a process for me to to reflect to to think and reflect on my own what I was doing and most of them what I what I was doing wrong and what I learned from this. So I just went out and and started sharing mostly my fuck ups on LinkedIn to be fair. again as as a way to to help me process all that kind of information but also give something back to to the SE community because I never had demo training. I learned everything the hard way. and I wanted to to avoid or help others avoid these mistakes. and again, I I I did study entrepreneurship. So I was always looking into running my own business. I was looking actually into building an aud demo automation platform. But I always thought like before you build a product, maybe it's worth having a network or a community, a target audience of people you could reach out to. So LinkedIn helped me to reflect on my learnings, but also build start building that network for whatever I wanted to do with it. Plus Chris: Mm-hmm. Max: Doing some demo training here and there was my starting gig because it didn't require much of of an investment. Chris: Yeah. Okay, cool. So so you started to build this network, the pandemic sort of forced your hand, everything comes together and then you decide to to launch your own business. So talk us through that. What what exactly is it that your business is all about? Max: So you don't want to be able to make that work. Yeah. So my business is called PreSales Rockstars. not proud of that name anymore, but it was a cool thing to to call your business whatever Rockstars. and my main purpose really is to help other solution engineers, pre-sales people, sellers to do better demos again to to tell them about my fuck ups, help them raise awareness for what's going right and wrong. and ultimately of course Have them help them close more deals and have more engaging, more meaningful customer conversations. That's that's what it's all about. Like processes, skills, all that kind of stuff. and doing this in various ways with workshops, with products, etc. But maybe it's just one interesting fact because you mentioned the pan the pandemic, which unfortunately was bad for many people, but for me it was an opportunity, because in Germany, You could go on voluntary garden leave. So I didn't have to work anymore for about nine months, but I was still getting sixty percent of my base salary, which gave me the opportunity to just focus on building that network, trying out different things while having that safety net, which was quite nice to be fair. Chris: Yeah, amazing. It sounds like everything really came together at that point with the with the pandemic, the fact that you've been building your network. You you already mentioned that the business is a sort of mix of services and also product, but talk us through that in a in a bit more detail. So you mentioned workshops, is that where you started? What was the thinking behind starting with services and how are you starting to introduce product now? Max: Yeah. It's a little bit of a journey and an evolution. So initially I w I was well, most of the money I'm making today, I've started about two, two and a half years ago, is from doing in-person workshops. which which is good money. I have to say, first year running my own business, I made more money than I made as a success successful account executive. But you have to realize it's it's a trade-off between Chris: Okay. Max: Time and money. So at one point in time you really have to understand, okay, can can I do more workshops? Can I travel to the US again, to India or other places? is it worth taking on another customer to to get another 10, 20k? Most of the time it was. But this was going very well. But I realized at one point, if you wanna be really flexible and and and not just work 24-7, because this is the maximum you could potentially work, you also have to introduce a couple of products or services which are a bit more replicable. And this is when I got into the business of productizing my offerings. So on top of the workshops, what you can get, for example, is demo feedback as a service, because I know that as a solution engineering team lead, you would love to watch all your team's demos and discovery calls, but it's just I can tell you, I'm I'm I'm watching a lot of demos. It's it's very time consuming to watch it, to watch a demo recording. Even at two times speed, then to provide meaningful feedback, walk people through this. And if you have a team of 10, 20 people, it's impossible. So I'm offering demo feedback as a service where people now can send me the demo transcript and then they will get a very detailed report on how they were doing. I do have a coaching platform now where I've got video courses that people can go through on their own, teaching them very practical, actionable hands-on skills, which I can also use with my existing workshop customers. So Essentially trying to build an ecosystem of different things in person, coaching and training and workshops, but also on demand services, ongoing offerings, all these kind of things. Which which is something I'm learning as I'm going. I mean I studied entrepreneurship, but all the theory is pretty much useless in all fairness. Chris: Okay, well I was gonna ask about your sort of likes and dislikes of running your own business, but I'm c I'm curious actually to whilst we're on that topic, go into the productising in a bit more detail. Like is that something that i i is that you've mostly done it to scale your revenue as you mentioned, or is it something that you're enjoying doing getting more into the product side? Max: It's actually something I enjoy a lot. So there are parts of running your own business that that I really enjoy. So I'd consider myself being a creative person. I always got new ideas. Now with vibe coding, there are endless opportunities to just kick out MVPs. we actually also built an automated demo feedback platform called a demo OS, demo operating system, that automatically pulls your transcripts, gives you f gives you feedback, tracks your habits, gives you meaningful advice before every new demo. and all this can be done via vibe coding. so building these products, pitching them to people, which which is if you got your network in place already, it's quite nice because I can I can message a hundred people and I know typically I get like 90 meetings booked because they already know me and and they appreciate the content I've been sharing. This is quite cool. At times even in a way that I've got too many ideas and I've I've prop potentially like 10 draft ebooks on my hard drive that I have never finished, but just the freedom and flexibility to do whatever I want is just great. Chris: So you you like the freedom and the flexibility, but you mentioned there are aspects of running a business that you're not so keen on. Share us a couple of examples there. Max: Yep. well I'm I I live in Germany and and German bureaucracy and admin is probably the biggest overhead ever. I don't know how it is for you in Scotland, but just getting my own like a limited in place on corporate, it's it's taking forever. you had I had to wait like six months for my VAT number, which is required to send invoices internationally. Chris: Mm-hmm. Max: All these kind of things and and so much paperwork that you gotta do, so much stuff that that I don't even know of exists that suddenly lands in your inbox. Like every time I'm getting one of these recycled letters in in in my in my mailbox, I'm like, my god, but what did I do again? What did I forget about? Again, I st I studied this. but this is this is a nightmare. This is really freaking me out. Opening my my my mailbox sometimes like, please not. so paperwork, tax work. all the reporting you have to do now on on a on a monthly basis. It's it's so much work that doesn't add like it's taking away my time that that I would have need to use to make money. potentially one point two to hire and employ people. Like it it's taking up thirty, th forty percent of my time at times. And this is crazy. I don't know how you feel about it, if if it's the same in Scotland. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. I Yeah, I mean I in terms of setting up a business, I can't say it's been as painful. I've I've actually found it okay. we my wife is German and we have a son and we actually applied to get him a German passport and that was just a very brief experience of of German bureaucracy, but was enough to make me believe that it would be pretty painful doing some of the things that you mentioned. Yeah, one thing I would say is like likewise I'm not particularly enthusiastic about Max: wow. Chris: you know, doing tax returns and that sort of thing. But I found generative AI super helpful there in that it really levels the playing field. Like I had a customer who was based in the US and I was looking into how I would do invoicing in internationally, like you mentioned. It's the sort of thing where probably I would have had to pay an accountant a fair bit of money. before just to ask a reasonably simple question, but actually being able to ask Gemini in in in that case and get a response immediately for free, or at least included as part of the license, was like pretty eye opening for me. Max: Yeah, I'm I'm using a lot of the LLMs. And I'm but nowadays I'm I'm cross checking across multiple of them because sometimes I got good advice, sometimes I got bad advice. So I've got my Claude, I my Gemini, I my ChatGPT. and now I I'm always consulting all three of them to see if if they agree and and when they do not agree, then I have to I I got my tax account and I got got lawyer friends that can help me. so it it is a big relief, definitely, but Chris: Mm-hmm. Max: I wouldn't trust them. Like I I've had also made experiences where they were giving me the complete like wrong advice. but but they insisted on no no, I'm a hundred and ten percent correct. You know how these things speak. But I knew they were off, but still pretend like, no, no, no, this is a hundred twenty percent legitimate and like, No, it's not. So y you you get cautious, but yeah, it's i it it can be tough at times. but yeah, you have to commit. it's it's part part of part of the game. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. And one other thing I'd like to make sure we touch on, you you mentioned around sort of building your your network previously, but that's something that maybe a lot of people wouldn't fully appreciate when setting up and running your own business is quite the amount of time that goes into to that and marketing more generally. I'm curious if there's anything you would share there. Max: it takes some time, but this probably building my network from from the get-go has been one of the best experiences and the most rewarding things in my life. Because even when I was getting started with five hundred or eight hundred people in my network, even then I was receiving good feedback. I was getting to know great people, some of them which became my mentors. and maybe it's the the the presets and solution engineering community, but those are people who are really nice, really supportive. I think we're generally saying b being bad at saying no to things. but it really has has been very rewarding and yeah it it it gradually takes time, but it's also a compounding effect. The bigger your network gets, the more visibility you get, your authority grows at the same time. you can reach out to more people, you're getting gigs going to like you're being invited to give keynotes at events, and and this is all coming organically from your growing network. And it wasn't Chris: Mm-hmm. Max: I'm I'm not really trying to sell stuff to people, I'm just trying to be helpful again, sharing my mistakes, trying to be relatable, trying to be very actionable with the advice that I share. And you don't have to overthink it. Initially I was overthinking my post so much, but once you get into that that rhythm and and and into the motion of hey, I could turn this into a post, I can turn that into post, suddenly everything turns into a LinkedIn post in my head and and becomes autopilot. But building that network really is is great and I always say your your network is your net worth and nobody could ever take this away from me. no matter where I go, what I do, the network will always be there. and it's just great to to lever leverage it whenever you can. Chris: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I I could definitely relate to that. I mean, I wasn't so proactive. I had a bit more of a standing start. When I started my own business, I was pretty much dormant on on LinkedIn. And similarly to you, when I first got started, I was spending ages thinking about what I would write about, what would resonate with the audience. But over time you get a bit more intuitive sense of what's likely to resonate. And you mentioned earlier on sometimes it's helpful just for your own thinking process, right? To write some of this stuff down. It's still a bit of an art and a science, you know, not all of it is it's it can be difficult to predict what's what's gonna work, but yeah, it's been an interesting journey. Max: Yeah, it it's really just yesterday I I did a really stupid post about my the battery in my mouse lasting for three and a half years, which got way more likes than a very meaningful post post I thought I put together. e even the mouse one got me a couple of followers. I don't know why. That doesn't relate to my business at all. but but one thing I have to say, Chris, because I was when when I decided to really start my own business, when when I went full in all in, I think I had about four four or five thousand people in my LinkedIn network. And your LinkedIn network is only one source. Like I I spend probably way too much time on LinkedIn, but but I joy it, enjoy it. I get the dopamine kick at times when people like my stuff. but I thought by by the time I learned I I made this launch post where I said like, hey, I'm starting my own business. You can you can come to me now and and and and book demo workshops. And I thought like now a hundred people will come to me and and snatch it out of my hands. Not not at all. So even if you have a good network, even now with fifteen thousand people, it's not like people will just sometimes they do come to you when you've built a relationship over a long time, but it's still a timing thing. So it's not the only solution to all the problems. You still have to do sales, you have to do outreach, you to continue doing this. And I see a lot of people who might have a bit more time thinking about let let's start my own solution engineering business. It's not that easy still. You have to you have to build your own brand, you have to establish certain authority and just because you have like a couple of thousand followers doesn't mean you can run your business on autopilot. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. We had talked a little bit earlier, t touched on how generative AI is being used. That's one of the reasons why I think a lot more people are interested in starting their own business is because of what generative AI is making making possible for them. I'm curious to to get your perspective on how generative AI is changing things, you know, and that could be in the context of you running your own business. Also, you know, you've got really interesting perspective working with so many pre-sales individuals and teams. Would love if you have a point of view on how you know, AI is changing pre sales more generally as well. Max: Yeah. yeah, I think a very strong perspective around how AI is going to change pre-sales. and and and if I would have a shot every time somebody in my LinkedIn feed is saying that AI will automate demos and RFPs, I'm probably drunk most of the day. anything yeah it it's it's certainly going to change the way we work, but I also think that the human factor is becoming even more important nowadays. So I think AI is leveling the playing field a lot. Chris: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Max: So when when I was still doing my own demos in innovation management, I always, when I was preparing the demo systems, I always spent quite a significant amount of time on customizing the demo system, putting content in place, the innovation content that would resemble and fit to my customers' industries. And when they were sitting in my demo saying, like, hey, this is actually a nice idea you came up with. Really interesting, we could write this down. I was always very proud. So back in the days, this was the extra mile that that I went to impress my customers. But this this is a commodity now with like AI. this maybe takes you 30 seconds now and then you have a pre-populated system with relevant content. This has changed now. So what you have to do is you have to build an even better relationship with your customer. And I still believe that people buy from people and people need somebody they can trust in. They need somebody they can hold accountable. And I think that's not gonna work with any kind of AI. So let's imagine you were going to buy a software for 50 or 100K. and after about 12 months you realized that that project is going to fail, and and your manager's inviting you, like, hey Chris, come into my office. Why did you spend 50k on that project that failed? And if your reasoning would be, well, the AI told me this is a really good idea to do, probably he would kick you straight out because you don't trust the AI. And and this is why you need the human factor. ideally you would want to point to some AE or S E saying like, well, they told me this, here's the documentation they gave me and all of this. Hence I thought it's a good idea. and like even you can do a lot with AI, but I think people still need this human factor. Our customers need somebody they can trust, even if this means somebody they can hold accountable if things don't go the way we were anticipating. Chris: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think you and I even had a conversation on LinkedIn a little while ago around the fact that, hey, even if people can self serve these demos, the reality is for many of these products, people have been able to get their hands on it in the past anyway, right? With a freemium model, I worked at at Slack for a while before that was selling Yammer. Like with both those products, customers could get their hands on it for free if they if they wanted, and yet they still saw value in interacting with a sales team, for exactly the reasons you mentioned. Max: Yeah. Yeah, that that was a really great point you made. I mean, all the product led gross companies would have been through the roof if if it it would be that easy to just sell something without human interaction. And and I think as as soon as there is change management involved, a certain investment risk, you you got to have that that human factor. So that's why I think people buy from people. And I generally think that people are a bit more biased towards account executives just trying to close the deal and hence have a tendency to trust us in solution engineering a bit more because we're more supportive, we we we know more. and that's why I think yes, AI is going to change a couple of things. It's going to level the playing field, which means we need to improve our soft skills. We need to be better at communicating, at listening, asking questions. but we we're not going going away. Chris: Yeah. And on that point around the the skills that SEs need to build, really curious to hear your perspective, you know, looking back over your entire career, not just in running run running your business, but what you know, what do you feel are two to three things that have driven your success so far? Max: Yes. there's one story that I always like to tell that was probably life-changing is a big word, but transformative for the way how I approach sales. so if if we travel a little bit back in time, like five or six years, I think, me and my better half we wanted to go to Africa and explore a couple of countries. and my better half for the first time in my life made me go to a travel agency be to to get some input on what to do. So we went to the first travel agency. Told him what we wanted to do and about forty five seconds later he printed out like five pages and and gave us the full thing of flights, accommodation, transfers, safari, the the the full package essentially, which was five K per person, which which was fair. However, we still thought, hey, let's also go to another travel agency and see what what they would offer. So we sat down with the second travel agent. We told the exact store like we want to go to Africa three weeks, this is what we want to do, these are the countries we potentially would like to visit. and instead of giving us the full package within forty five seconds, this this other travel agent just leaned back and said, I say, this is this is a really nice thing you want to do. But before I give you any, let's say, itinerary or place where to go, I want to make sure you you consider the following things because You need your passport to be valid for more than six months, even if they are valid for like still valid, but less than six months, you might not get into countries. You need visas for these places. And at times it can be difficult to go from this place to that place because they do not like each other that much. For these countries, you should get vaccination. And by the way, between those you require two shots for the full vaccination, and in between you need to have at least four or five weeks. And since you want to go in seven weeks' time, you should go there right now. Chris: Mm-hmm. Max: That just go to that place because they can do this on short notice. So that travel agent was giving us a lot of advice, really trying to anticipate what was ahead of us, trying to make sure that we do not just book the journey, but also get into the countries and have a good time. So that travel agent was significantly trying to reduce our personal risk rather than just giving us and trying to sell us the full tour and the big package. and that made us feel so much more confident and comfortable. Chris: Mm-hmm. Max: And reassuring with that person that we were actually willing to spend like 10-15% extra to go with that rebel agency because of all the reassurance we received. then COVID happened and we we went nowhere. but the that that was so interesting to me. I mean, we knew about the visa, we knew we had to get a vaccination, but we didn't know it's like two shots, and you have like to wait in between. and I tried to transfer this into all my business when I was working with customers at one point. Or at the end of my demos, I would typically say, hey, let's put the product aside. Because typically when you work with customers, they encounter a couple of challenges and obstacles along the way before making the decision, before making the implementation. And I just want to share the most common obstacles with you. You might not be aware of yet. and this was so valuable often to them because everyone else was talking features and functions while I was trying to help them mitigate their risk, trying to help them anticipate all the unknown unknowns. Chris: Mm-hmm. Max: And and and just help them to be successful and this is what people really appreciated. I hope that s little story makes sense. Chris: Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, you know, it feels more relevant now with AI than ever as well, because I hear a lot of people sort of concerned about you know, pre-sales and the profession and where's it going and will it still be relevant? And the way I think about it is if you've thought of the pre-sales role as you're just a walking talking version of the help center, yeah, customers have always been able to self-serve that, okay, sometimes it was clunky, sometimes it's difficult to browse and and and search that information. Now it's so easy, right? Anyone can just ask their assistant or agent of choice and and get the information about the product. What they don't normally have is the context around, okay, how's it deployed? What are com common pitfalls? You know, where are customers really having the most success? That stuff often isn't documented at all. And if it is documented, it's probably going to be private within your company, not out there on a help center. So all that additional context that helps customers anticipate those challenges and ultimately have a successful deployment, that to me is where us in in pre-sales and i in go to market more generally really bring the most value to our interactions with customers. Max: Ab absolutely. Because they don't know what they don't know. And if you can help them become aware of all these things, this is what they will really appreciate. And and this is also when I've like in sales, you oftentimes have to to follow up with people, you have to pursue them for quite some time just to get a response. But the second I I was starting to help them anticipate these risks, and like I wasn't all doing this in one email, sometimes hey, I w I was using doing this in multiple emails. Did you also speak to these people like Chris: Mm-hmm. Max: Have you heard of the German Workers' Council? no, you haven't. Well, then speak to them anytime soon. And if you do, here is something that you should tell them and a document you should share so they like you. and at that point in time people started to get back to me proactively. So rather than me chasing them all the time, they were just seeking proactively for my advice, saying, this was so great, we didn't know. What else do we have to consider? We we haven't been aware of. and and again, everyone else in the UK. I I was Chris: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Max: competing with people that had forty, fifty people on the ground and I was on my own for a long time. But I was able to to win customers like British Gas, which which I thought would have been impossible, but simply because I was giving them a different experience besides all the product skills. And and this this has really the transformative change in in how I was working. Chris: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. It I don't I know it's something of a cliche, the phrase trusted advisor, but it really feels like that's that's what's required, right? It's the context beyond the product to to get to that point. Max: Exactly, yeah, but exactly like you say, but you have to go beyond the product in order to get there. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Max, I'm I'm curious, is there one piece of advice that you would give to people in pre sales roles right now, particularly ones that are maybe thinking about following your your footsteps and establishing their own company? Max: Again, we mentioned this before, but building your own network is probably what has also been not in terms of sales but in in terms of authority been most helpful to me because you know then you have a group of people that that you can trust that you can even before you spend a lot of time and money in building a product, you can just think out loud with these people, present your ideas, get their feedback. And you can learn so much from them. And and once you have established that relationship because they know you, they trust you, things become easier. It's it's it's still not autopilot, like I said, you still have to do some sales and and follow up and do a little bit of outbound. But this network alone, like I said, has been super helpful. And I remember five when I started, there were a lot of people starting at the same time, just sharing their experiences. And a lot of them, Sarah, Elias, some others. They are now all senior VPs of solution engineering because also they gained a lot of visibility within their companies because they were considered a a thought leader in in their SE domain because they were reading a lot of cool stuff, reflecting on their own. So even for those people who didn't start their own business, I could see them like significantly accelerate their internal like corporate careers. so and I think a lot of this is coming from the visibility from the people you get to know, from the network you establish. that nobody can ever take away from you. So this really especially when you want to launch your own business, when you have like a good audience of people you you can think out loud with and and brainstorm, that's that's quite powerful. Chris: Yeah, amazing. Well, Max, thank you so much for joining me today and and being so generous with your insights. I I learned a lot. I really like your points around building a network, doing it proactively. You know, even if you don't intend to build your own business, there are so many different ways that that can can help. And also when thinking about, you know, the role and the SE role or pre-sales role and how that's gonna evolve, really thinking about how to become that trusted advisor. It's more than just the the product. I loved your analogy of the of the travel agency. So yeah, thank you so much for for being on the show. Max: You're welcome. And if because I've I've I've been building products lately, so one thing I just finished this week, which might be helpful to all your listeners, is if you go to demoplaybook.com, you will find like all my online courses, all my free resources. and if you use the code CRISPODCAST, you can get any course for free. Now currently there are multiple mini course around better demo questions, objection handling. internal demo alignment with your account executive. So with the code CRISP podcast you can get any of these courses for free, the one you like, and then just give it a try. Try to learn something. share on LinkedIn what you learned to start growing your network. People like actionable stuff they can implement right away rather than a lot of strategic meta level talk that sounds smart but is not really hands on. Chris: Amazing. Yeah, definitely. I'm all about practical. So thanks thanks so much for that, Max. Definitely check it out. And yeah, look forward to speaking again soon. Max: Thank you very much, Chris. Take care. Chris: Cheers. Bye bye. Thank you for listening to PreSales Pathways. If you found this episode helpful, please do follow or subscribe to the show on whichever platform you use to get your podcasts. If you can think of someone else that would find the show helpful, please share it with them. And last but not least, you can find even more resources, including a free pre-sales Pathfinder tool to explore different pre-sales career paths at chrisjamesclark.co.uk. Until next time, thank you.