Introducing the XC Executive Committee

We are excited to introduce the inaugural Xpert Community Executive Committee, a group dedicated to advancing the discipline of PreSales through content, standards, education, and community.

This group of 12 senior leaders and prominent voices in the Technical Sales space, representing innovative teams and leading B2B companies, are coming together to pool their collective knowledge and decades of experience to extract best practices and standards.

Unlike other professions, PreSales / Solutions / Technical Sales lacks standardization, from operations and management to career development.

The Executive Committee aims to collect experience across industries, GTM motions, and growth stages to distill best practices and help push the PreSales field forward.

Why Now?

Due to the shifting nature of buyer needs, business models, innovation, and macroeconomic conditions, this is a critical moment of opportunity for Technical Sales, when the field is already undergoing growth, transformation, and even evolution.

With Sales Engineering projected to grow faster than the average for all occupations in the next 10 years (Bureau of Labor Statistics), this is the moment to decide on and chart the path forward.

At this critical juncture, how do we introduce enough structure to unite the field and produce actionable insights, while also accommodating the nuances that have made this profession and the PreSales skillset so unique?

Focus Areas

In their inaugural meeting, the Executive Committee discussed the evolving role/responsibility scope of PreSales / Technical Sales / Solutions. Across industries, company types, geographies, and “PreSales’ naming conventions, this shift is evident.

The Executive Committee is thinking about the implications of this evolution for org structure and accountability measures, cross-functional relationships, competency mix and hiring, technical sales processes and tools, and how to socialize impact internally and up the company chain of command.

Although operational best practices vary due not only to the types of products you sell but also the maturity stage of your company as a whole, some common themes are:

• AI and innovation are transforming the way that PreSales teams distribute expertise internally and externally.
• Companies moving to a Consumption Model provide an interesting blueprint for a full-customer-lifecycle “Pre”Sales motion and how technical teams might collaborate.
• The evolution of the PreSales profession has a ripple effect on how other teams operate and define themselves, from Sales and Success to Marketing and Engineering.

Conclusion

As the Executive Committee collaborates, we look forward to seeing the output of their efforts, and how this collaboration contributes to larger conversations in the PreSales community.

For more information about this initiative, please visit www.xpertcommunity.com/leadership.

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