What type of learner are you?
A hands-on approach to Presales Soft Skills.
When my daughter was 6 we went to a park with a nice area and I taught her how to ride a bike… Taught her is a bit of a stretch: I simply placed her on the bike seat and told her “You only have to pedal…. And keep your balance!” (I think it was more shouting but you get the idea).
If you’ve ever taught a child to ride a bike, you’ll know that aside from holding your child and running alongside them, there isn’t much theory involved. After a few attempts, voila! Your child is riding a bike independently, without the need for training wheels (which, in my experience, are rather useless).
Have you ever tried to explain to them how do you ride a bike? And I mean:
- a formal explanation of the physics of why you can keep the balance on the bike
- a diagram of how they have to position and move to keep the balance, in straight lines
- Ask them to memorise a checklist of “if this happens then do this with your hand, etc. etc.” and you can imagine how big this list could be…
If your experience is anything like mine, you’ve likely never taken the formal approach. Instead, you’ve had to let them go and allow them to crash occasionally so they can learn… by doing.
(branching here: ask yourself how a bike keeps the balance, about the physics behind it. This is a topic for another post: the curse of knowledge: we think we know things but in reality, we have no idea how things work)
When running presales workshops with a colleague of mine, one day it struck us that:
- Participants were struggling to grasp what we were trying to explain
- After a while, they would disengage
- Showing them the end result and then asking them to do it (try to replicate this) was more effective and enjoyable!
In the end, it’s a mix of things, but this approach significantly improved all our presales workshops. We aimed to transform the workshop sessions into the format:
“Show them” -> “Now do it” -> “Explain why it’s effective”
This isn’t easy. The latest iteration of the presales workshop could be significantly improved with more topics. However, the key aspect of the current format is to build an effective presentation, with a personalized scenario for your solution. This includes exercises at each step, from the initial stage to the first C-level-oriented presentation.
For example, we will not explain what an ROI is or the theory behind business value selling. Instead, we assume that most presales professionals, typically individuals with job experience, understand these concepts. We then ask them to construct a decision tree to help them determine which features have the most significant impact on their client’s expected value.
For each step in the process of creating a compelling presentation, we have an exercise aimed at allowing participants to apply their own experiences:
- In Discovery, we challenge participants to gauge the effort required. We play a game to find the spy: when should you use open or closed questions?
- Can they list their solution’s key benefits and map them to their typical clients’ critical business issues?
- Based on the scenario, different groups will attempt to find the focus word and map their solution’s features to challenges and benefits
- Are they ready? We provide practical advice on how to quickly write memorable stories
During the workshop, the key thing is to practice the key elements with interactive and fun activities. Yes, one team will be the winner!
If my daughter were to pursue professional biking, she would need to start more formal training and theory: working on her strength, counting indoor and outdoor exercises, measuring power, RPMs, formalising when to use the shifts, taking advantage of the terrain, and improving aerodynamics.
The same applies to presales. It’s a continuous learning process, involving learning by doing and formalising the team’s experience.
So, what type of learner are you?
