Presales

Presales covers everything a technical team does to help close a deal before the contract is signed. Account executives own the relationship and the commercial terms; presales owns the question "will this actually work for us?"

Presales: the technical work of a sales cycle, done by sales engineers and solutions consultants, from the first demo to the technical sign-off.

What presales teams do

• Join discovery calls to understand the prospect's setup and requirements.
• Build and run product demos, often in a dedicated demo environment.
• Answer technical and security questions, including security questionnaires.
• Run a proof of concept or trial for larger deals.
• Hand the account to onboarding once it closes.

Titles

Sales engineer, solutions engineer, solutions consultant and presales consultant are all common. See sales engineer for the role itself.

Where the time goes

Presales capacity is usually the constraint on how many demos a team can run. First demos for inbound leads are the most repetitive part of the job: the same product tour, adjusted for each prospect, often for leads that turn out to be a poor fit. That is where automation helps most. An AI demo agent runs those first demos on demand, at any hour, and passes qualified prospects to the presales team for the deeper technical evaluation. 24/7 demo coverage covers the approach.

FAQ

What is presales? The technical side of the sales process: sales engineers and solutions consultants who run demos, answer technical questions and prove the product fits the customer before the deal closes.

What is the difference between presales and sales? Sales owns the relationship, the deal and the commercial terms. Presales owns the technical case: demos, technical questions, proofs of concept and the technical sign-off.