In our 1st episode of #NutsAboutPreSales, we chatted with the amazing Marjorie AbdelKrime, Head of Multi-Cloud at VMware.
Hear from one of the industry leaders as she covers why it’s crucial for sales and presales to communicate, the funniest (or craziest?) thing a client ever told her, her favorite sales presentation hack, and so much more.
Watch the full episode now or read the transcription below:
- What’s your name? Where do you work?
My name is Marjorie Abdelkrime and I work for VMware.
- What’s the funniest thing a client told you?
It’s a hybrid between funny and scary… I had one customer who said that we didn’t need to back up a database environment.
Well, the next day I walk in to do some configurations into the environment and I can’t log in and I’m like, “What’s going on?” And they’re like, “Oh yeah, we had to do away with the database,” and I’m like “Ok, let’s restore it.” And then I remembered that they hadn’t backed up.
- What’s your biggest challenge when demoing?
Understanding what the customer outcome is. A lot of times we walk into these conversations with customers fairly blind, so I think it’s important for us to understand what those demo requirements might be.
- What’s the secret of a successful sales & pre-sales collaboration?
Communication. One of the first questions I ask the SE is, “Hey, what are you doing and how often are you communicating with your sales rep?” And if they tell me something less than once a day, then to me that means that they basically have missed an opportunity in clearly communicating with their account executive.
- What’s your best presentation hack?
Asking questions. I think that it’s important that as we’re presenting we’re not just presenting at people, but we’re engaging them in the conversation. So every time you have a question, I’d say incorporate it into every single slide or every single component of your demo. And it also prevents people from looking at their phone because they know that they’re going to be asked something.
- What’s the worst mistake to avoid?
Not understanding what the customer wants before you walk into a meeting. If you walk into a conversation not clearly understanding what those intended outcomes are, that meeting and that conversation is not going to be a successful one.
- How do you celebrate closing a big deal?
By sharing information and documenting how that win actually occurred. So making sure that I can showcase what the unique use case was, how we won, why we won, and bringing all that information together for my peers so that they can learn from it in the future is a great way to celebrate that win.
- Sell me a walnut!
I wish I had a walnut here for you, but I would say… I’d crack the walnut, take a piece and give you a piece and I’m sure you’ll love the flavor of it and you’re going to be like “Hey, can I have another one?” And that’s when I’ll show you my big bag of walnuts.
