Peter Doro, Principal Sales Engineer at Attentive and Denver Regional Community Leader for PreSales Collective, introduces the concept of "value listening" in this episode of the Presales Podcast with hosts Avery Cochran and Matthew James.

Value listening is a framework that shifts solutions professionals from being product experts to masters of technology application. In a world where AI and easy access to information have commoditized product knowledge, Peter argues that the new differentiator is understanding how technology is applied in specific customer scenarios and making customers feel seen rather than simply showing them features.

• Connect with Avery Cochran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avery-cochran/

• Connect with Matthew James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewyoungjames/

• Connect with Peter Doro: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-j-doro/

• Join Presales Collective Slack: https://www.presalescollective.com/slack

• Sol/Con 2026 (Chicago, August 2026): https://www.presalescollective.com/solcon-2026

• Presales Collective Podcast: https://www.presalescollective.com/podcast

• Selling Through Curiosity: https://www.sellingthroughcuriosity.com

• Samsara (Episode Sponsor): https://tinyurl.com/s-ejobsatsamsara

1. The Shift from Product Expert to Application Expert

2. Value Listening Definition and Origins from "Selling Through Curiosity"

3. Subtractive vs. Additive Sales Techniques

4. Making Customers Feel Seen vs. Showing Product Features

5. Hypothesis-Driven Discovery and Showing Less

6. Leading with Humility and Curiosity in Unfamiliar Territory

7. The Art of the Second Question

8. Repeating Back and Simplifying Customer Context

9. Doing Pre-Call Research to Show Up Informed

10. Knowledge is Additive, Wisdom is Subtractive

Making the leap from top-performing individual contributor to effective leader is one of the toughest transitions to make as a Solutions professional. Host Avery Cochran sits down with Akanksha Sehgal, Senior Director of Worldwide Technical Solutions at Omnisa, to explore why the skills that make you a great SE often don't translate to leadership. Akanksha shares her 13-year journey, from handling strategic accounts to leading global teams, and reveals the mindset shifts required at each stage of leadership growth.

• Connect with Avery Cochran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avery-cochran/

• Connect with Akanksha Sehgal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akanksha-sehgal/

• Join Presales Collective Slack: https://www.presalescollective.com/slack

1. The Challenge of Moving from Expert SE to Leader

2. Demonstrating Leadership Before Getting the Title

3. Building Influence and Trust with Former Peers

4. How Success Metrics Change from IC to Manager

5. The "Smartest Person Trap" and Letting Your Team Shine

6. Creating Strategic Thinking Time vs. Staying Tactical

7. Progressing to Senior Leadership and Managing a Function

8. Breaking Down Silos Through Cross-Functional Collaboration

9. Making Hard Decisions and Balancing Business with People

10. Being Your Authentic Self as a Leader

Mike McDowell, author of "Demotainment," joins hosts Avery Cochran and Matthew James to discuss how presales professionals should approach demos and presentations like Broadway performers, bringing energy and showmanship while maintaining authenticity and personalization. The conversation explores the balance between rehearsed performance and authentic engagement, emphasizing that delivery and storytelling are just as important as technical content.

• Connect with Avery Cochran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avery-cochran/

• Connect with Mike McDowell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mmcdowell1/

• Join Presales Collective Slack: https://www.presalescollective.com/slack

• Presales Collective Podcast: https://www.presalescollective.com/podcast

• Demotainment (book by Mike McDowell): https://a.co/d/00DK30rj

1. Broadway Performer Mindset: Bringing consistent energy and leaving personal baggage at the door while maintaining authenticity

2. Improvisation Within Structure: Balancing 80% prepared content with 20% customer-driven conversation

3. Account Team Choreography: The importance of rehearsed handoffs and transitions between SEs and AEs

4. Strategic Partnership: Presales professionals as strategists involved throughout the customer journey

5. Storytelling Delivery: How stories are told matters as much as the content itself

6. Personal Connection and Credibility: Building rapport through industry experience before product features

7. Engaging Remote Audiences: Techniques for handling Zoom calls with cameras off

8. Value Demonstration Through Stories: Using concrete examples like the $7 million hyperlink story to illustrate ROI

9. Energy and Authenticity: Genuine enthusiasm influences buying decisions beyond rational factors

In this episode, Jack Cochran and Matthew James welcome Samantha Burrell, an enterprise solutions consultant at BenchLink, to discuss how she successfully launched "Demo Face-Off," a gamified enablement competition for her global SC organization. Samantha shares the complete journey from identifying a gap in product enablement when returning from maternity leave to navigating internal politics, securing buy-in from multiple stakeholders, and executing a March Madness-style demo competition that ran over two months.

Thank you to Baton AI for sponsoring this episode. Check out more at getbaton.ai

• Connect with Jack Cochran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackcochran/

• Connect with Matthew James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewyoungjames/

• Connect with Samantha Burrell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-r-burrell/

• Baton AI: https://www.getbaton.ai/

• Join Presales Collective Slack: https://www.presalescollective.com/slack

• PSC Unscripted episode with Samantha: https://youtu.be/2nZjv-vWdF0

1. Demo Face-Off Competition Structure: A March Madness-Style Global Competition

2. Identifying Gaps from Personal Pain Points After Maternity Leave

3. Navigating Internal Politics and Getting Multi-Stakeholder Buy-In

4. Connecting Enablement Initiatives to ARR Impact

5. Using AI Tools for First-Time Project Planning and Execution

6. Driving Participation Through Competition, Prizes, and Recognition

7. Making Enablement Entertaining with Production Value and Energy

8. Cultural Considerations for Global Teams and Iteration Based on Feedback

9. Individual Contributor Influence Without Formal Authority

10. Cross-Functional Benefits and Expanding Impact Beyond the SC Team

In this live podcast episode recorded at Sol/Con 2026, Rew Dickinson, CEO and founder of Alpha Go-To-Market, joins co-hosts Jack Cochran and Matthew James to present a framework of four core skills that drive sales outcomes for solutions engineers.

Follow Us

• Connect with Jack Cochran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackcochran/

• Connect with Matthew James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewyoungjames/

• Connect with Rew Dickinson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rewdickinson/

1. The SE Talk-Time Problem: How Gong call analysis reveals SEs dominating conversations with product talk instead of listening

2. The Starbucks Story: Rew's revelation that SEs are often the most influential person in the sales cycle

3. Knowledge Layer: Why SEs must understand how prospect companies make money before demos

4. Storytelling for Pre-Sales: Shifting from product-centric to prospect-focused narratives

5. The iPhone Value Exercise: Live demonstration showing value exists in the gap between current and desired state

6. Discovery Beyond Requirements: Creating vision with questions like "If I shadowed your team for a week, what would I see slowing them down?"

7. Leadership and Taking a Stance: Why SEs need to be prescriptive ("you should") instead of offering endless options ("you could")

8. The Tenure Gap: SEs average 7 years versus sales reps at 2 years—and why SEs should leverage this expertise advantage

Alex Margolis joins the show with cohosts Jack Cochran and Mathew James to share his experience as a founding sales engineer, pulling back the curtain on what it's really like to be the first SE at a startup. Alex discusses his deliberate decision to target founding SE roles as a way to fast-forward his career after six years at a company with limited growth opportunities, expecting to build processes and lead strategically from day one. Instead, he found himself supporting eight AEs and an equal number of BDRs, running five demos a day in a high-velocity sales environment that left little time for the strategic work he'd been promised.

Follow Us

• Connect with Jack Cochran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackcochran/

• Connect with Matthew James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewyoungjames/

• Connect with Alex Margolis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexnmargolis/

• Join Presales Collective Slack: https://www.presalescollective.com/slack

• Presales Collective Podcast: https://www.presalescollective.com/podcast

1. Motivations for seeking founding SE roles and fast-forwarding your career

2. The sales assistant trap: expectations vs. reality of strategic involvement

3. Supporting eight AEs plus BDRs as the only SE in a high-velocity environment

4. Setting boundaries and tracking workload to prioritize effectively

5. Cross-functional relationship building as the company "facsimile"

6. Interview questions to ask when evaluating founding SE opportunities

7. Who the right fit is for high-volume founding SE roles

8. Finding company culture fit and working with good people

In this episode, Jack Cochran sits down with Paul Vogt, VP of Pre-Sales and Professional Services at GPG, to explore how building repeatable methodologies can transform solutions organizations at scale. The conversation dives deep into two powerful frameworks: the Technical Win Definition (5 binary yes/no questions that eliminate ambiguity and improve forecast accuracy) and the PGA Framework (Purpose, Goal, Agenda for planning every customer meeting).

Thank you to Saleo for sponsoring this episode: https://saleo.io

• Connect with Jack Cochran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackcochran/

• Connect with Paul Vogt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulvogt00/

• Join Presales Collective Slack: https://presalescollective.com/slack

• Sol/Con 2026 (Chicago, August 2026): https://presalescollective.com/solcon-2026

• Presales Collective Podcast: https://presalescollective.com/podcast

• Paul's Blog: https://www.art-of-sales-engineering.com/

1. Paul's Career Journey: From Defense Contractor to Scaling Pre-Sales Teams at Twilio

2. The Alaska Cellular Network Project: Building the First Network in Remote Communities

3. Customer Lifecycle Gaps: Why 70% of Churn Happens During Onboarding

4. Technical Win Definition: Creating 5 Binary Questions to Eliminate Ambiguity

5. How Technical Win Criteria Improve Forecast Accuracy Better Than Sales Tracking

6. The PGA Framework: Purpose, Goal, Agenda for Every Customer Meeting

7. Warning Signs Your Organization Needs Repeatable Methodologies

8. Using Metrics to Identify Where Deals Slow Down (POC-to-Win Rates as Diagnostic)

9. The Lost Art of Prep Calls and Meeting Alignment

10. Practice and Preparation: Why Pre-Sales Professionals Should Train Like Athletes

11. Small Impactful Changes: The Ted Lasso Approach to Leadership

In this episode, Jack Cochran and Matthew James are joined by Steve Bullington, Global Public Sector Sales Onboarding and Strategic Programs Lead at Salesforce, to explore the seismic shifts reshaping presales. Steve draws powerful parallels between today's transformation and the move from perpetual licenses to SaaS, arguing that we're experiencing an equally fundamental change as the industry shifts to consumption-based pricing models.

Follow Us

• Connect with Jack Cochran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackcochran/

• Connect with Matthew James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewyoungjames/

• Connect with Steve Bullington: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevebullington/

• Join Presales Collective Slack: https://www.presalescollective.com/slack

• Sol/Con 2026 (Chicago, August 2026): https://www.presalescollective.com/solcon-2026

1. The Evolution of Presales: From Technical Expert to Business Value Architect

2. Consumption-Based Pricing Models and the Death of Shelfware

3. The Critical Importance of Accurate Consumption Forecasting

4. Forward-Deployed Engineers: The 10x Growth of a New Role

5. AI's Impact on Demo Capabilities and Presales Productivity

6. The Current Maturity Level of AI (Comparable to SaaS in 2000)

7. Which Sales Roles Face AI Replacement and Future Career Pathways

8. The Need to Accelerate Professional Development Beyond 1% Daily