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This podcast has
81 episodes
Language
EnglishPublisher
Jan-Erik Jank & Tim BrömmeExplicit
No
Date created
2026/04/06
Latest episode
2026/10/26
Average duration
7 min.
Release period
3 days
Description
Two voices. Two perspectives. One goal: making you a better PreSales leader. Leading PreSales is a weekly podcast where Nate Hargrove and Ava Vasquez break down the real challenges of solution engineering leadership — in five minutes or less. Nate brings 12 years of SE leadership experience from enterprise SaaS. He's the pragmatist who's seen it all, led through reorgs and acquisitions, and knows what actually works at scale. Ava brings the builder's perspective — five years of leadership in high-growth Scale-Ups, where she built an SE team from zero to twelve and went from Series B to IPO. She challenges conventional thinking with modern frameworks and a coaching-first mindset. Each episode: one topic, one honest conversation, one practical move you can use the same week. Topics include 1:1 coaching, discovery skills, demo strategy, pipeline management, hiring, retention, and everything else that keeps SE leaders up at night. ⚠️ Full transparency: The voices and characters in this podcast are fictional. The content, frameworks, and experiences are based on real-life SE leadership — informed by years of working with 350+ Solution Engineers across companies like Salesforce, HubSpot, Zscaler, and more. The conversations are scripted by humans, performed by AI. Produced by SE Rockstars (PreSales Unleashed GmbH) — the team behind the Trusted Advisor Academy, founded by Tim Brömme & Jan-Erik Jank. More at https://serockstars.com
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Check latest episodes from Leading PreSales | The Solution Engineering Leadership Show podcast
Hours Saved Is Not Money Saved [81]
2026/10/26
Ava's SE brought a business case built on hours saved times an hourly rate, but the people were still on the payroll after go-live. Nate and Ava work out how to coach SEs to turn freed capacity into revenue, error cost, or avoided hiring that finance will actually believe.
The €1,000 Contradiction: Don't Promise Enablement You Haven't Funded [80]
2026/10/23
Nate reads a Head of SE posting that makes the new leader responsible for training, tools and feedback — then funds it with €1,000 a year, less than the same company gives people for donating to open-source projects. He and Ava dig into why that gap is read as a culture signal, and what to do before pay transparency makes every line comparable.
Head of SE or Jack-of-All-Trades? Scope-Test the Role Before You Sign [79]
2026/10/21
Nate breaks down a second-line Head of Solution Engineering ad that quietly bundles five go-to-market motions, post-sales and partner building into one job. He and Ava work out how to scope-test a mandate like that — as the candidate and as the hiring manager.
Your Job Ad Is a Sieve With No Holes [78]
2026/10/19
Nate tears apart a publicly posted Head of Solution Engineering ad from a fast-growing automation vendor — two things it does brilliantly, two it gets badly wrong. Ava pushes back on publishing comp bands and on asking candidates to sign up for a number before they know the territory.
The 18-Month Goodbye: Why Your Best SE Leaves a Team They Love [77]
2026/10/16
Ava's strongest SE left after eighteen months from a team she loved, because the path to leading anything was never made concrete. Nate and Ava dig into why silence about timelines costs you your best people, and what an honest version of that conversation sounds like.
Hire the Slope, Not the Checklist [76]
2026/10/14
Ava almost passed on her best hire because a scripted demo in his second language buried him. She and Nate work out how to separate fundable gaps from structural ones \u2014 and how to attach a remedy, a budget, an owner and a date before day one.
The Long Leash: Why Great SEs Drown After Promotion [75]
2026/10/12
Ava tells the story of her own first leadership job: the title, the bigger number, and a comp plan she couldn't read. She and Nate work out what a real promotion ramp looks like -- and why the new leader's silence is the least reliable signal you have.
Your Best SE Won't Leave Over Money — They'll Leave Over the Ceiling [74]
2026/10/09
Nate brings an exit interview where nothing was wrong: good product, good team, good manager — and the best SE in the region still left after five quarters. He and Ava dig into the invisible ceiling on scope and progression, and what leaders can actually do about it.
The Training That Made Me Quit [73]
2026/10/07
Nate tells the story of a value-selling programme that permanently changed how he thought about price -- and why, three years later, it was the reason he left the company. He and Ava dig into how to design enablement around a real business model shift, and what has to change around it afterwards.
Hire the Second Version, Not the First [72]
2026/10/05
Nate rebuilt his interview loop so candidates present a case study twice — once as a coached dry run, once for the panel — and the score is the difference between the two. Ava pushes back on the risk of rewarding mimicry, and they land on a two-question scorecard.
Retire The Technical Win Trophy [71]
2026/10/02
Ava noticed her team throwing a party at the technical win and going quiet for the six weeks that actually decide the deal. She and Nate argue about whether the metric should stay, and land on what presales owes the deal after the POC is signed off.
Never Lie, Never Answer Reflexively [70]
2026/09/30
Ava noticed her SEs improvising under closing pressure — over-explaining, over-promising, or freezing. She and Nate work out the norm that fixes it: never lie, but never answer an unqualified question reflexively either.
Stop Begging For Headcount [69]
2026/09/28
Ava asked her CRO for three more SEs and got one question back: prove the twelve you have are on the right deals. She rebuilt the ask as a capacity model — and found one AE eating 38% of her team's hours.
When the ICP Moves, PreSales Pays the Bill [68]
2026/09/25
A one-line strategy slide can redirect an entire go-to-market motion, but the retraining, domain language and demo assets all land on the SE leader. Nate argues for naming a second ICP as insurance long before anyone asks for it, and Ava pressure-tests whether a twelve-person team can afford that hedge.
Your CRO No Longer Wants a PreSales Department [67]
2026/09/23
Nate's CRO used the word "PreSales" once in a forty-minute quarterly review — to ask why the team is still called that. He and Ava dig into why the pre/post split is an artefact of an older business model, and what to propose before someone proposes it for you.
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