Presales Podcast by Presales Collective

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

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

Links and Resources Mentioned
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 

Key Topics Covered
Broadway Performer Mindset: Bringing consistent energy and leaving personal baggage at the door while maintaining authenticity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Links and Resources Mentioned
Join Presales Collective Slack: https://www.presalescollective.com/slack 

Key Topics Covered
The Challenge of Moving from Expert SE to Leader

Demonstrating Leadership Before Getting the Title

Building Influence and Trust with Former Peers

How Success Metrics Change from IC to Manager

The "Smartest Person Trap" and Letting Your Team Shine

Creating Strategic Thinking Time vs. Staying Tactical

Progressing to Senior Leadership and Managing a Function

Breaking Down Silos Through Cross-Functional Collaboration

Making Hard Decisions and Balancing Business with People

Being Your Authentic Self as a Leader

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
Follow Us
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/ 

Links and Resources Mentioned
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 

Key Topics Covered
Demo Face-Off Competition Structure: A March Madness-Style Global Competition

Identifying Gaps from Personal Pain Points After Maternity Leave

Navigating Internal Politics and Getting Multi-Stakeholder Buy-In

Connecting Enablement Initiatives to ARR Impact

Using AI Tools for First-Time Project Planning and Execution

Driving Participation Through Competition, Prizes, and Recognition

Making Enablement Entertaining with Production Value and Energy

Cultural Considerations for Global Teams and Iteration Based on Feedback

Individual Contributor Influence Without Formal Authority

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/ 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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/ 

Links and Resources Mentioned
Join Presales Collective Slack: https://www.presalescollective.com/slack 

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

Key Topics Covered
Motivations for seeking founding SE roles and fast-forwarding your career

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

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

Setting boundaries and tracking workload to prioritize effectively

Cross-functional relationship building as the company "facsimile"

Interview questions to ask when evaluating founding SE opportunities

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

Finding company culture fit and working with good people