Home Podcasts Presales Podcast by Presales Collective
Presales Podcast by Presales Collective

Presales Podcast by Presales Collective

Jack Cochran 150 Episodes Oct 12, 2026

The Presales Podcast, from Presales Collective, focuses on the solution consulting and presales profession. It features conversations with global presales leaders, top individual contributors, industry experts, enablement professionals, and entrepreneurs. The show aims to help presales professionals build long and impactful careers through resources, knowledge, networking, and mentorship. Episodes cover practices, tools, and career development for the presales community.

Episodes

Moving from a Top IC to a New Presales Leader with Akanksha Sehgal
Moving from a Top IC to a New Presales Leader with Akanksha Sehgal Oct 12, 2026 26:37 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, 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 strate
Getting through the Internal Politics with Samantha Burrell
Getting through the Internal Politics with Samantha Burrell Sep 28, 2026 31:20 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, se
Live at Sol/Con 2026! Four Skills Driving Sales Outcomes with Rew Dickinson
Live at Sol/Con 2026! Four Skills Driving Sales Outcomes with Rew Dickinson Sep 14, 2026 38:08 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/matthewyo
Being the Founding SC with Alex Margolis
Being the Founding SC with Alex Margolis Aug 31, 2026 29:19 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 proce
Building Repeatable Methodologies with Paul Vogt
Building Repeatable Methodologies with Paul Vogt Aug 17, 2026 30:31 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 (Purp
Adapting to the Changing World of Presales with Steve Bullington
Adapting to the Changing World of Presales with Steve Bullington Aug 3, 2026 32:19 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 shi
Debunking the Traditional Path to Presales with Adam Bauman
Debunking the Traditional Path to Presales with Adam Bauman Jul 20, 2026 29:08 In this episode, Jack Cochran and Matthew James sit down with Adam Bauman, Staff Solutions Engineer at Kong, to challenge the myth of the "traditional" path into presales. Adam shares his journey from nearly 20 years in software engineering and management into solutions engineering, exploring why technical backgrounds can be powerful entry points into presales.   The conversation also tackles prac
Becoming Sales Leadership's Trusted Advisor with Lisa Jameson
Becoming Sales Leadership's Trusted Advisor with Lisa Jameson Jul 6, 2026 27:21 In this episode, Jack Cochran and Matthew James sit down with Lisa Jameson, a seasoned solutions professional, to explore how she built strategic influence and became a trusted advisor to sales leadership without moving into management.    Lisa provides a practical framework for assessing your current level of trust with sales leadership, finding creative solutions beyond product limitations, and
The Value of a Presales Academy with Rob Fallon
The Value of a Presales Academy with Rob Fallon Jun 22, 2026 30:46 Rob Fallon, Director, Americas SE Strategy & Associate Program at Nutanix, has built presales academy programs at both Dell EMC and Nutanix, joins the show to discuss the strategic importance of creating structured training programs for presales professionals. Rob shares his experience transforming Dell's 12-week boot camp into a comprehensive academy and building Nutanix's current 18-month-old pr
Using AI as your Voice Assistant with Yasmeen Hyder
Using AI as your Voice Assistant with Yasmeen Hyder Jun 8, 2026 31:30 In this episode, Jack Cochran sits down with Yasmeen Hyder, an enterprise solutions consulting leader from Atlanta, to explore a game-changing approach to working with AI: speaking to it instead of typing. Yasmeen shares how she uses voice-based AI interactions as a thought companion and coaching tool to enhance decision-making, reduce mental load, and work more efficiently in her presales leaders
Product-Trained Agents, and the New SE Workflow with Kintan Brahmbhatt
Product-Trained Agents, and the New SE Workflow with Kintan Brahmbhatt May 11, 2026 32:38 Jack Cochran and Matthew James welcome Kintan Brahmbhatt, CEO and co-founder of Olto, to discuss how AI agents are fundamentally reshaping the presales workflow and buyer experience. Drawing from over 12 years at Amazon building personalized experiences for Alexa, Amazon Music, and Prime Video, Kintan explores why B2B buyers receive generic "Acme Corp" demos while B2C consumers get highly personal
The Convergence of Presales and Post-Sales: A New Career Path with Shamil Turner
The Convergence of Presales and Post-Sales: A New Career Path with Shamil Turner Apr 28, 2026 32:04 Presales teams are being asked more and more to do post-sales work. This isn't a fad or something we're doing in the short term. This is a significant change for the broader profession of presales and solutions consulting. What was once occasional support for implementations or customer renewals is now becoming formal job responsibilities for solutions consultants across the industry.   In this ep

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