Homerun Presales is officially integrated with GSuite / Google Workspace! Sync calendars for automated Activity Tracking 📅. Login via Google SSO 🔐. Link to GDrive folders and docs 📁 . Heyooo!! 🙌

Features and Gaps and Bugs… oh my! Homerun Presales has a two-way integration with Jira, streamlining how presales and product teams stay in sync, unblock deals, and enhance the product roadmap. 🙌

The Homerun-Jira integration lets you:

✅ Link features in your Homerun Feature Repository with Jira issues and sync data back and forth

✅ Search for Jira issues that match the features your prospects need

✅ Create new issues in Jira based on new Feature Requests captured in Homerun

✅ Connect Homerun to multiple Jira Projects

✅ Get automatic alerts when issues are closed in Jira (meaning the feature has been released) so you can re-engage with prospects and give them the good news!

An open and connected presales tech stack is the modern presales tech stack.

Homerun Presales has you covered.

Check out all our integrations (and our REST JSON API).

​The best presales teams UN-LOSE deals by working with their product team. How? Read on… (Hint: You’re sitting on the presales data they need… time to share it!)

First off, UN-LOSE?

Yep, UN-LOSE.

It means you are going to lose a deal, but you do something to not lose it.

​Picture it…

You’re a sales engineer giving demo. 🖥

Your prospect asks if you support feature X.

Your product does not support feature X.

You tell them that, and your prospect starts to cry a little 😢 because they were loving everything until that very moment.

Wiping away a sad little tear, they sigh “That’s unfortunate. Feature X is a must-have for us...”

As a great SE, you immediately tag feature X against this deal in your presales workspace.

You set the severity to Blocker.

Blockers are features without which your prospect cannot or will not buy.

You finish up the demo, hoping they’ll decide they don’t need feature X after all. 🙏

Your prospect ends the call saying, “We’re sorry this won’t work out because of feature X… we really loved everything else!” 😭

​But wait a minute...

Your manager sees a Presales Warning Sign light up on her Presales Pipeline dashboard 🚨 because you just logged feature X as a Blocker for this deal.

She wants to learn more and clicks into this deal's presales workspace to see what you know and what’s been done so far. It's all in one place, so she scrolls through and is up to speed in minutes. 👍

She clicks over to her Feature Request summary report, and she sees that feature X is now a Blocker on over $1 million of ARR across 6 different deals! 😱

She pings the head of product and schedules a quick meeting.

She shows him the Feature Request report.

“See here… we have 6 deals worth $1 million in ARR that we are going to lose. That’s the difference between hitting target and blowing it! These are the 6 deals and their deal sizes.”

The product manager leans forward to get a closer look. 🤔

“Feature X is a Future need on 2 other deals worth $300K. We can close them today, but if we do… they’re expecting you to deliver feature X at some point.”

The product manager starts to smirk. 🙂

“And finally, feature X is a Nice-To-Have for 1 deal worth $250K. While we don’t need it to close them, it would really boost our chances of winning them.”

The product manager smiles big, ear to ear. 😄

He says, “Between you and me… I’m usually GUESSING at the market potential when I’m prioritizing features in the roadmap.”

“You’re giving me Deals and Dollars… the real data that I need to justify squeezing feature X into our next release, which is coming out in 4 weeks.”

They exclaim in unison, “Let’s go UN-LOSE those deals!” 🙌

​We had a demo this week with a presales leader who said that 2023 needed to be a year of Responsible Growth and Operational Excellence for his company. Love that! But what does that mean for a presales team? Let’s break it down.

PART 1: RESPONSIBLE GROWTH

Up until last year, the modus operandi for many companies, especially VC-fueled startups, was to Grow. At. All. Costs.

There was fast and furious hiring across the org. 

Within sales leadership, the thought was: Just throw more sales engineers at the pipeline so we can give more demos, run more proof of concepts (POCs) / proof of values (POVs), and close more deals… more. More. MORE!

But today is today.

Budgets are tight. 

Headcounts are frozen (or decreasing with layoffs). 

The new modus operandi is ‘responsible growth’.

Management still wants more, More, MORE in terms of performance… but you don’t get more to help you achieve it.

Every presales team is now looking for ways to do more with what they have.

That means finding ways to be more EFFICIENT.

✅ More efficient presales processes.
✅ More efficient use of presales time and effort.
✅ More efficient presales tooling.
✅ More efficient cross-functional collaborations between presales and other teams.

RESPONSIBLE GROWTH = PRESALES EFFICIENCY

PART 2: OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE
​PART 2: OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE
 
Up until last year, business was BOOMING.

[If you’re old enough to remember Oprah…] YOU get a lead. And YOU get a lead. EVERYONE is getting LEEEEeeeads!!

But today is today.

Sales pipelines are smaller, both in Deals and Dollars.

Top of the funnel (TOFU) lead flow is dwindling, so there are fewer deals.

Buyers have reduced budgets of their own, so your Average Contract Value (ACV) is smaller (either your prospect buys less or they negotiate deep discounts).

Every deal matters now more than ever.

Therefore, every presales team is looking for ways to boost their win rates now more than ever.

That means finding ways to be more EFFECTIVE.

✅ More effective discovery.
✅ More effective demo prep and delivery.
✅ More effective POCs/POVs.
✅ More effective relationship building.
✅ More effective problem solving.
✅ More effective solutioning.
✅ More effective transitions to post-sales / customer success (because you also need happy, vocal customers right now and eventually renewals!)

OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE = PRESALES EFFECTIVENESS

If 2023 needs to be a year of RESPONSIBLE GROWTH and OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE for your company…

Then 2023 needs to be a year of PRESALES EFFICIENCY and PRESALES EFFECTIVENESS for your team.

BREAKING NEWS: Homerun Presales is live on the Salesforce AppExchange! 🙌 🥂 🍾 😃
 
Our new Salesforce App automates your presales workflow and data syncing between Salesforce and Homerun.

As Opportunities move between Salesforce Stages and require presales resources, our App kicks into action:

✅ New Homerun Evaluations (aka, our famous ‘presales workspaces’) are created and linked automatically to Opportunities 

✅ Presales resources are assigned directly or by team managers

✅ Assigned resources are alerted of new activity

✅ Data is two-way synced ​between Salesforce and Homerun to keep presales and sales teams aligned and in sync

​Our new App streamlines our existing Salesforce integration and improves the setup experience. One of our customers connected Homerun and Salesforce in under 5 minutes! 🤯

We’re excited to be rolling this out to Homerun customers who use Salesforce as their CRM. It boosts their presales performance, reduces friction in their presales/sales motion, and makes their ‘systems integration’ lives a lot easier.

Check out Homerun Presales on the Salesforce AppExchange!

Hey sales engineers… want an instant engagement boost in your demos? Change your demo language from “Click here to do XYZ…” to “If this was YOUR system, YOU would click here to do XYZ…”

❌ The goal of your demo isn’t for you to show off your software.

✅ The goal of your demo is to get your prospect to imagine themselves using your software.

This subtle change in your demo language helps makes that happen.