The archive
All episodes
62 episodes — one topic, one honest conversation, one practical move. New episode every week.
- EP 61Sep 9, 2026· 6 min
Spot the Super-IC Before the Numbers Do
Nate shares the behavioural signals that expose a first-line SE manager who's really just a super-IC with a title — visible in how they design their forecast call and how they write email under pressure. Ava pushes on whether that's coachab
Show notes & listen - EP 60Sep 7, 2026· 6 min
Fifty Leaders, One Borrowed Office
Nate has paid for enough conferences that were four sponsor pitches and a sad sandwich. Ava walks him through the community's on-site evenings, the 49-euro commitment fee, the new member portal, and the European roadshow that starts in Lond
Show notes & listen - EP 59Sep 4, 2026· 6 min
The Loneliest Job in the Building
Ava had a comp question and nobody in her company to ask. She took it to a community of 250 SE leaders and had twenty answers by lunch. Nate has watched a dozen of these groups die and wants to know what's different.
Show notes & listen - EP 58Sep 2, 2026· 6 min
The Seven-Figure Promotion
Nate breaks down why promoting your strongest SE into a first-line seat with no readiness path is an unbudgeted risk, not a reward. Ava pushes back from a 12-person scale-up where a title is the only retention lever she's got.
Show notes & listen - EP 57Aug 31, 2026· 6 min
Your SEs Don't Need the Price List. They Need the Metric.
Ava's SE told a customer the product "just scales" - and missed a ten-x volume question. She and Nate split pricing knowledge into two very different skills and show which one every SE has to own.
Show notes & listen - EP 56Aug 28, 2026· 6 min
One Sentence: The Pricing Guardrail Every SE Team Needs
Ava's SE quoted an eight-month-old price with no AE on the call, and the walk-back cost more than the number ever could. She and Nate work out the one sentence every SE should say — and the directory that keeps it from sounding like a dodge
Show notes & listen - EP 55Aug 26, 2026· 6 min
400 Licenses Is Not a Number
Ava asked one of her SEs how big his upcoming deal was and got "400 licenses" back — a unit count, not a number. She and Nate unpack why deal-value visibility is the precondition for both your incentive plan and your team's week planning.
Show notes & listen - EP 54Aug 24, 2026· 6 min
When 'Show Nothing Extra' Becomes Handcuffs
Nate brings a coaching note that told a whole region to show nothing the customer didn't ask for, and argues that imposed focus isn't focus at all. He and Ava rebuild it as a scope decision made in discovery, out loud, with the customer in
Show notes & listen - EP 53Aug 21, 2026· 6 min
Your AI Doesn't Give Bad Demo Advice — You Gave It Nothing
Nate saw a one-line prompt produce textbook-generic demo advice, and a comment section full of people saying "it needs more context" without ever building any. He and Ava work out how SE leaders turn that context into a shared enablement as
Show notes & listen - EP 52Aug 19, 2026· 6 min
The Metric No SE Leader Can Quote: Cost Per Won Deal
Nate's managers spent forty minutes arguing focused entry deals versus full bundles — and nobody could say what one won deal costs in SE effort. He and Ava build the cost model live, then Ava pokes the hole in it: land-and-expand only pays
Show notes & listen - EP 51Aug 17, 2026· 6 min
Coach the Chain: From Symptom to a Number
Ava argues that value isn't a separate framework: it hides inside Identify Pain and Metrics. She and Nate break down the exact escalation from customer symptom to a euro figure — and why that number decides whether you should even stay in t
Show notes & listen - EP 50Aug 14, 2026· 6 min
Sales Rolled Out MEDDICC Without You
Ava keeps meeting PreSales leaders whose sales org rolled out MEDDICC and never invited them. She and Nate work out which letters SEs actually own — and how to claim a seat at that table without turning it into a turf war.
Show notes & listen - EP 49Aug 12, 2026· 6 min
MEDDICC Without a Quality Bar Is CRM Theater
Ava read the Metrics field on two live deals side by side and couldn't tell which customer was which. She and Nate dig into why qualification frameworks collapse without a published quality standard — and where the reinforcement actually ha
Show notes & listen - EP 48Aug 10, 2026· 6 min
How Can I Make Your Life Easier?
Nate noticed that new SE managers introduce themselves to sales by explaining the presales process, and it builds resistance before anything else happens. He and Ava work out what to open with instead, and how to map the counterparts you ac
Show notes & listen - EP 47Aug 7, 2026· 6 min
Thirty Minutes a Week Sales Doesn't Get to Cancel
Nate noticed one of his managers had cancelled her team's weekly learning slot nine times out of eleven, always for a good reason. He and Ava dig into why a fixed thirty minutes only survives if the leader is willing to have the awkward con
Show notes & listen - EP 46Aug 5, 2026· 6 min
Translate the Strategy Before Your Team Asks Why
Nate argues that corporate strategy is written so abstractly that most SEs never connect it to their week — and the first-line SE leader is the only person who can translate it. Ava pushes on whether a three-hour kickoff discussion survives
Show notes & listen - EP 45Jul 31, 2026· 6 min
Thirty Seconds That Sells
The highest-leverage thing one team built all year, for almost nothing: thirty-second customer stories, AI-distilled and memorized. Craft and machine in one move.
Show notes & listen - EP 44Jul 29, 2026· 6 min
Follow the Breadcrumbs
A lovely discovery call that produced zero numbers. Customers scatter breadcrumbs — 'slow', 'error-prone' — and the whole skill is following them to a figure.
Show notes & listen - EP 43Jul 27, 2026· 6 min
Feature, Capability, Outcome, Metric
Your SEs are great at explaining what a feature does and terrible at answering 'so what?' A simple four-word tool that drags a team out of feature-dumping.
Show notes & listen - EP 42Jul 24, 2026· 6 min
If This Were Your Business
Nate once fixed a team's morale with a finance lecture. Why business acumen is the top future skill — and the one we're collectively worst at.
Show notes & listen - EP 41Jul 22, 2026· 6 min
The Vertical You Can't Fake
Same product, four industries, and a customer who smells a tourist in one question. Is vertical expertise something you hire, or something AI can now fake?
Show notes & listen - EP 40Jul 20, 2026· 6 min
Forward Deployed — Real or Buzzword?
FDE is on every job posting and triggering half the industry. Nate and Ava separate what's genuinely new about Forward Deployed Engineers from what's repackaged.
Show notes & listen - EP 39Jul 17, 2026· 6 min
Stop Chasing Efficiency
A room full of leaders kept saying 'efficiency' — and none could measure it. Why depth, not efficiency, is the goal AI should serve.
Show notes & listen - EP 38Jul 15, 2026· 6 min
Can We Even Record This?
Every AI use case in this series runs on transcripts — so: are you even allowed to record? The consent and compliance reality, from works councils to defense sectors.
Show notes & listen - EP 37Jul 13, 2026· 6 min
Leaders, Followers, and the Refusers
Every team splits into AI first-movers, followers, and refusers — and the gap widens daily. Why handing out logins isn't enablement.
Show notes & listen - EP 36Jul 10, 2026· 6 min
Bottle Your Best SE
Your best SE's judgment walks out the door at 6pm. Nate and Ava on capturing it in a reusable skill — and why one bottled brain is fragile but a voting funnel is a moat.
Show notes & listen - EP 35Jul 8, 2026· 5 min
Thirteen Pages, Nothing Validated
AI turns three bullet points into a thirteen-page document that looks like a costly consultant deliverable — and validates none of it. Why polish isn't proof.
Show notes & listen - EP 34Jul 6, 2026· 6 min
Garbage In, Confidence Out
AI makes good work faster-good and bad work faster-bad — and now the bad work looks polished. Before you automate discovery or demo prep, you have to define what good looks like.
Show notes & listen - EP 33Jul 3, 2026· 6 min
The Octopus Problem
You're tracking dozens of opportunities across meetings, emails, and chat threads — and the context never comes back together. Nate and Ava on taming the 'octopus' with AI, without requesting seventeen integrations.
Show notes & listen - EP 32Jul 1, 2026· 7 min
Hire or Pass — The Scoring Problem
Part 4 of 4. Three interviewers, the same candidate, three completely different evaluations — and the loudest voice won the debrief. Four months later: performance plan. The structured scorecard that fixes it.
Show notes & listen - EP 31Jun 29, 2026· 6 min
Eight People, One Demo — Who Are You Talking To?
Part 3 of 4. The single biggest improvement to Ava's hiring quality came from one change — adding a live scenario round. Three scenarios that surface what behavioral questions never will.
Show notes & listen - EP 30Jun 26, 2026· 6 min
I Don't Know — And That's the Right Answer
Part 2 of 4. The bluffer who didn't flinch — and what that moment told us about how he'd behave in front of a customer. Two signals that predict an SE's ceiling: coachability and self-awareness.
Show notes & listen - EP 29Jun 24, 2026· 6 min
Stop Hiring Resumes
Part 1 of 4 on hiring the right SE. The perfect-on-paper hire who fell apart in month three — and the reframe that changed how Ava interviews. Filter for thinking and coachability, not experience and storytelling.
Show notes & listen - EP 28Jun 22, 2026· 7 min
Your AE Won't Brief You — Now What?
Most SE leaders frame the briefing problem as "AEs don't respect our time." The honest reframe: SE teams have to create the demand for the briefing — and build an escalation path for the AEs who never respond.
Show notes & listen - EP 27Jun 19, 2026· 6 min
Just Show Them the Product
When the AE says "the prospect just wants to see the product," don't fight it. Take the meeting — and steal the first fifteen minutes for a mini-discovery that changes the demo on the fly.
Show notes & listen - EP 26Jun 17, 2026· 7 min
Define SE-Qualified — Or Your Calendar Will
An SE org found that 31% of customer-facing hours went to deals that died in stage two. The fix wasn't more discipline — it was a written, agreed-upon definition of what "SE-qualified" means.
Show notes & listen - EP 25Jun 15, 2026· 7 min
I Switched Sides
A former presales leader took a Head of Sales role and discovered the parts of the funnel he never saw before — and the cross-functional changes only an SE-turned-AE-leader can push for.
Show notes & listen - EP 24Jun 12, 2026· 6 min
Score the Call, Not Just the Quarter
An SE leader uses AI to score every customer call on two categories — compelling event and technical win — and aggregates the scores per deal and per SE. The result is leading-indicator data SEs can actually act on.
Show notes & listen - EP 23Jun 10, 2026· 7 min
Two Pillars, One Team
An SE leader running thirty SEs split his enablement into two completely separate tracks — internal product team plus external sales partner — and refused to let one absorb the other.
Show notes & listen - EP 22Jun 8, 2026· 6 min
Thirteen Direct Reports and a Prayer
An SE leader scaled from three to thirteen direct reports in eighteen months before getting team leads approved. By then he wasn't coaching anyone — he was doing triage.
Show notes & listen - EP 21Jun 5, 2026· 6 min
Hire for Domain, Train for Sales
An SE leader scaling from five to twenty SEs stopped hiring from the presales talent pool. His last six hires were former controllers and accountants — and they ramped faster than his traditional SE hires.
Show notes & listen - EP 20Jun 3, 2026· 6 min
Liability Is the Moat
When demos commoditize and AI-first competitors look better on paper, what wins deals? Nate makes the case that accountability is now the durable moat — and explains how SE leaders need to retrain teams to sell it.
Show notes & listen - EP 19Jun 1, 2026· 6 min
Show Me Your Release Cycles, Not Your Roadmap
Ava walks through how she now evaluates every vendor — and why the way she buys software today is exactly how her customers will buy from her tomorrow.
Show notes & listen - EP 18May 29, 2026· 6 min
The GUI Is Dead. Long Live the API.
SaaS vendors are still hiding their API behind the Enterprise tier — and your customers are about to start asking for it. Nate breaks down what API maturity now means for SE leaders, both as buyers of software and as builders of their own p
Show notes & listen - EP 17May 27, 2026· 6 min
Nobody Showed Up — Because You Didn't
Ava sent twelve SEs to a leadership course; six finished. The vendor wasn't the problem — she was. Nate and Ava unpack why training dies without manager reinforcement, and the one move that flips completion from 30% to 80%.
Show notes & listen - EP 16May 22, 2026· 7 min
Fifty Times Faster, Fifty Times Wrong
Nate shares an experiment: two SE teams, same AI demo tool, wildly different results. The difference? A fifteen-minute discovery gate that most teams skip.
Show notes & listen - EP 15May 20, 2026· 6 min
The SE Who Rewired the Team
Ava's team runs on agent orchestration that one of her SEs built on weekends. Nate pushes on the hard leadership questions this raises.
Show notes & listen - EP 14May 18, 2026· 6 min
Prep the People, Not Just the Demo
Your SE ran a dry run, sent a strategy reminder, and built a tight agenda. Five minutes into the demo, an AE went off-script and the whole flow collapsed. Nate and Ava break down why prepping the content isn't enough — and what SE leaders s
Show notes & listen - EP 13May 15, 2026· 6 min
Are We Even Doing the Huddle?
Before you can optimize the pre-demo huddle between your AE and SE, you need to make sure it actually happens. Nate and Ava discuss habit-first, quality-second.
Show notes & listen - EP 12May 13, 2026· 6 min
Your Best SE Has Never Been Coached
What happens when your most experienced SE has been running demos for seven years with zero coaching? Nate and Ava discuss how to start that conversation without breaking trust.
Show notes & listen - EP 11May 11, 2026· 6 min
They Keep Bringing More People
When prospects keep scheduling more demos and bringing new faces, it looks like momentum. But what if the first demo just did not land?
Show notes & listen - EP 10May 8, 2026· 6 min
The Friday After
Ava called all twelve of her SEs eight days after a two-day offsite. She asked one question. Only three could answer. This episode is about the Friday after — where enablement actually happens, and what SE leaders should put on the calendar
Show notes & listen - EP 9May 6, 2026· 5 min
Your Champion Isn't Enough Anymore
In a deal review, Nate asked one of his SE Directors a single question: who's going to be in the room when this gets signed off? She couldn't answer. Four months into the deal, strong champion, and she couldn't name a single other stakehold
Show notes & listen - EP 8May 4, 2026· 5 min
What Am I Actually For?
A six-week-old new hire asked Ava a question she couldn't answer in the moment: if AI does the research, drafts the RFP, handles the standard demo, and now negotiates quotes — what am I actually for? Ava's first answer was good. Nate tells
Show notes & listen - EP 7May 1, 2026· 5 min
You Were Never Actually In That Deal
One of Nate's SE Directors just lost a deal she was convinced she was winning. Three-vendor shortlist, great demo, champion fired up. Week two — gone. Nate explains why the deal was probably lost before it ever showed up in her pipeline, an
Show notes & listen - EP 6Apr 29, 2026· 5 min
I Cancelled Every Technical Deep-Dive
Ava pulled her team out of every standard post-demo technical deep-dive. Her team thought she was insane. Win rates went up. In this episode, she tells Nate what triggered it — and Nate pushes back on the 'cancel them all' framing with a sh
Show notes & listen - EP 5Apr 27, 2026· 7 min
One Skill Per Quarter — That's It
Nate shares the hard lesson that changed how he develops SEs: pick one skill per quarter, go deep, and watch mastery compound.
Show notes & listen - EP 4Apr 24, 2026· 6 min
The One Question That Reveals Everything
Ava reveals the single question that exposes whether a deal is real or just activity — and how going deep on one deal beats going shallow on eight.
Show notes & listen - EP 3Apr 24, 2026· 6 min
How Are You — Really?
Nate and Ava explore why the standard "how are you" check-in fails SE leaders — and what to ask instead to surface real signals before you lose your best people.
Show notes & listen - EP 2Apr 24, 2026· 7 min
Your 1:1s Are Broken — Here's the Fix
Most SE leaders run their one-on-ones the same way: open the pipeline, go deal by deal, close the laptop. Ava shares a structure that changed everything for her team.
Show notes & listen - EP 1Apr 6, 2026· 4 min
Welcome to Leading PreSales
Before Nate and Ava take over, Tim Brömme introduces Leading PreSales. What the show is about, who the characters are, why the voices are AI-generated, and why the experiences behind them are very real.
Show notes & listen