Pre-sales

Presales is a process or a set of activities/sales normally carried out before a customer is acquired, though sometimes presales also extends into the period the product or service is delivered to the customer. The sale of service or goods before its release date generally has a discount rate greater than 50%, this is done as the producer wants to assess the market's willingness to pay and buy the product due to the risk factor being very high.

Presales are done usually due to the business in question who offer goods or services, unsure of the markets willingness to buy the product or service in question. The use of presales gives an educated overview of sales made due to presales and an educated guess of future sales. This marketing technique helps insure a more concentrated number of goods or services needed/wanted so that the company/business does not exhaust resources in goods or services when they are not being utilized, thereby causing waste and loss in profits. Example of this would be presales in video games; games are advertised over many media channels to help promote and increase likability to its target demographic. Presales usually offer extra content or merchandise which would normally be of high price for free, thereby increasing the perceived value of this product. This gives the manufacturer/company of how many units to produce, already knowing the return on releasing the video game.

In a typical sales cycle, the stages are:

The task of a presales person starts from the initial contact phase and often ends once the customer has been acquired i.e. sale is made. In some cases, pre-sales also will provide some initial or post-sale transitional support.

The responsibilities differ from organization to organization but in general include:

The Software Industry and IT Services Industry provide a vital and significant role for presales professionals. The role of presales falls right in the middle marrying the customer needs to the (provider) company's services or products. This role is especially crucial in these industries because the products and services are often heavily customizable and also because the requirements of different customers are often unique. The presales professional thus understands what the customer needs, develops an initial view of the solution the customer needs, then tailors the product or service of his company to meet what the customer needs, explains (or helps sell) this solution to the customer, helps close the deal or sale and often stays on to ensure that the delivery team or product specialists that follow him provide the intended solution.

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Wikipedia