Leah McTiernan is the VP of Solution Engineering of DocuSign. She gained her first experience as a pre-sales solution architect at IBM (formerly Emptoris) before taking on management responsibilities in technical sales and solution engineering. Join Leah and Greg as they discuss why software buyers expect a more self-guided, experiential demo before engaging with sales and pre-sales, the changes presales managers should be taking to meet buyers' expectations, and why. This podcast will get you to think about what you can do to when your prospects want to make decisions on their own with less and less interaction with the seller. But listen to the end, because it will also raise your awareness on the role of Women in Solution Engineering (W.I.S.E), an organization designed to elevate the role of women in this amazing career!
In this podcast, Leah and Greg raise and address a number really important questions:
These type of questions are leading to more and more discussions around innovation, convenience, and effectiveness. Software companies are learning that their prospects want to make decisions on their own. This has introduced the concept of Product-Led Growth - letting prospects experience what it is like to use the software. For relatively simple to use products, this has led to Freemiums and Free Trials. But for more complex, enterprise solutions, this is typically not an option, but that does not change the buyers' desire to learn about a product and see a product before talking to sales. Tailored solution demos are part of the answer.
Buyers want a streamlined, simple process. So do sellers. As software providers, we have a really important role in making this happen.
Connect:
Connect with Leah on LinkedIn and check out DocuSign's website DocuSign.
Connect with Greg on LinkedIn and check out Omedym’s website and their LinkedIn and Twitter
Greg Dickinson: Hey, thanks for joining today. I know you're very, very busy getting ready for q4. So I appreciate you spend the time for us. Before we get into the kind of the topics I know my audience wants to hear more about. tell the audience about yourself and your role at DocuSign.
Leah McTiernan: Sure, I'd love to so thank you for having me on the podcast today. My name is Leah McTiernan. I am the Vice President of solution engineering at DocuSign. Based in Philadelphia, and I joined DocuSign, over six years ago by way of IBM and one story I've been telling a lot lately is when I was at IBM, I was selling source to pay solutions heavily anchored on contract Lifecycle Management. And a lot of the stories that we would tell the demos we would show included DocuSign. And that was like seven, eight years ago. And you know, then I come to DocuSign. Obviously, the company's been incredibly successful. And then we acquire a CLM company from out place my world to come back together again. So you know, with the remote cloud platform was really, you know, had the opportunity to expand beyond the signature back into, you know, contract Lifecycle Management again, which now I'm thrilled about.
Greg Dickinson: Yes, but it's a small world, right? When you say IBM, you, you got the IBM IBM Taurus, and I was the Remi and Taurus. Yeah, so we both have that similar against you all the time. Yeah. He did. I want a loss. So I hope that he can.
Leah McTiernan: I don't know you were good at what you did.
Greg Dickinson: But a lot of things have changed. Right? And that's kind of why I started this podcast, are we talking about what we call the convenience of the convenience rule? The Amazon effect people today? Right? Yeah, you want things, you know, quick, and people want things, you know, digital first is where we want to go, or I don't want to opt in for something I want to on demand, or I'd like to do more and more of the buying journey on my own it. You know, what, what do you think about that? What's your kind of kind of experience with that kind of convenience economy? Those ideas?
Leah McTiernan: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I absolutely agree. I think there has been a shift that started years ago, but just been dramatically accelerated this year. And I'll tell you a funny story. Like I was a pre COVID story, where we want to do a family vacation, my brother in law has a strict rule that he will not buy a product or service if you can't find all the information quickly online. And so as we're planning this vacation, we all love this one hotel is actually in Mexico, but we couldn't figure out meal plans, if they had any kids clubs, and like within a matter of minutes, you know, because we couldn't get this information on the website. We were moved on. We're on to the next one. And so I really do think people want that experience where they can find everything quickly, you know, at their fingertips.
Greg Dickinson: And go, Yeah, that's it. I mean, we've been spoiled. But I think you hit the nail on the head, it's not something to happen overnight. It's been, it's been gradually building where the buyer has more and more assets are more and more ways to get information on their own, we'd kind of Listen, we prefer to do it. If you're going to, you're going to go to a restaurant, you know, you're calling your pizza ordered you go online, in order to course you go online, right. It's just I don't know why that's the nature of the beast, you know, and that's where we are. So how has this has this, I guess I should be fair and asked how has this changed the way you manage? Right? Your teams? You've been managing pre sales and resources for a while? Has it changed? And you have to do things differently?
Leah McTiernan: Yeah. Yeah. I think that I'm being very obviously honest and transparent. I don't think I probably changed. In this area, I think this is an area that it was, you know, the magnifying glass was on a lot of us this year in light of COVID. where I want to be doing more, and I need to be doing more and I'm in a unique position. As you know, we're like the team I lead that supports small medium business all the way to enterprise fortune 100. And when you look at more of that transactional sales motion, the involvement of social engineering or pre sales resources, it can actually sometimes delay or increase the cost of sale unnecessarily. So if a customer just needs one question answered, or to see a quick demo before signing an order form in, we actually have to physically schedule a human body to respond to that verse. You know, being able to point the customer to a portal or the content that's not ideal, and I think we need to be moving faster. And this is an area that you know, at DocuSign, we're evolving tremendously and I'm really bullish about directionally where we're going with this, but I look back and you know if I had a critique myself on this, I'd say probably haven't done enough around this in the last in the last few years.
Greg Dickinson: Okay, that's fair. That's fair. Yeah. Listen, you can't do it all right. I mean, you guys were
Leah McTiernan: being honest.
Greg Dickinson: Yeah. No, no, listen, listen, I get it. And so, you know, you talk a little bit about that remoteness? You know, I read more and more articles that suggest that, you know, because of the virus and COVID, COVID, right, we were forced to this cozy this, this idea of remote selling and not face to face. What's your perspective on? Do you think it's, it's here to stay, because I read the statistics that show that it's almost as effective as the old fashioned you and I getting on an airplane and flying to, you know, Chicago and doing a demo? And then flying back? Right. I mean, what do you overalls you think it's here to stay this remote?
Leah McTiernan: Yeah, yeah. Um, so I do, I think remote demos are here to stay. And I actually will say, I think, on site in person demos when we finally navigate or sell out of a pandemic are here to stay as well. But let me caveat that. And I'll say, for enterprise in particular, I think when companies are spending millions of dollars, to some degree, they want a white glove in person interaction and experience. And on the flip side, the account team supporting that customer wants to strengthen the relationship and partnership, and you just do that better when you're in person. Now, I think what will change and arguably changed dramatically is the number of remote demos, because, again, remote demos are still expensive, you could still have multiple resources, on the phone delivering and supporting those conversations, I think it's how many of those remote demos are going to shift to self service on demand content, and how many of those in person on sites are required to get the deal done? I mean, I can even say now, like, I think you will see a dramatic shift in that. And that ties into again, you look at cost of the sale, the travel the team, the expenses around every single time you would fly out to a customer. It's incredibly expensive. And even again, you know, back to the remote demo like it, there is a cost associated to that. So from from my perspective, you know, we've just seen a massive acceleration on you know, our prospects and customers, they want to, they want to be able to make the decisions themselves as much as possible. And then when you have to get, you know, an account team or sales team evolved to do I think we've just moved that line up significantly. Yeah.
Greg Dickinson: Yeah, I agree. I mean, even back, you know, when I was at high peerless, like, 8, 9, 10 years ago, I remember, you know, I wanted that we was a huge deal with a with a financial services company, that price tag was going to be close to a million and, and, you know, being the CEO, and you know, kind of leading the sales team at the time, so we're so small, so all we have to go on the customers like, well, geez, none of us are here, right? You're gonna fly to Phoenix. But yeah, we're all over the country. So you can come if you want to, but remote will be just as good until we get to the final where they want to look in the eye, right, that kind of relationship building. But early on in the process, they weren't even all in one place. Right. So I think it's been, you know, it's been building because it used to be, you know, everyone from DocuSign was in San Francisco and Seattle. Now you guys have offices all over the world. So if I was selling you something, I wouldn't be able to find all of you in one place. So I agree with your, your kind of your insight into the fact that there's this hybrid will continue, and, you know, more remote. So, you know, the next the next topic I wanted to kind of get your two cents is I know, you're you're a participant in the in the pre sales collective. And I know they talk a lot, you know, kind of a great pre sales organization that your organization helped feed that. And they talk a lot about this product led growth or it experiencial. Right. And the fact that people, buyers, I should say not people buyers want to see the product much earlier in the sales cycle, and they want to, you know, kind of validate and see it more often. Are you seeing that in your, you know, kind of experience with, you know, if you control the resources for demos, are you seeing that, hey, listen, it's meeting number one or meeting number two, and I want to see the product right away. And that does that. And then the second part of the question is, you see that mid market and, and right enterprise because you see both, right? Because you own such a big, big team of people.
Leah McTiernan: Right, right. Right. Right. And I still think, to some degree, it's, you know, I have a couple different angles on this. So one is, I mean, I don't think we never want to lead with product right? And even when we look at and this kind of ties back to the last question, like what, how are you even measuring pre sales effectiveness, right. And a lot of times it's, you know, our conversion rates, but we want to look at, you know, how many touch points does it take to kind of get those those deals over the line? And I think the most efficient selling motion that we see is that there is still, regardless of all the upfront, you know, on demand research a buyer can do, you still need to have the qualifying, you know, in our world discovery conversation to make sure you truly do understand the business challenges, the pain, their process, their tech investments, and what outcomes are they trying to actually drive, then you can tailor, you know, the solution design and the demo presentation to that. And again, as we talk about being more effective, you know, you people at the highest level couldn't do that. This is where I tie back to, you know, the effectiveness, you can do it with less customer touchpoints. And that's what we are trying to drive, right, we shouldn't need to have 29 meetings to get a deal over the line, we should be able to have, you know, three to four, to get a deal over the line. So that's definitely like one aspect of it. And something you can, you know, at least we as an organization, we can manage that we do, we are actually measuring those metrics today. But I also think, though, you think of SAS in general, right, and document is a great example, we're providing a service. And this is more tied to just generally about product growth. The more we can monitor and understand and have KPIs around our customers behavior using the service, the more we can tailor to them. The more we can automate, the more we can invest in the areas we see them getting used. And, you know, again, we're in a position where we can work, there's clear indicators, you know, if someone is over there, transactional volume, or trending ahead, those are almost like, I don't know, if you've heard the term, product qualified leads, but we can use, you know, the data within the product to actually determine when we engage or reach back out. And then you also can pivot that to like in product, communication as well. So it's like the product that is telling us, you know, hey, we see a customer behaving and consistently doing these things, we may want to suggest, like, some additional services, or we may want to suggest proactively, that they try these features that could then also lead them to upsell. So yeah, so there's a combination of things, but I don't so I guess, I don't necessarily think a modern buyer wants to see the product early. And often. To your point, I think they want to do their own research as much as possible. And then when they do engage with a sales team, it's highly efficient, right? It is, you know, you you aren't maybe starting where you were, you know, going back to the sales memberships, like 10, 15 years ago, it's, there's there's dialogue upfront to confirm or perhaps even take a step back and evangelize, you know, what, what the problem on the table is, there's tailored solution demos, to address what their challenges are. And and and that's an you know, that's the it's a qualified cycle, that that can move arguably, a lot faster, and require a lot less touch points.
Greg Dickinson: Yeah, I love it. That's a great summary. That's the way you know, that's what we look at it here, you know, at Omedym in the sense that the buyer, like if I was getting ready to buy a car, I want to do a bunch of work and understand safety, mpg and repair rates and printing, you know, and value of the vehicle over 10 years. But then when it comes time to riight buy, that's when I want to get in the pocket. And I don't want to have the salesperson, right spend 20 minutes telling me about mpg and safety because I already have all that data, right? So I agree with you. And we kind of look at the fact that if someone is doing a self service, kind of, you know, demo through our product, right, that data about what they're looking at, and why they're looking at it, right is very effective for the sales team to them. When you do engage. It's a much more, you know, it's a better engagement, right? higher level engagement and all that other stuff that you know, you and I used to go to a meeting and I'll say me, I shouldn't say you because I don't know that you did it. But I would go to me reserved. Let me tell you about this company and where we come from and where our locations are and all that stuff. And people don't want to hear that anymore. Because they already know that they want to get right into how can you help me solve my problem? And I think you hit the nail on the head right of being a much better, you know, kind of less touch points because now they're they're better touch point. It's a better frame conversation.
Leah McTiernan: Right. I think you could make the argument that a lot of like, I mean, think about how many generic demos and generic overviews and yeah are you literally could probably like hit play right and and and and that that is like the when you Those are the inefficient motions when you look at a sales process that should absolutely shift to this, you know, self service on Yeah, like that. That is the content where you're getting tailored. Yeah.
Greg Dickinson: You're what you're talking about, I could say cuz I'm the host the old show up and throw up demos, right? No good.
Leah McTiernan: Exactly.
Greg Dickinson: And they're over and over and over. And fundamentally right, yeah, I get it, I get it. Oh, that's funny.
Leah McTiernan: And, and it's, and it's been, you know, and it's it's an evil problem, but I think it's taking on, you know, again, just kind of after this, like, insane year we have it's, I think everyone's values their time in a different way. And I I feel like this is where, you know, when I talk about like, you know, adapting and changing the way, you know, I feel like we're trying to lead it's just you have to have the confidence and the in the relationship and the partnership with the field. And I think executives to understand like that this is happening, right? Like, what is the value when we interact with our customers? It needs to be, it needs to be tangible on both sides, right. So again, scheduling, throw up demo, show up and throw up demo after demo. You know, what, what is the value that you know, you know, customers are getting from that first Hey here, like, please educate yourself become informed, let's have now a much better qualifying discovery conversation about where we think you can help. And obviously, we can we read a lot of that, and then we tailor and it's something specific to, you know, where they actually truly what they want to talk about. And that's the efficiency, I think in the effectiveness that we're really trying to drive, you know, within our selling motion, as well.
Greg Dickinson: Yeah, perfect, perfect, good, good transition to the last kind of topic I want to cover and that is right. Yeah, you see some of this. And so obviously, Omedym is seeing some of this as well. But, you know, some companies are moving to an automation of some of the demo process, right. But using portals and PowerPoint storyboards and searchable videos, right, all kinds of different tools that are available right to to help, you know, the pre sales organization. And I'm biased, right? I'm a pre sales person by trade. That's where I got an enterprise sells at Ariba as a pre sales engineer. So once a pre sales engineer always one, and I think that those new technologies that are coming about are not about replacing pre sales, but they're about augmenting pre sales and allowing pre sales to your point, right, being more pointed. Is that how you see it, because I know you have to be inundated as the leader of docu signs, you know, resources with people saying, Oh, we can automate this and automate this and automate this and automate this. And I think it's it has to be viewed as an augmentation, not a replacement. What do you think? great topic?
Leah McTiernan: I agree. I mean, it's like you're trying to answer the question, what can and should be self service? If it's a Yo, ar 2000? Or thousand dollars a year? Do you need a two to three person sales team to secure that like, tiny little bit of revenue? Or do we extend and you know, change the way the salesperson is getting trained on the solutions and Nao NAB, and you have self service? content? portals? I mean, there's so much efficiency, I think that can be driven there. But it's 100%. In my opinion, I think the automation of and I'm with you, too, right? Like preselling? Yeah, I, there's so much automation. And that's why I was, you know, up front, in the beginning, I think I even you know, self critique myself, we have a lot more we can be doing here, and the automation of the demo assets. Because buyers want it to be streamlined. They want it to be simple. And on both sides, right? Like, I think the by the sales, people want that more and more. And again, a salesperson doesn't want to spend, you know, 10 meetings with a customer that's probably maybe not really interested in buying. And so you know, trying to put the right level of content and sales process in place to maximize, you know, all of our time. And the conversations we're having is incredibly important. I mean, I'll tie back to what I said about my brother in law, right? Like, he doesn't want to spend time to speak with someone when he's buying something or but he just wants to do the research, get the answers and be able to make a decision without necessarily having human interaction. And so I think we need to realize and your point on the pizza, right, like, yeah, it's almost like, oh, gosh, I you know, I can't like order this online anymore. Like, forget it, and people are moving on and I think so, you know, obviously with, you know, transactional commoditize you know, products and services like they're already there. I think what will be very interesting now, and to some degree, the speed at which this move moves is unknown, but as we look up market, right and to mid market majors enterprise sales motion, how much and how fast will that change? And what impact has COVID had on that? And, you know, I think things that may have taken another, you know, three, four years to play out, we're gonna see happen, you know, accelerated in like, you know, the next 6, 9, 12 months? For sure. And I think it's a positive I think it's just it's when you look at productivity and efficiencies and just everyone wants to spend their time on worthwhile activities, I think this is all supporting that.
Greg Dickinson: Yeah, yeah. Cuz I kind of look at this whole idea that there's more you know, this is called automated automation or you know, kind of digital transformation, right, a term you your team, your company coined is digital transformation. Yeah, it really helps this pre this qualification process so that the seller kind of helps identify if there really excuse me, the buyer helps qualified, they're really in the market to buy and the seller can wait, right? And a lot if this automation takes place, and then your team is working on right, better qualified leads, I think that's part of the automation, because not every demo converts, right. And I think you can get a higher conversion rate on demos, right? You'd be happier. And so with the buyer and so would the seller?
Leah McTiernan: Yeah, absolutely.
Greg Dickinson: So on the same page there, so hey, listen, in closing, tell me two things. Tell me about the group that you you formed this group wise, W I S E, women in sales engineering, right? Listen, that's fantastic. Um, and tell me more about that. And then give your my audience something they could take back to the audience. So all yours just kind of quick, quick, quick ending on guys. And the lessons learned.
Leah McTiernan: Okay. Um, so WISE, I mean, we could have spent the whole podcast on why's I'm so passionate about it. Y stands for women in solution engineering, it's er g at DocuSign. And it's designed I mean, it was formed because women are underrepresented in the solution engineering career, WISE is specifically designed to help elevate women in the pre sales role. But also, I would say, overall, bring awareness to what an amazing career path This is. And we have many amazing male allies that are helping us do this. And I feel like I said this to James and ug, from pre sales pluses. I feel like there is just a movement going on. That is much bigger than anything I've seen before, in, in, in a lot of what pre sales classes is doing has kind of helped with that. We've just recently launched a global wise programs through the pre sales collective, but I think there is more and more people out there that now understand and acknowledge, you know, at, you know, in college, and even, you know, coming out of college or like, Hey, this is a phenomenal career that I could have. And I think WISE in particular, at least the DocuSign has been doing a great job with that as well.
Greg Dickinson: Great. Well, congrats. You know, I'm just so happy for you. Yeah, I'm not going to spend time going through, you know, my career as a manager of pre sales and the number of, you know, resources that I had that, you know, that pick the right field and moved into this and did a great job. I think it's just, you know, it's something that to bring the light, because for a long time, it was shattered with the fact that it's technical, and therefore, you know, one person milkers, you can't do it. And that's BS.
Leah McTiernan: I agree. It's not right. There's two things, I think it's like people in women in particular, women think that they they need a computer science background or need to write code to do the job, which is not true. And there's a network effect, it's historically been a very male dominated, male driven role. And so when Guess what, when jobs open up, males reach out to their network, which, you know, many times are more male dominated than female. And, you know, that's who we're hiring from. And those pools have just grown and developed. So what we're really doing is trying to change the game on that. And maybe in the same vein, I will from a lesson learned or something your audience can kind of something else that your audience could take back with them. And I know your audiences, yeah, executives across many different organizations. But something else I'm very passionate about that I think goes hand in hand with WISE is really myself as a leader. And I would encourage everyone out in the audience that's in a similar position to do your part and continuing to make our workforce more diverse. I again, when I think of COVID-19, and like a pot of like a possible positive outcome of it is that it all made us sit in our houses long enough to slow down when we witnessed the George Ford video and George Floyd video and it touched something inside all of us. And so I'm more motivated than ever to drive change and At DocuSign, and I, you know, I would encourage all the amazing leaders in your audience if there's anything that they can do to also make a difference to make our workforce more diverse. Please do.
Greg Dickinson: Yeah, I with you. I mean, there's so many problems in this world that you that if you could figure out a way to make work a little bit smoother, a little bit better for everybody, not just a few, but for everybody, I think at the end of the day, right, we spend a lot more time at work sometimes, and we do, you know, outside of work. So I think work could be that that one area where we all work together, after all, you're at work for the common goal of driving value to your customers, and therefore, you know, reciprocating that value to your organization. So, hey, we I know, you know, you've got a massive job. And my hat's off to you that job you continue and through this huge onslaught of growth of DocuSign because it was, you know, because of this unfortunate right situation that we're in with the virus, but thanks for taking the time to join us today. And it was great talking to you. I really enjoyed it.
Leah McTiernan: Thanks for having me, Greg. Take care.
Greg Dickinson: All right. Take care.
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