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Solution Consultants are the perfect cross-functional players: With a strong mix of business acumen and technical skills, we are constantly pulled into company initiatives spanning from go-to-market, product, technology, customer success, and many others.
But how do we help our teams understand what’s expected from them? How can we empower them to know when to say “yes’ confidently and when it’s best to say “no” even if it initially feels uncomfortable? As it’s often said, strategy is deciding what to do and, even more importantly, deciding what not to do.
Optimising time and resources is key to everyone's success, but even more so in the current market where leaders have an increasingly intense pressure on margins and are asked to do more with less.
In this article, you’ll find how at Onfido we built more clarity around the role of Solution Consultants, what we defined as our priorities and main metrics for success, and how we distributed the plan to the team and across the company to ensure clear messaging and collaboration, with particular attention to employee engagement and career opportunities.
The SC Role: Four Pillars
The responsibilities of Solution Consultants can vary across different companies. In Onfido, the team is a pure PreSales organisation; the primary measure for success (and commission calculation!) is the region’s new and expansion bookings and the contract value with a client.
With this in mind, we identified four pillars that shape a Solution Consultant’s success:
- Drive sales
- Improve the product
- Learn and help each other
- Own your career
We detailed every pillar with clear actions and measurable goals, which we’ll discuss below.
Pillar #1: Drive Sales
This is quite self-explanatory, however the actual role and main responsibility of an SE isn’t always clear to every department. We’re seen as the people that can come and save the day regardless of the circumstance, but that means our teams often risk losing focus of the important task at hand: helping the company to close new business.
There are three actions we identified as key to succeed on this pillar:
- Engage with customers. This is the single most impactful action an SC can do. Talk with your prospects and customers to understand the market. We measured that an SC should have between five and 15 customer-facing meetings per week, to which you also need to allocate time for prep and follow-up work.
- Align and work with your AEs. Onfido works with a direct mapping AE:SC. Every SC will know which AEs to work with daily, and building the right collaboration rhythm with them is essential. Essential to success are weekly one-on-ones for territory review and planning, thorough preparation of client interactions and account plans, debriefing, and clear ownership of follow-ups after meetings.
- Own your territory. Thanks to the mapping, every SE will naturally have a portfolio of accounts that defines their territory, of which they should measure performance and activity. Every opportunity with an active trial, closing date in the current or following month, and above a certain size must have an SC who proactively works on closing the deal. We’ve built a dashboard that measures key territory metrics, like the number of days in the “technical validation” stage, conversion rate, and closed-lost reasons.
Pillar #2: Improve the Product
Solution Consultants collect customer feedback and bring it back to the product team. They talk with clients daily and feel first-hand the pain of losing an opportunity for a product gap. Success in this pillar means:
- Owning the customer’s use case and being able to present it internally to demonstrate the impact and value.
- Logging product gaps in a centralised place, agreed upon with the product team (many tools can help). It’s especially important for closed-lost opportunities to have their identified gap tagged with the name and size of the opportunity to help prioritise the roadmap. In case the feature is built, this will also allow us to reach out to the prospective client and re-engage them easily.
- Ensuring every product or feature has one SC as the subject matter expert (SME) and champion. The SME’s responsibility is to spread knowledge about the topic to the rest of the team and work collaboratively to ensure product-market fit and a clear path to bring a product to market.
Pillar #3: Learn and Help Each Other
Sales is a team sport, and a successful SC is at the centre of this team. Writing down and sharing knowledge is key for the success of both the individual and the team, and everyone is expected to do their part on this, regardless of seniority level. Some key actions we have taken on this are:
- Deal reviews: Quarterly, we regroup as a global team to review the most interesting won and lost deals of the quarter, with the assigned SC presenting to the group.
- Feedback: We have a monthly “shadow circle,” where SCs are randomly paired together to shadow each other in one call and provide feedback.
- Learn and share: We organised a bi-weekly meeting for SCs and others who want to join (often onboarding, CSMs, and other departments), where one SC will discuss a topic of choice in a session they organise and lead. Typically, this would be a product capability, a specific solution, or a market trend.
Pillar #4: Own Your Career
This last task is individual and extremely important to ensure the right motivation for the team. We perform at our best when we have a clear direction and objective, and our career will grow only if we intentionally dedicate time to it.
On top of standard performance review cycles, Onfido’s SC team has built an “Ongoing Personal Development” framework. This framework gives the ownership to the individual to identify their development plan, and clarifies the team lead role to facilitate the plan. This person is also encouraged to explore coaching and mentoring opportunities outside the SE organisation — and even outside the company.
How We Built and Distributed the Playbook, and What’s Next
A critical element of this initiative is how it was built and shared across the team and company. We decided to write it collaboratively. During two team meetings, individuals shared thoughts and ideas and contributed with their view of the role. Then the SC team leads wrote a first draft, which, once discussed and approved by the leadership team, got distributed to the SC team. Everyone was then free to share thoughts and comments on the document, which became richer in content.
Once this internal team effort was completed, we confirmed alignment, and then it was time to roll it out to stakeholders. We prepared a distilled version and ensured we had a dedicated slot in the upcoming sales meetings and QBRs to discuss it with sales counterparts. We shared the document with Onfido’s executive team, as well as other leaders and teams, starting with the product team and customer success.
This, for us, is a living document that we review yearly, and every SC should keep it as a guideline when seeking clarity on the expectation for their role. The plan is to match these activities to the career ladder, to align the measurement of outcomes and behaviours to these four pillars, and give everyone a clear path to success — even in these turbulent times!
As this blog states, it's time to own your career and dedicate time to it. If you haven't already, register for the Modern SC Summit happening March 15th! Don't miss out on this unique opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed in the fast-paced world of PreSales
About the Authors:
About Andrea Bondi, VP Global Solutions Engineering at Onfido
Andrea started his career as a software engineer and has worked in a variety of professional fields. From his experience in politics as deputy mayor of his town (Imola, near Bologna) to being a TV presenter, he went off to work for US multinationals like Gartner and PayPal, as well as smaller startups and scale-ups. He now leads the global solution engineering team at Onfido, where, along with his team, he experiments new ways to expand the value that Solution Consultants can bring to an organization.
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About Roberto Carisi, Senior Manager EMEA Solutions Engineering
Roberto is a seasoned leader with a strong background in solutions consulting and product management. Having worked for innovators like PayPal and Prime Video, as well as being the former multi-channel innovation lead for Amazon Pay, he has developed exceptional strategic thinking and leadership skills. Currently, Roberto leads the solution engineering team in EMEA for Onfido, where he continues to drive innovation and inspire his team to reach new heights. Outside of work, he's a travel enthusiast and recently visited his 55th country, Iceland. His highlight? The unforgettable experience of walking inside the freshly formed moulin of a glacier.
Solution Consultants are the perfect cross-functional players: With a strong mix of business acumen and technical skills, we are constantly pulled into company initiatives spanning from go-to-market, product, technology, customer success, and many others.
But how do we help our teams understand what’s expected from them? How can we empower them to know when to say “yes’ confidently and when it’s best to say “no” even if it initially feels uncomfortable? As it’s often said, strategy is deciding what to do and, even more importantly, deciding what not to do.
Optimising time and resources is key to everyone's success, but even more so in the current market where leaders have an increasingly intense pressure on margins and are asked to do more with less.
In this article, you’ll find how at Onfido we built more clarity around the role of Solution Consultants, what we defined as our priorities and main metrics for success, and how we distributed the plan to the team and across the company to ensure clear messaging and collaboration, with particular attention to employee engagement and career opportunities.
The SC Role: Four Pillars
The responsibilities of Solution Consultants can vary across different companies. In Onfido, the team is a pure PreSales organisation; the primary measure for success (and commission calculation!) is the region’s new and expansion bookings and the contract value with a client.
With this in mind, we identified four pillars that shape a Solution Consultant’s success:
- Drive sales
- Improve the product
- Learn and help each other
- Own your career
We detailed every pillar with clear actions and measurable goals, which we’ll discuss below.
Pillar #1: Drive Sales
This is quite self-explanatory, however the actual role and main responsibility of an SE isn’t always clear to every department. We’re seen as the people that can come and save the day regardless of the circumstance, but that means our teams often risk losing focus of the important task at hand: helping the company to close new business.
There are three actions we identified as key to succeed on this pillar:
- Engage with customers. This is the single most impactful action an SC can do. Talk with your prospects and customers to understand the market. We measured that an SC should have between five and 15 customer-facing meetings per week, to which you also need to allocate time for prep and follow-up work.
- Align and work with your AEs. Onfido works with a direct mapping AE:SC. Every SC will know which AEs to work with daily, and building the right collaboration rhythm with them is essential. Essential to success are weekly one-on-ones for territory review and planning, thorough preparation of client interactions and account plans, debriefing, and clear ownership of follow-ups after meetings.
- Own your territory. Thanks to the mapping, every SE will naturally have a portfolio of accounts that defines their territory, of which they should measure performance and activity. Every opportunity with an active trial, closing date in the current or following month, and above a certain size must have an SC who proactively works on closing the deal. We’ve built a dashboard that measures key territory metrics, like the number of days in the “technical validation” stage, conversion rate, and closed-lost reasons.
Pillar #2: Improve the Product
Solution Consultants collect customer feedback and bring it back to the product team. They talk with clients daily and feel first-hand the pain of losing an opportunity for a product gap. Success in this pillar means:
- Owning the customer’s use case and being able to present it internally to demonstrate the impact and value.
- Logging product gaps in a centralised place, agreed upon with the product team (many tools can help). It’s especially important for closed-lost opportunities to have their identified gap tagged with the name and size of the opportunity to help prioritise the roadmap. In case the feature is built, this will also allow us to reach out to the prospective client and re-engage them easily.
- Ensuring every product or feature has one SC as the subject matter expert (SME) and champion. The SME’s responsibility is to spread knowledge about the topic to the rest of the team and work collaboratively to ensure product-market fit and a clear path to bring a product to market.
Pillar #3: Learn and Help Each Other
Sales is a team sport, and a successful SC is at the centre of this team. Writing down and sharing knowledge is key for the success of both the individual and the team, and everyone is expected to do their part on this, regardless of seniority level. Some key actions we have taken on this are:
- Deal reviews: Quarterly, we regroup as a global team to review the most interesting won and lost deals of the quarter, with the assigned SC presenting to the group.
- Feedback: We have a monthly “shadow circle,” where SCs are randomly paired together to shadow each other in one call and provide feedback.
- Learn and share: We organised a bi-weekly meeting for SCs and others who want to join (often onboarding, CSMs, and other departments), where one SC will discuss a topic of choice in a session they organise and lead. Typically, this would be a product capability, a specific solution, or a market trend.
Pillar #4: Own Your Career
This last task is individual and extremely important to ensure the right motivation for the team. We perform at our best when we have a clear direction and objective, and our career will grow only if we intentionally dedicate time to it.
On top of standard performance review cycles, Onfido’s SC team has built an “Ongoing Personal Development” framework. This framework gives the ownership to the individual to identify their development plan, and clarifies the team lead role to facilitate the plan. This person is also encouraged to explore coaching and mentoring opportunities outside the SE organisation — and even outside the company.
How We Built and Distributed the Playbook, and What’s Next
A critical element of this initiative is how it was built and shared across the team and company. We decided to write it collaboratively. During two team meetings, individuals shared thoughts and ideas and contributed with their view of the role. Then the SC team leads wrote a first draft, which, once discussed and approved by the leadership team, got distributed to the SC team. Everyone was then free to share thoughts and comments on the document, which became richer in content.
Once this internal team effort was completed, we confirmed alignment, and then it was time to roll it out to stakeholders. We prepared a distilled version and ensured we had a dedicated slot in the upcoming sales meetings and QBRs to discuss it with sales counterparts. We shared the document with Onfido’s executive team, as well as other leaders and teams, starting with the product team and customer success.
This, for us, is a living document that we review yearly, and every SC should keep it as a guideline when seeking clarity on the expectation for their role. The plan is to match these activities to the career ladder, to align the measurement of outcomes and behaviours to these four pillars, and give everyone a clear path to success — even in these turbulent times!
As this blog states, it's time to own your career and dedicate time to it. If you haven't already, register for the Modern SC Summit happening March 15th! Don't miss out on this unique opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed in the fast-paced world of PreSales
About the Authors:
About Andrea Bondi, VP Global Solutions Engineering at Onfido
Andrea started his career as a software engineer and has worked in a variety of professional fields. From his experience in politics as deputy mayor of his town (Imola, near Bologna) to being a TV presenter, he went off to work for US multinationals like Gartner and PayPal, as well as smaller startups and scale-ups. He now leads the global solution engineering team at Onfido, where, along with his team, he experiments new ways to expand the value that Solution Consultants can bring to an organization.
About Roberto Carisi, Senior Manager EMEA Solutions Engineering
Roberto is a seasoned leader with a strong background in solutions consulting and product management. Having worked for innovators like PayPal and Prime Video, as well as being the former multi-channel innovation lead for Amazon Pay, he has developed exceptional strategic thinking and leadership skills. Currently, Roberto leads the solution engineering team in EMEA for Onfido, where he continues to drive innovation and inspire his team to reach new heights. Outside of work, he's a travel enthusiast and recently visited his 55th country, Iceland. His highlight? The unforgettable experience of walking inside the freshly formed moulin of a glacier.
Solution Consultants are the perfect cross-functional players: With a strong mix of business acumen and technical skills, we are constantly pulled into company initiatives spanning from go-to-market, product, technology, customer success, and many others.
But how do we help our teams understand what’s expected from them? How can we empower them to know when to say “yes’ confidently and when it’s best to say “no” even if it initially feels uncomfortable? As it’s often said, strategy is deciding what to do and, even more importantly, deciding what not to do.
Optimising time and resources is key to everyone's success, but even more so in the current market where leaders have an increasingly intense pressure on margins and are asked to do more with less.
In this article, you’ll find how at Onfido we built more clarity around the role of Solution Consultants, what we defined as our priorities and main metrics for success, and how we distributed the plan to the team and across the company to ensure clear messaging and collaboration, with particular attention to employee engagement and career opportunities.
The SC Role: Four Pillars
The responsibilities of Solution Consultants can vary across different companies. In Onfido, the team is a pure PreSales organisation; the primary measure for success (and commission calculation!) is the region’s new and expansion bookings and the contract value with a client.
With this in mind, we identified four pillars that shape a Solution Consultant’s success:
- Drive sales
- Improve the product
- Learn and help each other
- Own your career
We detailed every pillar with clear actions and measurable goals, which we’ll discuss below.
Pillar #1: Drive Sales
This is quite self-explanatory, however the actual role and main responsibility of an SE isn’t always clear to every department. We’re seen as the people that can come and save the day regardless of the circumstance, but that means our teams often risk losing focus of the important task at hand: helping the company to close new business.
There are three actions we identified as key to succeed on this pillar:
- Engage with customers. This is the single most impactful action an SC can do. Talk with your prospects and customers to understand the market. We measured that an SC should have between five and 15 customer-facing meetings per week, to which you also need to allocate time for prep and follow-up work.
- Align and work with your AEs. Onfido works with a direct mapping AE:SC. Every SC will know which AEs to work with daily, and building the right collaboration rhythm with them is essential. Essential to success are weekly one-on-ones for territory review and planning, thorough preparation of client interactions and account plans, debriefing, and clear ownership of follow-ups after meetings.
- Own your territory. Thanks to the mapping, every SE will naturally have a portfolio of accounts that defines their territory, of which they should measure performance and activity. Every opportunity with an active trial, closing date in the current or following month, and above a certain size must have an SC who proactively works on closing the deal. We’ve built a dashboard that measures key territory metrics, like the number of days in the “technical validation” stage, conversion rate, and closed-lost reasons.
Pillar #2: Improve the Product
Solution Consultants collect customer feedback and bring it back to the product team. They talk with clients daily and feel first-hand the pain of losing an opportunity for a product gap. Success in this pillar means:
- Owning the customer’s use case and being able to present it internally to demonstrate the impact and value.
- Logging product gaps in a centralised place, agreed upon with the product team (many tools can help). It’s especially important for closed-lost opportunities to have their identified gap tagged with the name and size of the opportunity to help prioritise the roadmap. In case the feature is built, this will also allow us to reach out to the prospective client and re-engage them easily.
- Ensuring every product or feature has one SC as the subject matter expert (SME) and champion. The SME’s responsibility is to spread knowledge about the topic to the rest of the team and work collaboratively to ensure product-market fit and a clear path to bring a product to market.
Pillar #3: Learn and Help Each Other
Sales is a team sport, and a successful SC is at the centre of this team. Writing down and sharing knowledge is key for the success of both the individual and the team, and everyone is expected to do their part on this, regardless of seniority level. Some key actions we have taken on this are:
- Deal reviews: Quarterly, we regroup as a global team to review the most interesting won and lost deals of the quarter, with the assigned SC presenting to the group.
- Feedback: We have a monthly “shadow circle,” where SCs are randomly paired together to shadow each other in one call and provide feedback.
- Learn and share: We organised a bi-weekly meeting for SCs and others who want to join (often onboarding, CSMs, and other departments), where one SC will discuss a topic of choice in a session they organise and lead. Typically, this would be a product capability, a specific solution, or a market trend.
Pillar #4: Own Your Career
This last task is individual and extremely important to ensure the right motivation for the team. We perform at our best when we have a clear direction and objective, and our career will grow only if we intentionally dedicate time to it.
On top of standard performance review cycles, Onfido’s SC team has built an “Ongoing Personal Development” framework. This framework gives the ownership to the individual to identify their development plan, and clarifies the team lead role to facilitate the plan. This person is also encouraged to explore coaching and mentoring opportunities outside the SE organisation — and even outside the company.
How We Built and Distributed the Playbook, and What’s Next
A critical element of this initiative is how it was built and shared across the team and company. We decided to write it collaboratively. During two team meetings, individuals shared thoughts and ideas and contributed with their view of the role. Then the SC team leads wrote a first draft, which, once discussed and approved by the leadership team, got distributed to the SC team. Everyone was then free to share thoughts and comments on the document, which became richer in content.
Once this internal team effort was completed, we confirmed alignment, and then it was time to roll it out to stakeholders. We prepared a distilled version and ensured we had a dedicated slot in the upcoming sales meetings and QBRs to discuss it with sales counterparts. We shared the document with Onfido’s executive team, as well as other leaders and teams, starting with the product team and customer success.
This, for us, is a living document that we review yearly, and every SC should keep it as a guideline when seeking clarity on the expectation for their role. The plan is to match these activities to the career ladder, to align the measurement of outcomes and behaviours to these four pillars, and give everyone a clear path to success — even in these turbulent times!
As this blog states, it's time to own your career and dedicate time to it. If you haven't already, register for the Modern SC Summit happening March 15th! Don't miss out on this unique opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed in the fast-paced world of PreSales
About the Authors:
About Andrea Bondi, VP Global Solutions Engineering at Onfido
Andrea started his career as a software engineer and has worked in a variety of professional fields. From his experience in politics as deputy mayor of his town (Imola, near Bologna) to being a TV presenter, he went off to work for US multinationals like Gartner and PayPal, as well as smaller startups and scale-ups. He now leads the global solution engineering team at Onfido, where, along with his team, he experiments new ways to expand the value that Solution Consultants can bring to an organization.
About Roberto Carisi, Senior Manager EMEA Solutions Engineering
Roberto is a seasoned leader with a strong background in solutions consulting and product management. Having worked for innovators like PayPal and Prime Video, as well as being the former multi-channel innovation lead for Amazon Pay, he has developed exceptional strategic thinking and leadership skills. Currently, Roberto leads the solution engineering team in EMEA for Onfido, where he continues to drive innovation and inspire his team to reach new heights. Outside of work, he's a travel enthusiast and recently visited his 55th country, Iceland. His highlight? The unforgettable experience of walking inside the freshly formed moulin of a glacier.
