GTM teams are facing one of the most challenging sales environments I can remember. All stages of the funnel are harder to break through, extending cycles and creating tough environments for growth. According to Gong’s Annual State of Revenue Report, growth has decelerated 3 points year over year for US organizations.
This crossroads seems to be driven by three major forces.
AI, which seems to be a bit of a double-edged sword of optimism based on the massive potential, but also a point of fear and apprehension based on the unknown. An executive buyer told me directly, “Why would I sign an annual contract for an AI solution when it’s moving so fast? I can’t be locked in for a year when I don’t know what might be out there in 6 months.”
SaaS Burnout over the past 15 years is a real thing. For all the good and progress that came from SaaS there is another reality. SaaS made some big, bold claims and promises that it would deliver tangible results. In many cases, it did not. Executive buyers got burned by decisions they made in SaaS, many times left holding the bag on massive contracts with little to show for it.
The attention economy has made opening the hardest part of the sales cycle. We talked about this explicitly with Scott Albro and Craig Rosenberg on an upcoming podcast (spoiler alert). There is so much noise out there across all GTM channels it’s become incredibly hard to stand out and open doors into new cycles. Capturing attention is a premium.
So where do we go from here? Forward Deployed Engineers.
It’s a hot topic in GTM, but what does it really mean? Like many things, what’s old is new, the Forward Deployed Engineer is no different. I remember sitting in an ABM workshop in 2016 with the aforementioned Craig Rosenberg when he talked about bringing your buyer as close to the end of the sales cycle as possible in the beginning.
The concept being if you are targeting an account, bring the good stuff forward. The research, discovery, sales engineering and the value model. Do the work first, then use it to get in the door. The idea was that if you can get 80% of the way through your sales process before you talk to the customer when you approach them you are delivering insight, proof of concept and value estimation before the first meeting, imagine what it could look like after an informed meeting with an executive?
This was one of the core tenets of true account-based marketing. Making huge investments into a target account before the first meeting. Doing so increases the likelihood of obtaining the first meeting and the conversion.
Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) is a similar concept. Accounting for the GTM headwinds outlined, AI, SaaS burnout, and the attention economy FDE is a play to bring the value forward in a deal by leveraging late-stage resources early in a cycle. That simply means your buyer is looking for proof, the value model alone is not enough to pull the deal across the line. FDE is a blend of traditional sales engineering, value modeling, and product deployment. What this looks like in practice application.
You must get access to your prospects’ data. Value models built on anecdotal data don’t work anymore. That means implementing your product or portions of your product to extract data up front. Then analyze that data to identify clear insights and opportunities delivered by your product. You now have tangible inputs for a value model.
The Value Model: Insight -> Cost of Insight -> Value Lever -> Solution -> Cost of Solution -> ROI
Even with real data the value model is not enough, modeling the new world workflow is just as important. Executives need the value model, but those responsible for implementation and deployment need to visibly see how it’s going to work in their environment. The best example I can share is from a recent healthcare deal in the portfolio. We mapped a “typical” patient journey in their space, then worked with them to edit to their specific environment. Once we had a green light on the journey, our engineering team met with theirs to map use cases for our solution, explicitly overlaid into their patient journey. We used a simple green, yellow, red methodology outline fit.
Green = Use case is a perfect fit for our solution
Yellow = fit with customization
Red = not a fit today, roadmap use case
This allows both of our teams to visually see how much use case coverage there is and the lift to close any gaps. Both parties can decide together if what is covered in green is enough or if we have to explore the list, cost, and timeline for yellow and red elements in order for us to make a deal.
These are things that happen late in cycles traditionally, now they are moving way up in the cycle for proof that a deal is even worth exploring, but in an FDE model, this is not the end of the cycle. Buyers are looking for safety and proof based on the headwinds outlined above. The next component is literally going into a deployment cycle. POCs and Pilot programs are at an all-time high in today’s selling environment. Planning for and moving those offerings into the sales cycle are critical for GTM planning. That impacts revenue forecasting and company resourcing, but it has not only become a requirement for buyers but when done well and orchestrated as a part of the sales process a true differentiator.
These deployment POCs must be time-boxed, with success criteria agreed upon and a full conversion commitment. This is where the value model and the engineering model come into play. The key use cases, value of those use cases, and lift to deploy them should be very clear at this point. POCs should be deployed against a single use case with a value creation metric tied to it over a predetermined period of time. Those become contractual terms in the agreement with an auto conversion into typical sales terms upon successful deployment of the POC.
Here’s the big rub. Once that deal is signed, the sales cycle is not over; sales and engineering must deploy a coordinated implementation effort that tracks every stage, identifies risks, communicates them to the prospect, and works to overcome them in real time. Accountability is key here, and without a clear plan for the POC, they will fail. This portco deployed a POC tracker, which is an accountability guide managed by the AE who has the deal on the line.
The headwinds in GTM are real, quota attainment is down, growth is slowing, and frankly, capital is becoming harder to come by. AI apprehension, SaaS burnout, and the audience economy have pushed sales organizations to stand out, deliver more value, and PROVE that what they say isn’t just lip service. The Forward Deployed Engineering model is a play to overcome those challenges by delivering value early and often. Think of it as a shift; the best sellers will gravitate towards this model, and it will help to build a far more stable pipeline.
