Case Studies CHG-MERIDIAN
>Customer Story · CHG-MERIDIAN
“My First Customer Is the Account Manager”
No one at CHG-MERIDIAN is obliged to bring PreSales into a deal. Seven months into the Trusted Advisor Academy, account managers pull the team in more than ever — and the revenue PreSales touches is up 12%.
- CHG-MERIDIAN — technology asset management & financing
- PreSales Central Europe — a 16-person team
- Jörn Wozny, Head of PreSales Central Europe
- Trusted Advisor Academy since January 2026 — 6+1 seats
6 + 1
Academy seats, six PreSales experts in the team track, plus Jörn in the leadership track
+12%
PreSales-attached revenue, the business volume PreSales is involved in — after seven months in the Academy
0
Obligation to involve PreSales, account managers pull the team in voluntarily — now significantly more often
>Two minutes with Jörn
The whole story, in his own words.
Prefer to read? The full story continues below.
>The Challenge
The expertise was never the problem. The direction was.
Jörn Wozny took over a team of sixteen — diverse roles, diverse expertise, diverse products — and spent the first year and a half building something it had never had: one shared strategy. Then came the harder part. A strategy on paper doesn't automatically get sixteen people speaking the same language, pulling in the same direction, and pointing every customer conversation toward the desired result.
And CHG-MERIDIAN isn't a SaaS company — its software is a means to an end, there to manage the devices customers rent or finance worldwide. A programme built purely around software demos would have missed this team entirely.
We were very strong in technological and process expertise — but not as focused on understanding what actually drives the customer in front of us.
Head of PreSales Central Europe, CHG-MERIDIAN
>Inside the Programme
Mindset first. Methods second.
01
Continuity over events
Not a one-time training, not a training week with a follow-up — a companion over at least twelve months, because behaviour doesn't change any other way.
02
Mindset before methods
Understand the customer and help them make an informed decision — understanding the solution is the second step. “In the past, we usually did it the other way around.”
03
Taken by the hand
Jörn runs the leadership track, six of his team the Academy track. When a deep-dive demo track didn't fit the non-SaaS reality, engagement data flagged it and a call re-routed the path — a skeptic became a regular.
>What Changed
Chosen, not mandated.
Account managers pull PreSales into deals — voluntarily
There is no rule requiring it, which makes the trend unambiguous: the team is brought into significantly more deals, because sales sees the value of having it in the room.
Conversations end in decisions, not silence
Every conversation aims at a decision basis: yes, no, or a justified no — anything but the no-decision nobody can explain. The team chases the next opportunity, not deals that were never going to close.
Customers photograph the whiteboard
Workshops end with customers taking pictures of what was built together — to show their boss, to keep working on. “That wasn't a sales show — that actually helped me.”
AI reads between the lines
Transcript analysis against the team's own prompts. Green checkmarks weren't enough — new prompts compare what a customer said with how they meant it, pushing customer focus another level deeper.
>Why the Academy
“The programme is simply different from anything else on the market. A change in how people act and behave — you don't get that from a one-time training. It has to be continuous. That's why it's a companion over at least twelve months.”
Jörn Wozny — Head of PreSales Central Europe, CHG-MERIDIAN
>Jörn's Advice to SE Leaders
Saddle the horse from the other side.
Look at how your team thinks, not just what it knows
Start with an honest look at how the team works and thinks. Technical expertise is an asset — but only once it points at what the customer wants to achieve.
Saddle the horse from the other side
Stop explaining company, product, and solution and hoping the customer maps it to their business. Ask first what they want to achieve — “then the product questions come from the customer all by themselves.”
Think in years, not trainings
Two or three trainings spaced months apart won't change behaviour. Everyone knows it — and still, “you sometimes believe that because you've run a training, you've done your duty.”
Nobody has to bring your PreSales team into a deal.
The question is whether sales wants to. Build a team account managers pull in — every week, on real deals, with expert feedback.
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