How to Lower Customer Acquisition Costs by Prioritizing the Right Opportunities

At Reprise, we obsess over helping solutions engineers in their jobs. In recent blogs, we’ve unpacked how solution engineers can add value to the go-to-market process, offering advice around topics like how to avoid single-threaded influence, how to track SE influence on revenue, and how SEs can impact customer acquisition costs (CAC). 

In this post, we’ll double-click on that last one, focusing on one particular way solution engineers can lower customer acquisition costs: by prioritizing the right opportunities.

The SE’s Impact on Sales Efficiency and Customer Acquisition Cost

When it comes to lowering CAC, most companies look at marketing spend and sales efficiency. But how often do SEs get considered?

Not nearly enough.

SEs are a scarce and valuable resource. When they engage with the right opportunities, they accelerate deal cycles and improve win rates. Their involvement can make or break a deal. On the flip side, when SEs’ time is spread too thin — either on poorly qualified deals or unnecessary demos — CAC rises and sales efficiency suffers.

When SEs operate strategically, they prioritize high-value opportunities rather than react to every demo request. That directly lowers CAC.

The Cost of Misaligned SE Resources

Every time an SE gets involved in a deal, there’s an opportunity cost (no pun intended 🤓). Sometimes the cost is worth it. If it’s a qualified opportunity, an ICP prospect, and there’s been sufficient discovery, SEs can add immense value. But when SEs are tapped too often or too early, there are ramifications:

• Time is wasted on low-fit prospects who were never likely to buy.
• SE burnout increases, reducing their energy and mental capacity to support high-value opportunities.
• Sales cycles lengthen as SEs are spread too thin, getting pulled into unnecessary demos and technical deep dives that create bottlenecks across the team.
• The SE-to-sales ratio worsens, requiring more SE hires to keep up with demand.

One of the biggest mistakes companies make is treating SEs as demo jockeys, available for any prospect that asks. Instead, SEs should be allocated strategically, focusing on deals that truly need their expertise.

How SEs Can Prioritize the Right Deals to Lower Customer Acquisition Costs

To reduce CAC, SEs need to be structured in the way they qualify opportunities and determine which deals they spend time on. Look for strong buying signals, use proven qualification frameworks, and foster tight collaboration with AEs.

Align SE Effort to Buying Signals

First, SEs should look at lead source data as well as early engagements to vet those worth spending energy on. Not all inbound demo requests deserve immediate SE attention. Instead, SE teams should prioritize:

• Prospects who engage with self-serve demos, product tours, or other technical content, indicating real interest.
• Opportunities with strong product-led growth (PLG) signals, such as active free trial users.
• Accounts that match high-conversion customer profiles, based on past closed-won deals.

Once high value leads have been flagged, SEs and sales can work together to validate opportunities even further by applying a qualification framework. 

Use Qualification Frameworks

There are many sales qualification frameworks that help teams qualify prospects most likely to convert, helping to align allocation of resources and shorten cycles. SE teams that take a regimented approach to applying one of these frameworks invest their time and energy where it matters, which ultimately reduces CAC. Here are a few sales qualification frameworks that have proven to be effective.

MEDDIC: Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion

The MEDDIC framework guides teams through a series of qualification questions aimed at building a strong technical and business case in order to accelerate deal close, improve sales forecasts, and maximize revenue potential. This approach tends to work well in longer, complex sales cycles with multiple stakeholders. 

Established in the 1990s by John McMahon at Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC), MEDDIC is credited with helping PTC grow its sales from $300 million to $1 billion. 

Source: Highspot

BANT: Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline

The BANT framework is simple yet effective, dating back to the 1950s. It’s been widely adopted by sales organizations globally to qualify leads based on four basic dimensions: 

• Budget: Does the prospect have the financial resources to invest in your offering?
• Authority: Who at the company makes buying decisions?
• Need: Does the prospect have a problem your product or service can solve?
• Timeline: What is the timeframe for the prospect’s purchasing decision?

Salesforce is a proponent of the BANT model, offering advice for how to successfully apply it here. 

Source: Alore

SPICED: Situation, Pain, Impact, Critical Event, Decision

The SPICED framework was established by Winning By Design to help go-to-market teams diagnose customer needs and build long-term, successful customer relationships. It follows a decision-tree process flow to evaluate whether there’s a compelling reason for the prospect to move forward with the vendor’s solution.

Source: Winning By Design

Applying any of these frameworks can help SE teams take a calculated approach to determining where they should allocate their time and resources. 

From there, it’s imperative for SEs to partner with their Sales counterparts to align on the right process for high value prospects. 

Collaborate with Sales for Strategic SE Allocation

By setting clear engagement criteria, SEs avoid wasting time on low-value conversations. SEs and AEs should work together to define:

1. Which deals require live technical validation vs. which can be handled with pre-recorded or self-service demos.
2. When SE involvement should begin (e.g., post-discovery instead of pre-qualification).
3. How SE time is measured and optimized to quantify revenue impact.

An ideal working model could define, for instance, that the SE can step in once a salesperson has delivered a first demo and achieved the requisite exit criteria to move the prospect to the next stage. From there, the SE can add value with advanced technical validation (e.g., discussing important integrations, addressing security concerns), custom solution walkthroughs based on specific business challenges, and to run proof-of-concept (POC) evaluations for serious buyers.

SE-driven CAC Optimization

Solution engineers are a critical lever in reducing CAC, but only if their time is spent wisely. By focusing on high-impact opportunities and aligning with sales on when and how they should engage, SEs can improve win rates while reducing wasted effort. In the evolving world of B2B sales, the most effective SE teams aren’t just technical experts — they’re strategic revenue enablers.

Want to learn more? Check out our recent eBook on how to expand presales influence.