Harshvardhan Mishra 👹

I was in my very first Sales Job, right out of college, I was more excited than scared. 

Probably that's a good thing. 🤷 

But yeah, one fine day, I asked help from a Senior Director in my team, to give me some e-mail templates & cold call scripts, if the lord had it.

Lord smirked at me, and said: "You are a wild horse Harsh, you have not been tamed yet"

My eyes wide open, in disbelief, I questioned, 'if I was a Horse all this time?  " 

First of all: "Excuse me, what??" 😮

But come to think of, I do love open grassfields, have empathy and am intelligent but still, the confusion prevailed. 🤔 

Only to realise that he had left me on my own. 

And probably that's a good thing too. 🌼 

Because dramatically getting hurt by his one small comment, I ignited fire in me, called another founder ( Sridhar - B2Brain ) and said:

"I can't take this anymore" 

"We need to build a support system" 

"He said, 'I hear you'" 

"Let's do it" 

And thus somehow a Sales Community for SaaS Sellers was born 🥂

In the midlife, it became to be known as Sales 101, and man we did and do some great fun 🤩 

- Brunches ( Mixers ) 
- Workshops 
- Rant Sessions / Zigs 

and much more. 

So that little idea is now a movement, where we want to build an ecosystem for Indian SaaS Sellers and provide a home, a village, a shoulder to take them forward together 🫂

Account Executive

Working in SMB Sales

Harshvardhan Mishra

Back when I started as an SDR, 

- I didn't have pre-made playbooks

- No power dialer ( or any dialer for that matter ) 

- No Database tool 

- No SEP or Intent Signal or Website De-anonymization platform 

I was handed an email ID ( yeah just one, not 30 different ones ) and a list of accounts where I was supposed to setup meetings. 

And was just thrown into the deep end of the pool. 

Instead of drowning, I learned to swim 🏊 

Used free credits of tools, guessed email IDs and asked people for contact numbers. 

Ended up booking 120+ Enterprise meetings in a year. 

I felt un-stoppable, and that built the muscle which is helping me earn till date. 

____

No, this is not to say that today's SDRs have it easy, if anything, they have it harder than me. 

I was operating in a less noisy environment, selling AI 5 years ago, people were curious and afraid, that did lead to conversations and conversions. 

But as we at times feel that using too much ChatGPT has made us dumb, similarly, I feel the SDRs of today are too much dependent on the tool, intent signals, and power dialers. 

All of this was invented to operate at scale, to be able to remove guesswork, to become more efficient, and it did all that. 

Except maybe building that muscle became weaker. 

Remember all these tools, platforms and tech will only help if you know how to use them correctly. 

I'd ask every SDR right now: 

"Will they be able to book meetings if they were stripped of most of the tech available to them?" 

If answer is YES, then good for you, you will survive a long time. 

If it's NO, then I'd ask try doing it without any fancy tech. 

It will build that muscle. 💪 

_______

PS: If you have this muscle I keep talking about, reachout to me, I am helping few companies hire their Founding SDR and you might be the right one for them. 

PPS: That is younger me, attending his first conference, plus people like seeing photos on Linkedin.

India’s OG SaaS Sales Community | Sales 101

We just helped a YC company hire their Founding SDR! 

Wasn't easy to find a good fit, but that's why we exist. 

But there are more roles where we are helping, read and reachout ONLY if you fit the bill. 

__________

For Chennai - 

1. SDR - US Shift 
2. SDR - EMEA Shift
3. Associate Director of Sales - APAC 
4. Director of Demand Generation

__________

For Bangalore - 

1. Founding SDR - US Shift 
2. AE - India Shift 

_________

For Pune - 

1. SDR ( B2B Outreach but not SaaS ) - India Shift 

________

Remote - 

1. SDR ( B2B Outreach but not SaaS ) - US Shift 

______

Share this post with people who might be a fit, tag them below or if you yourself are looking for a switch, DM away!

Sometime ago, we ( Sales 101 ) hosted an AE mixture in association with Wayground (formerly Quizizz). 

It was a combination of fun, knowledge and good food 🍱 

Rajdeep Pundir talked about the journey of Wayground.
 
Mihir Bhanushali made a lot of us laugh for sure while answering rapid fire questions.

and an amazing team behind the scenes - Nishant, Gayatri, Priyanka, Aayushi, Sangram & Namratha, people who made it possible. 

Enjoy the aftermovie, and keep an eye for our future events ❤️

Companies don’t want to invest in enablement, that is the truth of today. 

Life of freshers is tougher than ever. 

Companies want exact fit, 

-someone who has already worked in X geo, 

- talked to Y persona and 

- comes in their budget 

Why all of these filters? 

Because they want to maximise their chances of success and get results ASAP. 

The 3 month ramp up period has become more of a probation that is tied to results. 

Patience level has gone down because founders/sales leaders themselves don’t understand what needs to be done. 

Treating junior employees like SDR and AE as your revenue bearers and expecting them to keep your company afloat is lazywork. 

Why are you a leader then? 

I remember when I started, Sales Enablement used to be a function which has disappeared now. 

Even then the sales enablement team was doing low impact tasks like preparing your ppt for you, writing messaging or giving case study at best. 

Instead everyone wants a silver bullet, someone to join them and crush revenue targets. 

It’s almost ridiculous to see how a lot of companies are operating, you’d think they are doing things right at the top level and that trickles down, but mostly it’s guesswork and pressuring the sales team. 

People who had low pressure, worked in less noise, were early sellers, are now leaders who are almost clueless. 

And this leads to toxicity and mis-alignment. 

I have a feeling things will heal themselves, golden era of SaaS has ended and only people with substance would survive. 

Rest will hit a wall. 

So think if you can become a salesperson of substance.

There's a lot of money to be made by throwing people under the bus 🚌 

By eating out of the benefits that were supposed to go to them, by underpaying people, by cheating them or playing loopholes with them. 

We could be one of the biggest sales hiring agency in India, but because 

- we created a community, 

- care about the candidate and 

- also want to create a good name in the long term

we loose on money! 💰 

And that is fine, because I believe eventually we will find more of the people that we want to work with. 

Plus in Sales, none of the company is best for salesfolks, 

- there's always some sort of compromise that you will have to make, 

- some pressure/toxicity to bear 

- some bad leadership 

- some product defects 

But I think even if it is 70% good, if it's a decent company for you, then you should be thankful for that match. 

Do avoid shiny titles, un-real promotions or hikes, promises of the future and Red flags. 

But junior employees specifically fall prey to these, because they have less knowledge, less self-confidence, are insecure and low on runway ( money money money ).

Investors don't give a shiit about the junior most employee or culture in general, rather they sit with founders and give audacious revenue goals, which will result in a good exit for them. 

No one's striving to build a great workplace anymore, rather growth at all costs. 

Recruiters crying about short stint of SDRs, meanwhile SDRs being used and thrown without an iota of enablement and care. 

Then people come and say you can earn upto 1CR as a fresher in SaaS, I mean what bullshiiit guys!! 

There's a company paying 4 LPA for 4-5 years experience SDR and still hiring, there's another one hiring 17 SDRs meanwhile so many people at that company had short stints.

Man, if I had my way, I'd call out a lot of bullshit, but I also have to live and earn with these mfers, so just trying to steer out of un-necessary bs.

Employers and Employees both do wrong to each other sometimes. 

So in that case, it should be called a fair deal, right?

Part and parcel of the game, shiiit happens and various other things that we tell ourselves. 

But in case of an Employee, the Employer can do some serious damage to your career and life. 

- Negative Ref Checks ( leaving you un-employed for a long time ) 
- No Severance 
- Forgetting about you as soon as you are out the door 

And as an Employee, you can't do much. 

- Labour laws in India are shit 
- Sales as a profession is vulnerable to bad name ( because people usually hire based on trust and gut feeling rather actual skills, because they are super hard to verify ) 
- Can get served a defamation notice and what not! 

So my bias would still go towards an employee who was making 8-10 Lakh rupees, has no legal support, is dependent on your review to keep his career going on and can be pressurized at per employer's will. 

We all have heard Employees committing suicide due to pressure and toxicity, ever heard an Employer do that, because the employee harassed them?

Almost all of these fancy, hustling, super-genius founders are just people who can use people well, some might care about you, but to most, you are a way to make "their" company great.

[ATTENTION] - If you are in SaaS Sales, and looking for your next play: 

 🫵 GO CLICK THE LINK IN MY PROFILE 

Or just visit www [ dot ] emplyod [ dot ] com

_______

Why? 

- Most of the job opportunities never see themselves on a notice board 

- They are filled through asking within close circles or take help from someone like us 

- And often at times, you might know the opportunity but when you apply directly, you become a part of the rest 450 people who applied. 

Good Luck Buddy :) 

Butt 🍑 , if you go through us:

- We analyse which opportunity would be a good fit for you 

- We reachout to you if we find something and guide you through the whole process 

- We tell you the pros and cons 

- We help you with your resume, assignment, building up confidence and even negotiations

_________

What does it cost?

Nothing from your end. 

So if you are someone in SaaS Sales, serious about your career path, and would like to take our help, drop your resume in the portal. 

You can even refer your friends, colleagues and juniors. 

CC: Astha

People don't engage in meaningful discussions on Linkedin anymore. 

It's all "Me-this" "Me-that" "My achievement" "Me Me Me"

So let's treat this post as sort of brainstorming wall, Ask me Anything, I will try to reply to best of my knowledge, and maybe others will also join. 

That's it, that's the post.

I keep screaming that "Average will not work anymore".

and trust me, for a lot of sales-people, this realization will come far too late. 

Because of AI + Funding Crunch + Outbound getting noisy and more, the pressure to deliver more in less has started showing up. 

I don't know much before 2020, but during 2021-2023, India SaaS was hiring like anything. 

If you could 
- speak decent English, 
- knew some jargons, and 
- were even average, 

money was being thrown at you 💰 

Because companies had fresh funding and wanted to scale as much as they could. 

But now, it's all back to optimizing, and when it comes to that, companies start cutting budgets, reducing salaries and hiring talent which actually deserves it. 

They have the leverage and we need to level up. 

So what can you do?

- Do an audit 👀 

Identify knowledge gaps, understand the scope of your role, growth opportunities and where a pivot is needed. 

- Talk to people 🧍‍♂️🧍‍♀️ 

Talk to people in your industry ( Peers, Junior and Senior ) and see what are they doing right?

- Prepare a plan  ✍️ 

How will you fix it, how will you upskill, who all can help?

- Execute it ⚙️ 

Go do it, and then keep auditing and retrospecting

So many of you won't do it, because it's hard, boring and doesn't give any immediate results, and hence people who'd do it, would definitely survive better.

It's been a long time since we did something in Delhi. 

Hence, with no further ado, presenting Sales 101 - Delhi Brunch. 

Although it's no longer a Brunch ( Linner?? - Lunch + Dinner ?? ) 

But yeah, same old format, same old vibe. 

Limited spots, no sponsor and a promise of a good experience. 

Get your spots through the link in comments or just ask Me or Astha in DM. 

See ya!

taplio