Unpacking My Sales Journey on a SaaS Rocketship

The Sales function at Hevo has grown exponentially in the past year, with a strong philosophy to help users achieve their goals with us. Through this interview, I share my experience, the excitement, and the challenges of being part of a growing Sales function at Hevo.

What is your role here at Hevo and what does your work entail?

I’m currently leading the Inbound Sales team in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) region, leading 4 Account Executives(AE’s) while also being involved with certain parts of Outbound Sales, Sales Hiring, as well as building reporting and analytics structure around Sales.

There are three aspects to my main role- first, I understand how the sales funnel looks on a geographical as well as an individual basis in a detailed manner for each ISM.

Next, I diagnose the strengths, bottlenecks, etc, for each of them, and lastly, I focus on how to act on this information in the most effective manner, which involves extensive coaching and discussion.

I also spend significant time aiding the hiring team with our extensive 4-step hiring funnel, whether it is in the work history round or the product pitch round. Finally, I am constantly doing deep dives into our reporting and analytics. I work closely with the Sales Excellence team to create daily, weekly and monthly reports measuring leading indicators and historical data.

What attracted you to join Hevo? How has the experience so far lived up to these expectations?

There are many reasons that Hevo seemed like a great fit for me.

• I am very excited about the SaaS ecosystem in India. Though it has been around for a while with companies like Freshworks and Zoho building great SaaS teams for the last decade, Indian entrepreneurs are solving a variety of problems building out of India, and selling to the Global Markets. This inspired me about Hevo as well. A technical product like Hevo that is being built out of India offers much more exposure than a global SaaS product being sold in India, and I wanted to be a part of the journey.
• I was also very excited to join a company where I could figure out the Sales playbook from scratch, rather than simply following predefined processes. I also loved that I’d get to work directly with the core team. I did a lot of research on the team at Hevo, and their journey and mission were greatly inspiring to me.
• The drive to make every company data-driven and build a quality tech product out of India with a very structured approach was compelling.

These three main reasons helped me decide that this was the organization for me.

Receiving responsibility and accountability so early in my journey has solidified my initial assumptions about the organization. The idea at Hevo is that every person can decide what they wish to contribute to the organization, regardless of their position or experience, and every person is given the opportunity to put in something that is meaningful to them. There is no rigidity in the company as I have often seen in my previous experiences.

How did you find the onboarding process at Hevo?

Traditionally, onboarding from a sales perspective comes from shadowing, which leads to a very subjective experience. The knowledge retained by one person may be completely different from the knowledge retained by another. Through the structured, 3-week onboarding process at Hevo, this variability is eliminated to a large extent and makes sure that everybody is on an equal footing at the end of it.

I have been part of a few mature companies in the past but I haven’t seen such a thought-out onboarding process that is scalable as well.

How do you feel you have grown professionally since starting?

One skill set I am working on is leadership and coaching; knowing the theory is very different from the practical aspects of leadership, and my discussions with our co-founder Manish have definitely helped me understand that.

Another skill I’ve developed is the use of analytics in my sales. Generally, sales are considered a very intuitive game. However, looking at it through a data-driven perspective gives one a lot of insight into the reality separate from biases, and how it can be better approached using this information. We have a Sales Excellence team that does these deep dives every week, and this is a very commendable strategy that I feel Hevo has adopted very early in the game.

Which part of your job do you enjoy the most?

As a sales professional, getting into complex deals and creatively helping the team with negotiations is very interesting to me. I love team sports, and Sales is as much about the team as any other function. I’m also intrigued by hiring and building a team of High Performing Sales folks. How the recruitment process works, how it can impact the present team, how to build a well-knit team, and how to attract quality talent excites me the most. I love speaking to candidates appearing for interviews, and I always make sure to have a conversation about what Hevo is all about.

Besides this, working directly with the team members who have built Hevo from the very beginning and have seen it all is one of the best parts of the job. I’m able to absorb so much information and gain so many insights from all aspects of business, not just sales.

At Hevo, everything is about problem-solving, and working with people smarter than me is the biggest asset.

How would you describe the work culture at Hevo? Which aspects of it do you especially appreciate?

In many companies, salespeople are always competing against each other. In contrast, the culture of the sales at Hevo is less about the number of individual closures and competition; it is about problem-solving.

When it comes down to it, this approach makes everyone win- the sales rep as well as the customer. It is a positive-sum game, and one of the key differentiators of the Sales team at Hevo.

The second aspect I greatly appreciate is the freedom that comes with my role at Hevo. There is no micromanagement, as it is understood that everyone has a unique approach to things. Yet, all discussions and strategy sessions are very detailed. This is, again, from a cooperative uplifting and problem-solving approach rather than a mere instructional one. Every decision is thought out and understood before it is implemented, rather than being copied from other startups or competitors.

What message do you have for someone contemplating joining Hevo?

If you’re thinking about joining Hevo, don’t focus on the short-term benefits. It would be the best place for you if you want to join an industry that is growing, or if you want to build a career rather than just a job. You’ll be able to understand the building blocks of SaaS business and to work in an environment of high talent density. If all of these benefits are appealing to you, then Hevo is a great early-stage SaaS company to start!

P.S — We are expanding our Sales team. In case you’d like to chat more about how do we do Sales differently at Hevo, drop us a note at talent@hevodata.com