Revenue is too important to be left just to salespeople — A conversation with Vinay Kalyan Parakala.

Vinay’s career started before most of us were in our teens, and that is not a bad thing at all. He has seen entire processes evolve in front of his eyes and more often than not, he was the one enabling the transformation. From humble beginnings as one of the sales support associates in a large team of over 30 to becoming the sales leader heading a team of 300 sales professionals whilst spearheading Asia’s first Sales Enablement Society Chapter as its President and pursuing a PhD, his resume is probably the best representation of his favourite quote — “If you don’t like the NEWS, Get out and make some”
In this conversation, we talk about the past, present, and the future of Sales and Marketing.

Q. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

This is my 23rd year in sales. I have predominantly worked for the IT sector. IT services, software products and the like. I have been a copywriter, software developer, marketer, and beyond all a salesperson. I was based in the UK during my formative years as an individual contributor, this gave me the opportunity to work in multicultural and multilingual teams initially targeting enterprises in the complex European market and then spreading out to include North America. That decade in the UK gave me my platform.

Q. Wait a second. If you were a copywriter, why did you move to sales?

I have to confess, as a student, I never thought of getting into sales. All I ever wanted to do, was to become a copywriter. I started copywriting when I was in secondary school and continued doing it through my university years. I used to provide services to a lot of ad agencies and it was pretty good money. In fact, I bought my first motorbike with that money.

But unfortunately, by the time I completed my graduation, advertising was in a terrible slump. People were getting fired from agencies and I had to let that go. Around the same time, while on a summer break, I worked for an agency that helped place college students into sales jobs as temps. I was assigned to sell vacuum cleaners and that’s where I realized I can sell. Mind you, it was a long time ago and people were not open to the idea of cleaning their house with a machine. I still sold 11 of those vacuum cleaners in 2 days. Thanks to those 2 days, I realized that sales was my calling. I enrolled and completed my MBA but It would still take me some time to move to sales permanently because it was not considered a ‘right’ profession back then.

As I was a graduate in Computer Sciences and held an Advanced Diploma in Systems Management, my first job was that of a software engineer. The IT wave had just started in India and like many of my peers were at that time, I succumbed to the dream of a H1. I was a programmer for 11 months before my calling started calling out vehemently and I approached the VP of my company and asked to be transferred to the sales department.

That’s how it all began.

Q. From selling vacuum cleaners to becoming the VP-Sales for Deskera, have you always stuck to sales? Or have you also been actively involved with marketing?

When I started out selling, there was no designation that had the word “sales” in it. Everybody who sold was either a Marketing Executive or a Business Development Executive. Marketing was inevitably a part and process of what the team did.

Obviously, marketing wasn’t as defined as it is today. We didn’t have the tools or the strategies and analytics; let alone the distribution channels. Things are more streamlined now with different departments and processes. So the answer to your question is yes, I was actively involved with marketing right from the word ‘Go’.

Q. I have spoken to quite a few marketing and sales managers who feel that the future will require Marketing and sales to work under a single umbrella. Do you think the old days had it right in the first place?

Let me take it one step further. Thanks to the progress in the field of marketing and its effects, the value of a salesperson, as an individual, is getting obsolete. At the start of my career, Salespeople were called “Box Pushers” and I think it has come a full circle.

The customer of today already knows, exactly what she/he wants. There is still a segment of individuals who prefer getting their information from a salesperson, but the size of that segment is receding. This applies to B2B and B2C as well, to some extent.

Previously, salespeople were the ones who told you what to choose, the features, the value and how their product can help you. The customer of today is already familiar with what they want, and are looking at multiple sources to gather more information. Every aspect of this learning that the customer is going to invest time into, has to be made available; proactively or reactively. I feel that marketing is making sales close to obsolete.

Don’t misconstrue what I mean, the salesperson will still remain a very important spoke in the wheel, we still need an individual to customize the value proposition, negotiate, do the paperwork, “Close the deal” and retain that rapport with the customer to try upsell or cross-sell, but that’s about it.

If marketing is done right, there is little room for sales as an activity… and the room is getting smaller!

Q. Content Marketing as a term has been around for a decade now, but most companies fail to understand the true meaning and potential of it. Your thoughts?

Content is most of the time Raw; much like Data in the IT sector. Processed data or meaningful content becomes information. I am a fan of information marketing.

Let me put it another way. You can pay somebody to write something on a piece of paper. Can you call it content? maybe. It’s not worth too much, but you still can if you really want to.

We talked about consumers getting more aware of what they need. I don’t think they do that by pursuing content. They pursue information. You are absolutely right, most companies and individual are doing Content Marketing wrong because they are marketing content and hoping that their prospective customers are going to process that raw content with their cognitive abilities and end up queueing up to buy. These are the companies who are as yet, just hoping.

There are a handful of companies that spend time and effort on researching their target market and audience, transform their raw content to meaningful and valuable information and they are the ones who are taking the right steps to ensure that the information that they are marketing is reaching and being consumed by the marketplace. They are the ones who are winning the game.

I feel the time is right to change the phrase, “Content Marketing” to “Information Marketing”.

Q. We’ve talked about sales & marketing, and you have had some interesting responses. Building upon that, would you advise the salesperson of today to start learning about marketing or simply choose a new line of work?

I would say that the lines are blurring between the two sectors and if my predictions come true, there might not be a sales department in 3–5 years’ time. Honestly, there might not be a marketing department too.

They will be replaced by a Sales Enablement Department.

Q. I thought Sales Enablement referred to setting up processes for the sales team to be more efficient. Isn’t that true?

Sales Enablement, as a function, is to “Enable a sale”. A sale happens only when there is a consumer. In fact, you are enabling the sales process for the consumer to buy. Enabling the process to help a salesperson sell is just a part of that.

If you say you’re only trying to enable and make your salesperson better, you’re looking inwards. Remember that the entire process of sales is not inwards, but outwards. Stuff goes out of the company for revenue to come in.

To break it down, Sales enablement is the process of enabling a sale. The only way you can do that is by enabling your consumers to buy. For close to a decade now, I have running workshops for sales teams, titled “Sales is not about selling, it’s to make people buy”. It’s important to focus on all activities that make the buying cycle move along by making the sales cycle as efficient as possible.

A couple of years ago, I wrote an article on the basic functions of sales enablement as a department. Once you read it, you will find that Sales enablement starts right from hiring sales talent, it includes training, coaching, talent management, creating and executing the right sales strategy, sales force effectiveness, marketing alignment, analytics, information marketing, lead tracking & nurturing and all aspects of sales operations.

I know that there will be traditionalists who will draw the line and divide this department into HR, marketing, operations & sales. What they have to understand that is while 2+2=4. So is 2x2, or 8/2 or any such permutation. Sales Enablement is an amalgamation of all these functions. In fact, we have a global Sales enablement Society that strives to educate people on these techniques.

Note: You can read Vinay’s article on Sales Enablement by clicking here

Q. With the current generation of salespeople trying to be thought leaders and informative content taking center stage, I feel that paid advertisement (Adwords and such) is going to go through a massive restructuring. Maybe it’ll even die altogether. Do you think that’s a possibility?

Google Adwords (or ads) is not going to die. It will cease to be valuable but will evolve into something more interesting, more valuable. It’s phoenix-like and this next, more valuable version will rise from the ashes of the current version. I’m fairly certain that it will be reborn and evolve into something more innovative. Adwords weren’t there a few years ago and they might not be after a few years, but I’m sure it will pave way for other forms of paid advertisements. Things evolve and that’s a constant.

Q. Vinay, thank you so much for your time today. Is there anything you would like to add before we end this conversation?

Here’s something for you and your readers. Keeping in mind that I have been a sales professional for 23 years and I’m currently the VP-Sales for a corporation, I feel this is going to be particularly scandalous, but here goes:

Revenue is too important to be left just to salespeople. We need a higher and a more evolved function to focus on it. To the leaders, innovators and founders, I say… start focusing on the sale not just on the salesperson, do that and your conversion rates and thereby revenue will be much better.

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