Shahid Nizami

LIke most professions, you can not lead a team well if you haven't done the job yourself.  Must Haves :  You should have been a quota carrying sales rep for at least 3 to 5 years before you can transition into sales leadership.  Have a good understanding of the product. You don't want to be in a meeting with your sales rep where you are not able to answer the use cases and functionalities of your profuct to the customer without any hesitation  Good understanding of the market you operate in  Abi ...Read More

The biggest reality of sales is that you are as good as your current quarter.  No matter how well you may have done in the previous quarter, the meter comes back to zero at the beginning of the new quarter/new year.  I have been in sales for more than 2 decades and have seen numerous quarter ends/month ends. The trick to avoid burnout is to ensure that you disconnect from work every now and then. I try to take 5 days off every quarter to re-energize myself and get back on the grind.  I also keep ...Read More

I stronly believe that sales people are one of the most likely people to get to the highest position in any business right upto the role of a CEO. In fact, many CEOs in global companies either come from either sales or product background.  A sales person would start their sales career somewhere as a SDR/BDR.  And then move into an account executive quota carrying role.  From there, they would either branch into management or continue to be a senior Individual Contributor (think about a Key Accou ...Read More

My mantra on career advanement has been always around doing the role before you get the title. I have always asked my manager that apart from delivering on my targets what more can I do for him/her.  Specifically around a sales manager moving to a sales director, the biggest difference is from moving to managing ICs to managing managers. It is a very different trait when you are leading 2 or more layers of sales people under you. The shift focuses a lot more from showing the reps how to run the ...Read More

My favorite sales interview question is meant to figure out if a sales rep has really run complex deals regularly.  I ask them to name their top 3 large and complex deals they've closed.  Then I ask them to tell me in more detail about a large & complex deal which is not in the top 3 list they shared.  Most sales reps would prepare for an intierview with details about their top 2-3 deals but if a sales rep has truly run multiple complex sales cycles, they should be able to answer this questi ...Read More

In today's world it is relatively quite easy to make a very well informed decision when assessing a new role in a different company.  These are some of the things I look at and advise my mentees to do too :  If it's a public listed company, look at their financials to figure out their year on year growth.  Check out websites like RepVue which give you a very good understanding about how sales reps in that company are doing On LinkedIn, check out the trend on their headcount,especially in sales, ...Read More

I am a firm believer of meritocracy. So when it comes to pay raise especially in sales roles it should be very black and white for a sales rep to determine when would they qualify for a pay raise.  It should be very easy for sales people to chart out their salary hikes based on their performance. The more consistent you are in delivering and over achieving your targets, the faster you should get to your pay raise.  Needless to say, that there is no compromise when it comes to ethics and integrit ...Read More