Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Your Intention Matters the Podcast. Thank you very much for joining me on this one. My name, of course, is Paul Madad. Today we have Yemeni Arun. She is VP of Sales coming to us from London, UK, VP of sales at Datamatics. How are things?

Absolutely well. Thank you, Paul. Thank you so much for having me today. And it's uh really nice to see how you have conceptualized this whole podcast on mindset. And uh and and it's kind of a platform to celebrate sales professionals, if you like. So I totally appreciate this initiative.

I appreciate you being here. You know, we were talking before I hit record about London, one of my favorite towns. It's so big. How are you doing in that big city?

Oh my I'm thoroughly enjoying it. It's not as though I'm coming here for the first time. I have been here for a while. In fact, this is my second stint in London, if you like. Sometime uh back about 10 years back, I was here as well for two years. So uh London is not new to me. It's my second home, if you like. So, you know, after Mumbai, perhaps London is my second home, and third is Geneva. But yeah, large part of my time has been in London, so it's I'm not very London is not new to me.

Gotcha. Well, one of one of my favorite cities, I forgot how big it is every time I go there. You know, you take a look at a Google map, you think everything is so close, and it's like, no, everything's an hour, half an hour away, right? So thanks again so much for being here. Nice to meet you in this capacity. You know, yeah, many. As we were talking before I hit record about the kind of the goal of this podcast and the rationale behind it, is that from my perspective, you know, organizations can provide salespeople with every tool in the toolkit to go achieve their results. They can give them product training and systems training and skill set training, they can give them marketing documents, competitive intel, they can give them inbound leads as well. But if they're not set from a proper mindset perspective, they're unlikely to get the results overall. And I'd love your thoughts on that as well when it comes to mindset and the role of overachievement overall.

Yeah. Absolutely. So uh yeah, we can uh uh you know, to me, mindset essentially, you know, even before if even before I attach mindset to a sales as a profession, a mindset to me essentially is the ability to think beyond uh your conditioning, beyond your upbringing, beyond your environment, current or past, uh, and also beyond your learning from your past experience. Yeah, so um especially, you know, if you look at the current times that we are living in, uh, you know, what it's a nice word that is coined by one of my favorite uh London business school professors, it's called as never normal. So we are living in the world of never normal, right? And uh he can talk a lot and mesmerize anyone about how it is happening. But my take on the whole thing, you know, I believe to be able to survive and thrive, uh you need to embrace the uh the disruption that is going on on an ongoing basis, be it in the form of AI, be it in the form of market volatility, or be it in the form of you know, some of the uh untoward things that happen to the humankind. So uh so that's how I look at it. You know, I basically that's what I promote essentially. You have to embrace the disruption. And I have I have kind of I'm learning, I would say, but I have adopted to a great extent, and that's what I promote. So that's as far as my take on mindset is concerned. And coming to sales profession, you know, sales profession, as you know, is um is goes something like this you have, let's say, certain number of bets that you play on to be able to clinch the deal. Usually approximately about 20 to 40 percent. If you're highly effective and if you're if you're just right, you know, at the you're right there at the right time, uh perhaps up to 40% is are your chances of winning. Rest, all of the chances are are going to go down the drain, right? So 60%, if I were to take the higher conversion rate of 40%, the 60% of your time and efforts are going to go down the drain, which means you have to constantly live with the rejection. And if you are in sales profession, you simply cannot have fear for rejection. In fact, you have to have a natural tendency to bounce back and go for that another bet. So that's you know, that's how important it is. You know, the mind the kind of mindset you need to have to be able to, you know, uh come over your failures and still succeed. So that's how I kind of relate to my sales profession about the mindset as a as a concept.

You know, I'm curious about something. You know, you've been able to carve out uh 20 plus years uh in a as a in a successful selling career. Right. Um, but there really is no school for sales. How'd you even get into sales at all?

Oh wow, that's an interesting story, actually. I uh I hope we have enough time, but I can tell you a little bit about it. And that's in fact also my turning point in life. So uh after come after doing my computer science, I actually was hired as a programmer for uh diversified group of companies back in India. It is a Pune-based organization. I worked with them for about five years and I grew in the hierarchy to manage their then-called uh electronic document processing department. So I developed a few solutions and software for them, and then I was promoted as well to manage that whole department for them. And I, you know, I was not have I was not satisfied, frankly speaking, in that role. And one thing that constantly fascinated me was, you know, having to work or go to Mumbai. Mumbai is a city, it's like, you know, you can you can relate Mumbai with New York, the pace, the attitude of people and the pace at which that whole city operates. And it always fascinated me for its pace more. And I used to go to Mumbai once in a while, and I had this um, how should I say, tendency or rather uh inclination towards doing business or having something of my own. And I had started one small business on the sidelines where I used to kind of you know uh get the clothes, ready-made clothes from the market within Mumbai, the wholesale market, and I used to sell it in a small scale with within the social within my immediate social circle. So I started off as a small enterprise. It did not fetch me much profits, it only fetched me some you know small amount of um, how should I say, earning or rather rather some free uh uh clothing for myself. But what I'm trying to say is Mumbai fascinated me. And I decided I want to be in Mumbai. And I started applying within the organizations in Mumbai, and I applied to this company called Soft Tech, which was started by us, it was a startup then started by IIT's and applied there. And the HR head interviewed me and I said, I said, I'm here to apply, you know, to uh work with this company for software development essentially, because that's my background and stuff. And he's when he after completion of interview, he called me back. He said, just he told me to wait for some time and he called me back and he said that you have flair for sales. Would you mind being in sales? And I said, I have never done it, I don't understand sales. He said, I will train you because I have been a sales professional myself, and you know, now I'm kind of groomed to handle the HR part of it. Uh, I said, but how would I do it? And uh my objective was to be in software development. So that's when he said that let's give it a try. If you want to be in software development, you can't be in Mumbai, you need to go to Delhi because that's where our RD center is. And uh uh let's give it a try. I, you know, I said, give me a day. I just went back, thought through it. I said, I have come to Mumbai, there is no going back from here. I'm I'm going to take that opportunity. And that's how it happened to me, frankly speaking. And the story after that is much more interesting. But since I'll I'll take a pause here, how sales happened to me. And today I call that gentleman as my angel. So you can imagine how much I'm enjoying my profession. So, but I'll pause here since you asked me only how I got into sales.

You know, we when you talk about the question of, well, how do I do it? Is something that I think most uh new sales new salespeople have that question. I think about my own selling career. Where I gained my pedigree and my experience in sales is I was a sales rep at Xerox. And I kind of went through the the I guess the career path, sales rep, product specialist, sales manager. I never made it to a VP of sales level, but I went through multiple different levels, sales trainer at Xerox as well. And when I first got into sales, it wasn't because I had this passion for selling at all. There was no thought of uh I was a finance guy. That was my background. There was no real drive for commission. Quite frankly, I had sales as a as very much a very dirty word. Like it was it was grimy. It was like it was like a I don't know where it came from, but I I never had it as a profession. I had it as a as like a dirty job for some reason. And so um, how did it go when you first got into it? Did you take to it right away, or did it take some time to figure it out?

Oh wow, that's an interesting part. So, first three months, it was the company which was selling products. So those were we our job was to sell licenses. First three months, and they we were expected to be productive after a month or max two months. Yeah, so uh that was uh we had a good target, and it was a regional office. Uh and I started working. I was honest and hardworking, and that's the only thing I knew. I was not street smart then today. Uh yeah, so uh I was doing my work, putting in a lot of effort, and first three months I did not have my deal. First month went by, no deal. Second month went by, no deal. Now my HR head who had hired me had started feeling a little bit uncertain about what which which way she's heading. So he sat me through. I mean, he he he kind of took a session or coaching session, if you like, and he said, What's going on? I said, I'm doing my best. I'm you know, not I'm doing so many calls every day. I'm meeting the customers, I'm trying to convince in my best abilities uh I don't know what more I can do. But I'm happy to take in your feedback and if anything more can be done.

Yeah.

And then so he he tried to give me some tricks of the trades and stuff, trick trick of tricks of the trade and some uh you know uh ideas of what more can be done. I tried implementing them as well. After the third month is when my first order arrived. Yeah, it's it's the corporation, it's LIC, which is Life Insurance Corporation of India, and that turned out to be my biggest customer later. But what I'm trying to say is from that point onwards, there was no stopping, and the orders kept flowing because I was really hardworking. And in a year and a half, I was uh uh declared as best performer for the organization. I was promoted, I was given a team, and then there was no looking back since.

You know, I'm curious about the promotion path because uh you can hope I hope you can appreciate my thoughts on this, where there's a lot of organizations that have the same kind of progression: individual contributor, team leader, division leader, uh you know, conglomerate leader, and so on. And and when when I went through that path, sales rep to product specialist to sales manager, I struggled because they're very different jobs. Yeah, like like very different in terms of responsibilities and skill sets. Like as a as a sales rep, I did very well. As a sales manager, I was terrible. And the reason why the reason why is because I didn't want to be, of course, but the reason why is because when I look back on it now, uh my way of leading the team was this is how I did it, so this is how you should do it, which was a complete recipe for a total disaster. It was just just terrible. And so as somebody who's carved out again a multi-year career in sales as well as leadership, what was behind your choice to go into leadership? Did you raise your hand? Did they did they ask you to do it? Did you like it? What was behind that decision?

Okay, so it was I it's like this, you know, the promotion comes by virtue of you performing. Unless sales is all about black and white. I mean, it's numbers, it's hardcore number-driven game, right? Yeah, there is nothing great, nothing uh qualify qualitative criteria, if you like. You might have for your uh uh other, you know, overall appraisal and stuff, but ultimately when it comes to sales, it's largely based on your targets and the achievement of those. So promotion came naturally to me by virtue of my performance over a period of time. So initially I had just one person to manage in that organization. As I grew and changed the organization, I started managing the larger teams, and of course, initially I would have been uh I may not have been the best manager, so to say. I did learn on the you know as I grew in that role and as I grew managing the team. One thing which helped me grow was simple. What I liked the most about my profession or the most about my job is freedom to operate, number one. Second, second, what I so I looked, I always reflected upon what I liked about my job, and I kind of perceived that if I can perform well, given these tenants of freedom to operate, ability to decide, ability to, and what what drives me the most, right? Closing deals and the sense of achievement. If these are the tenets that I look for, perhaps people under me are also looking for that. And I always I was conscious about that fact. And I started as I grew in the hierarchy, I started managing, of course, with the companies, I mean, future companies that I changed and now I'm in Datamatics. I do have pretty senior members as part of my team. And I'm able to manage because I can connect very well. I know what sales profession is all about, and I know what is required for a salesperson to be able to grow. So yeah, these are some of the things I worked upon. And you know, I kind of it came, some of them came naturally to me, some of them I had to reflect upon.

Right.

So yeah.

You know, as as as we're getting to know each other, and I was kind of prepping for this conversation, I saw that you spent uh almost 20 years at Datamatics overall.

Right.

Uh which I think for some, especially the maybe the maybe the younger employees coming through today, the younger generation, the 20-year-olds, and even the 30-year-old today, that seems uh uncanny to them. Spending 20 years at one company. You see so many people on LinkedIn with 18 months at one company, two years at one company. There seems to be a bit of an interest in jumping ship, either the company lets them go or they move on, and so on. What I'm really curious about is I had a conversation with a salesperson that I worked with yesterday, and he's based in the U.S. As you know, I'm based in Canada, and we were talking about his career as he has an opportunity to progress with the company, but it requires a move. So he's based in Chicago, requires him to move to the West Coast in the US, which is a pretty sizable uh shift for him. And so you talked about the fact that you're now in London for a couple of years, but you're Indian from India. Did your company ask you to move? Did you raise your hand? Was that uh an easy choice for you to kind of pick up your life and go from India to uh England?

Yeah. So uh, you know, uh it's like this. Yeah, this time around, I said yes, the opportunity was there, and my CEO said yes, if you you know, uh you can be based in London. Uh but you so so the choice was given to me, and I opted for that choice. Uh but I would like to give you a little bit backstory to this, if you if that's okay. So um so this is not the as I mentioned, this is not the first time, this is my second time I would have stayed away from the family and done it. So this is not something new to me. But on the first ever occasion when this opportunity was given to me, when I was asked to get relocated to Geneva many, many years back within Datamatics itself. And my global sales set said, Yamani, you have been managing so many equations within uh UNN international organizations, it makes sense for you to be based in Geneva because that's where they're based, large, large part of those organizations are. I simply said no, up front, because my mindset then was as a married woman and as someone who's having family and kid, yeah, it is not right for me to even think about it, you see. And I simply said no. And I came and discussed this with my husband and he said, Are you foolish? You are a career-oriented woman, you are an ambitious woman.

Are you foolish?

Why would you and if you're getting this is an opportunity for you to grow? How can you simply say no and come back and discuss this with me? You rather should have discussed this with me before, before saying no, and even after that, I was not convinced because my mindset was as I said, that it is not alright for someone, and especially Indian families are generally very family-oriented, and you know, they believe in this whole concept of being together, all of that, right? And that you know, so I did I still did not change my decision then, even after listening to my husband. But that got me thinking that he's so open-minded about it, and I'm holding back. And he and he gave me a confidence that it is manageable, you don't worry about it. If you have a good opportunity, go for it. So there's also driving eyes in the sense some motivation that I got from my husband, I would say, which allowed me to take a little bit change my mindset towards this whole relocating and stuff. So that's a backstory. But now I'm also a confident human being, so yeah, I'm I can be I can get relocated and be very comfortable in any new city.

You know, as we as we as we've been talking during this episode, getting to get your perspective on things and kind of learn about your background and your career. You mentioned that uh you've had uh some some great mentors and people in your life. There was somebody you said that you referred to them as your angel, who kind of got you into the world of sales and so on. And I'm sure you've met many people over your career that have supported you and have been great resources and so on. And I always love to close the podcast with a thought or two regarding if you think about your career, has there been any best practice or an approach or advice has been given to you that has served you well?

It's been given to me, or I have come to believe. Is that okay? I mean, either believe me or I have come to believe. So I would like to present what I know, I would like to talk about what I have come to believe. So one belief that I carry with me is adversity gets better of you. Yeah, adversity gets the better of you. Or rather, or you you you become a better human being if you're faced with adversity and learned how to deal with it. So that's one thing that I have learned, and whenever I'm faced with any adversity, I say bring it on. I will be able to handle it. So that's one thing, you know. I convince myself if that's the case. That's you know, if that helps. I mean, since you're asking how uh you know, you the whole perspective on on adversity, there is the there is always an opportunity in every adversity. There's always an opportunity, you just need to learn to look at those opportunities, and it's always an opportunity to grow. So the moment you look at adversity in that frame or through that lens, things just fall in line because you start taking actions on those lines.

Right.

So that's that's how I look at it.

What a great way to wrap up the episode. Thanks so much for being here. Nice to meet you and your time today, sincerely.

Same here, Paul. We'll speak soon. You take care and all the best.

Thank you very much for being here again. Okay, everybody, if we're gonna wrap up this episode right now, remember, as I always say, your intention matters. Why? Because that's the result you'll tend to get. We're out of here, we'll do it again next week. Hope to see you in the next episode.