Nagaraj J

Nagraj. I was born in Bodup in Chennai. I completed my bachelor's degree, a BTEC in SRAM University, and started my search in a company called GREH. So, we sell the GRE products for masters. So, it's an EdTech. Post that, I started my career in SaaS, in particular with the US market in a company called Striker Price. So Striker Price is a company where they help ecommerce resellers to give an exact pricing. They, as a company, would onboard customers into different ecommerce platforms like Amazon, Google, and other companies. And from there, you generate revenue from them. Like, I'll say, this would be the best price to quote, and we give you a number of pricing for each and every product they sell. If you look at the ecommerce resellers, they'd be selling more and more products. So, one reseller will not be selling one product. He'll be selling them 50 to 60 products. We dive them into their competition, and we give them the exact price at which they can sell. We compare the pricing with other ecommerce resellers and give them the price, which would help them into their sales. And after that, I dived into the SaaS industry. My first SaaS company was Aptivo. Aptivo is nothing but an end-to-end business application where 60 plus apps are stitched together. It's like Zoho 1. So, Aptivo is a product in which was invented before Zoho 1, I would say. And I was leading the SDR team there. I was the first SDR that we hired, and we had a five-member team. I was doing both inbound and outbound SDR. But that SDR role was completely an account management SDR role. Like, you'd be given some 300, 400 accounts to us, and from that, you'd be picking up the demos. We'd be scheduling demos for the product. See, as Aptivo was a price-competitive product, it was easy to crack and move forward on getting demos. Post that, two years of a rough patch, one in Burdai, another one in Urban Piper. I went to Piper, and then I joined Freshworks, mid-market business management. I had a four-member team. So I also performed as an IC as well as an okay. It was an IC role as well as managing a three-member team. And my recent role was in factors dotai. I led the sales team, the complete sales team, end-to-end sales team, where I handle SDRs as well as AEs. And month on month, I'll be giving $3,000.

Major client budget has been reduced, impacting their ability to use. Do you know we get this call? Okay. So generally, right, if it is a major customer, sometimes for a few companies, the logo matters. For a few companies, their revenue matters. So I'll just check what kind of companies they are. It's a combination of logo plus revenue. Or this company, we are completely dependent on their revenue. This should be the first thing. The second thing would be, what is the constraint they have? We have to see. For example, if they are paying $1,000 to us. Now they're coming to $600 a month. So the gap is $400. How can we restrict the gap within that $400? For example, you'd be giving some 100 to 200 services and everything. What services in that 100 services, which are required or not required, have to be checked. Once we check that, we'll come to know what points we can reduce the cost. And if we are doing a certain level of price reduction for that customer, we have to make sure that we give them a 4-year or 5-year contract, at least a 3-year contract, in that time, so that we would have them for the next 3 years. There will be a situation where we'll neither gain a profit nor a loss, but still, in the point of view, where we have to hold the customer for the next 3 years, where their business scenario also changes. So we have to ensure that we are giving a 3-year contract with the flexibility of pricing in which he's expecting. And as well as, we have to see that nothing is burning our hands. So that should be the ideal point in which we have to take a call. So, if he's paying $1,000 to us, his budget is $600. So there is a gap of $400. Out of the services that we are giving, what are the services we can reduce, as well as, how can we extend this contract for the next 2, 3 years? Generally, when there is a budget constraint, there are high chances where the contract time period also increases. So, generally, in my experience, when someone says, "I don't have budget," "I have less budget," we've several times given them a discount. At the same time, another thing is we've also extended the contract, a 3-year contract or a 4-year contract or a 5-year contract, so that the pricing also is there. We've done the negotiation, and we're retaining the customers for the next 3 years. We'll have that flexibility and ability to move forward with that customer.

See, generally, KPIs are very important. So, what we have delivered is the most important thing. We want to tell them that. At the same time, there must be an expectation from the customer when he signed the contract with us. So, what we have delivered and what is the expectation of the customer. And on the third part of the presentation, what we're going to do is compare what we delivered and what is the expectation from the customer. So, when we match both, we will come to a point in which we will see how our services stood in the last quarter. How much it impacted the customer's business and how it gave flexibility and ability to the customer and us to move forward. So, comparison is very important. Generally, the percentage always matters. Right? So, what impact we have done, we have shown percentage-wise. For example, if it's a revenue impact, we have to show it on the revenue side. There's an increase of revenue of 20%, 30%. And if it's a leads part, you have got so many leads after taking our services. For example, you've got more than 80 leads from us. We were getting, like, 30 leads before. Now we are getting 80 leads. So, all the impact we have done on the percentage part is very important. See, generally, when something is told to us, there are some problems on there, and we are taking the service. There'll be some points in which we could not do it. We should also mention those parts, and we should say that, hey, this one you said we are working on it, but we could not achieve it in this quarter. Next quarter, definitely, we'll achieve it. So, you don't need to worry about this part, and we are working on it and showing progress on that particular part in which we could not achieve our goals. So, these are the three most important things. And, if it's a very early stage of a product, we are not going to pitch anything new. Okay? But if the project is with us for more than one year or two years, it's time to get time to do a cross-sell or upsell from that particular account. So, we have to see if there's any opportunity there, so we can throw them and get them into our project. So, it may not convert in that particular quarter or in six months, but down the line, it should get converted. So, we have to see that opportunity also.

See, one important strategy that has always worked for me is reactivation and process. We would be talking to a number of customers on the previous year. They would come on the demo stage. They would be on the lead stage. But they would be on a different stage, but they would not move to the sales stage. But these customers know our brand. So what we have done here is the reactivation process involves going back to the old leads, which is less than 1.5 years and not more than 3 months. If something gets old by 3 months, it should be within 1.5 years. Those leads can be tapped easily. These leads are easy revenues where you get a number of brand. They know our brand. They have brand awareness. So what our product does and everything. It is not going to be tough to crack them or bring them into the demo part or the initial stage, or they would have already crossed the sales stages. For example, there will be a few customers who have seen demos. We would have given a proposal from that point. At that point, it would have stopped. So we can eventually understand. Again, we can just go back to them and say, "Hey, we spoke to you last year, but still it's not." "Is there any opportunity this year where we can reinitiate the conversation?" But I'll also make sure that I'll work on the pricing this time and everything. This is one of the most successful sales parts where it eventually increased 20 to 30% of your revenue. So this reactivation closure is a very strong result where many companies leave it as an open space. They don't do it. Only a few successful companies have a team for this where they go back to them, and they eventually talk to them, and they maintain the relationship in the next year. So once you maintain the relationship with the reactivation team, he's not going to buy from us today. But in the future, next year, if he wants to take something, if he wants to take a new project, we should be his first choice. So we should always be in that level because we can always recoup the cost that we have invested for the lead or demo or anything else. At the same time, most of the products are in trial. Even services, we have started giving a 3-month short project or a 6-month short project. After the short project, they also go. We appoint someone from the reactivation team to be in touch with them. So the reactivation closure team is always best. They increase the revenue just like that by 10 to 20% in a matter of 6 months. In 6 months, you can see that there's an increase in revenue. This is a strategy that I've implemented thrice, and all three times, it does improve the sales. In fact, in Aptivo, when we did this reactivation closure, I still remember the demos got increased by 60%. So they started coming and saying, "We want to see the demos again and again and again." So reactivation and closure is one of my best strategies. We have got a number of leads and closures from that.

How do you see your sales process? From okay. Yeah.

I do have a habit. I've used HubSpot, Freshsales, and Salesforce previously. So the first and foremost habit is once a demo is fixed for us or once a demo or call is fixed for us, I take something I do called prenotes. So what is a prenote? We have to see how many employees they are in, what the company type is, what industry they are in. And there are tools like RapoTune, all the tools. You can see we can get the info from them where, what software they're using and everything. So you put it in prenotes. And once the call started, I would write it down on what we spoke. That is, what he's looking for, what is the carrier guidance he's looking for, sorry. What is the guidance they are looking from the product. So, like, what problems they have currently, what is the situation they are in, but they have budget and everything. So I'll take all the notes, and I just put it in the CRM. So we know what they're looking for and what their current situation is. And from that point, what we are gonna do is we are gonna get follow-ups. So when can we meet next? So what is their timeline? Understanding everything, and we schedule follow-up calls. One follow-up call after every follow-up call, we're gonna put notes into the CRM and fill all the basic data, which employee, which industry, which I told you before. Once after mentioning everything, and that has to be done. That has to be saved, and that has to be given as a closure. Very importantly, we talk about discounts. So we have to mention the discounts into the CRM. That is more important. Can you provide an example of how you have upsold across all services in the previous role? Yes. See, one thing here is, with SaaS products, right, they we would initially board them into the basic plan. After 3 months of usage, as I told you in the previous presentation, right, we give the quarterly update to them. Once we give the quarterly update to them, if we find they have value, they've said they've got 10 to 20 demos or 5 demos, the product has actually performed as they're interested. Right? We would say that you can get this. For example, there was a client for us who used only our website visitor identification. But I told them, hey. The website visitor identification is actually working for you. If you get account scoring in this website visitor, and now it is you can prioritize the accounts, which eventually worked for them. We gave them 2 months' trial. And in the 3rd month, he purchased it. So if you have given them value in the previous product which we have sold, it is easy to get an upsell or cross-sell within the organization. So we have to make sure that the upsell isn't missed. So for that, a quarterly report is required. Monthly report is required. See, I would generally prefer the first 6 months, a monthly report. After that, I would send them a quarterly report. So after the monthly report, I can show a quarterly report easily. So, if we sell a product, if we upsell a product, if the customer is satisfied with the current services.

The time when you negotiate with the client to reach a mutually beneficial agreement. Yes. There are several times in the last 8 years, if you look at the GRE edge. Right? I was the first person to sell both GRE products and admission products at the same time. That eventually happened. What happened is, first, the customer was a student. He was in his third year. So he had ample time. The time was the point in which I could easily sell both products to him. He had also a budget of $60,000. He could spend up to $60,000. So what I did is I gave him a good yearly course for one year with an admission course for two years, which was around $50,000. And I also did something where I told him, "This product costs $80,000. If you're a 30-year-old student, you can get a discount." So that was one time where we mutually agreed and it benefited us. And the second time was in Striker Price. What happened is there was an ecommerce seller. Generally, in Striker Price, we sign a contract for each product. So what I did is I quoted them the base price minus 25 percent, and I boarded all the products. I told them, "If you have this, it's going to be very helpful for you." And the negotiation here happened only on the pricing. See, both times, the negotiation point was pricing and time limit. Here, I gave him the option of not doing a yearly contract, or you don't want to renew a yearly contract. But you pay me $10,000, I can give you the service for five years. So that won't happen. And in Aptivo, I saw Aptivo as a cross-sell from a lower plan to an upper plan. That was a very big logo. So what I did was I gave him the platinum plan for the base plan pricing itself. I said, "If you're signing with us for a five-year contract, right, the contract time for five years, and they did have a budget." So once they did have a budget, we signed it for five years, and I gave it to them for the base price because when I pitched the discount and it came, it would come near to the base price. But one thing was important was the five-year contract where we got the cost also. We also knew that he's not going to churn for the next five years. And in Freshworks, I bought a multi-opportunity for my four products, Freshservice, Freshdesk, Fresh CRM, and FreshPick. All four products, I bought a multi-product license. One thing which I promised was a three-year service at a two-year cost. So you pay us for two years and get three years of service, and my AE also did well. In factors, we onboarded a reference. Right? It was a benefit for a customer where he referred 10 of them. I said once you refer, your cost would be reduced on using the product. He referred 10 logos for us, and it worked. So these kinds of negotiations happen where we can hold the contract, get the money, and get more customers.

What steps do you take to ensure that your products are exceptional? Customers' experience during the interaction with your client? Okay, to give an exact and exceptional customer service, the first and foremost thing is to understand what the customer is expecting. See, if the customer's expectation is different, and you do a monologue, which you do every time, it's not going to work. Understand the customer's expectations first. What they're actually expecting from us? And if you feel a product or service is a mismatch on their expectation, please tell them upfront, and don't push what we have within us. Right? For example, if you're expecting something A and B, and we have C, don't push C on them. First, make them understand that A and B is not with us. Okay? But, we have another thing. If you want, if you feel that it's okay for you can go ahead and see. If not, let's part away now. So, give respect to what is required and this time. And, third, is always give a personalized experience on calls. Don't take a monologue. For example, if someone says, "I'm looking for something in which I have to do this with the CRM." You would have pitched your practice on a monologue-type at this point. Don't ever do it. Always match your presentation or your demo on what the customer is expecting from us. So, it's easy for us to take them to the next stage. And, fourth, point is, generally, understand who's talking. For example, if some VP is talking to you tailor the demo according to the VP. If someone in the ICs is talking to you, an individual contributor, is talking to you, and he wants to take the product to the next level. So, you also make sure that you talk pounding to them. That is also very important. And, you always tell them examples in which they can understand. For example, if they are from the BFSI industry, take an example from BFSI and tell them, "Hey, my product has given these kinds of results in BFSI." So, they can always relate to you easily. Right? See, that 30 minutes and 40 minutes should be completely personalized, completely strategically. It should be that you shouldn't even think that I wasted time with them, or they should not ask you to redo this call again. Right? If that happened also, it is not a good customer experience. So, very simple steps. Find what they're expecting. Okay. Find, is the right time for them to implement this, who are their competitors? And, if you have worked in their industry, just take an example from that. And, always match your call with their expectations. It is gonna give you a better customer experience. If possible, give them a free trial or something so that they'll also be happy at the end.

Yep. We have been tasked with improving the sales process for Australia and the healthcare sector in some sense. To begin, are we doing a regular touch with the customer? Most people have a strategy here. After sales, for the first 6 months, there should be a weekly connect. After 6 months, it should be a monthly connect or a connect every 15 days. My first and foremost thing is to check whether we are doing a regular connect, whether we are doing regular QBRs, MBRs, and everything. And the second point I would check is what efforts have been taken from our team to give them the right feedback or are there any concerns they have? Understanding customer concerns would be the next point. And the third point is when we have the sales data. When we have the sales data, the first and most important point is on what plan we ideally get sales. For example, if we have 2 plans or 3 plans with them. It's definitely going to have a plan that the sector is already in. Right? I would check that first. So, first is reporting. Are we doing some regular connects with the customer and understanding is there any pain point from that? And second, what product they have sold or what service they have sold, which stage they are in, so either to upsell or cross-sell or any kind of thing. And I'll also take something in our successful customer stories. For example, if he's an Australian client in the health sector. Let's say we are getting more clients from chat. He's coming to chat, asking questions, and booking an appointment. That eventually increases sales. And if that customer doesn't have it, we have to make sure that we call them and say, hey, in the first 3 months, you've done this much. But, recently, for this customer, we could see that through chat, he's getting more demos. So we have to give more benefits like this, we are going to give more benefit values. So using these benefit values, we should ask the salesperson to pitch these benefit values and move forward on their sales. The fifth metric I would see is how rigorous our salesperson is to get upsells. For example, if a salesperson doesn't contact them post the first sales, it's completely wrong. At least the account manager is in sales, right? Perhaps it's an account manager. Right? How frequently account managers are contacting them? So, take something that's impacting the industry, and check how can we do reporting, how frequently we connect with the customers, and start pitching through. Eventually, in the next 3 to 6 months, you can see an uptick in sales.