Niji Sabharwal - Co-Founder & CEO @AgentSync (Formerly @Zenefits, @LinkedIn) - Mindset & Method - Building and Managing a Sales Strategy & Sales Ops Function, Hypergrowth Sales Capacity & Resource Planning Frameworks, Sales Metrics and

Guest:

Niji Sabharwal - Co-Founder & CEO @AgentSync

(Co-Founder & CEO @AgentSync; Formerly @Zenefits, @LinkedIn)

Guest Background:

Niji was the Global Sales Strategy & Operations Manager at LinkedIn (IPO in 2011, $27B Acquisition by Microsoft in 2016), where he led global, best-in-class sales ops teams focused on driving sales pipeline for all of LinkedIn’s B2B businesses. Niji then worked with Zenefits ($4.5B Valuation, $584M Raised) as the Head of Sales Strategy & Sales Operations, where he built the Sales Ops & Strategy function consisting of the CRM, metrics & insights, sales compensation, sales productivity, territory design and deployment, and deal desk teams; enabling growth from 20 to 500+ sales employees. 

Niji is now the Founder & CEO of AgentSync, an application built on Salesforce.com that automatically enforces state producer licensing & appointment regulatory requirements through an integration to the National Insurance Producer Registry (NIPR) - Minimize your compliance costs and prevent regulatory violations before they occur by letting technology do the heavy lifting.

Guest Links:

Website | LinkedIn

Episode Summary:

In this episode, we cover:

- The Playbook: Build Your Sales Strategy & Operations Function

- Sales Systems & Tools Function - 1st Hiring Profile, Landmines

- Sales Capacity & Resource Planning & Analysis Frameworks

- Sales Metrics and Reporting - Leading & Lagging Indicators

- Tips for Managing Sales Strategy & Operations Stakeholders

- Maximizing Your Inbound Lead & Sales Engine

Full Interview Transcript:

Naber:  Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest growing companies. Enjoy!

Naber:  Hey everybody. Today we have Niji Sabharwal on the show. Niji the Global Sales Strategy and Operations Manager at LinkedIn (LinkedIn IPO'd in 2011, and then were acquired by Microsoft for $27 billion in 2016), there Niji led global best in class Sales Ops teams focused on driving Sales pipeline for all of LinkedIn's B2B businesses. Niji then worked with Zenefits (who have a $4.5 billion valuation on $584 million capital raised). He was there as the Head of Sales Strategy and Operations where he built the Sales Ops and Strategy function, consistency of the CRM, metrics and insights, Sales Compensation, Sales Productivity, territory design, deployment and deal desk teams. They enabled growth from 20 to 500+ Sales reps while Niji was at Zenefits. Niji is now the founder and CEO of AgentSync, an application built on Salesforce.com that automatically enforces state producer licensing and appointment regulatory requirements through an integration to the National Insurance Producer Registry (NIPR). It helps minimize your compliance costs and prevent regulatory violations before they occur by letting technology do the heavy lifting. Here we go.

Naber:  Njii! Amazing to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us.

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, thanks for having me.

Naber:  Yeah, no worries. We've known each other for a long time, almost nine years now, I think we've known each other.

Niji Sabharwal:  A little too long.

Naber:  Haha, that's right too long. That's right. We should, we should cut this off. We should actually, before it goes downhill too fast, we should probably cut it off. We really can only go down. So I'm pumped to have you on for so many reasons. We are close enough where I know you personally and professionally, and we've gotten to know each other on many different levels. One of the things I want to do is have people get to know you, a little bit more personally because I want their fascination to grow in you, as my admiration, and fascination, and inspiration from you has grown. So we'll talk a little bit what it was growing up as Niji, what you were like as a kid, all the way through to decisions you made around where you went to school, and some of the things you did, and interests, and some of the first jobs you had. And then we'll jump into the meat of it, which is talking about your roles at some of the amazing fast growing hypergrowth Unicorn businesses that you've been at. Because you've been at some of the fast growing in the world in some pretty senior, significant roles. So, why don't we start with first, Niji as a kiddo. So, I know you grew up in San Francisco, grew up in Palo Alto and your Mom and Dad are amazing. And you had so many different varied interests as a kid. You went to a bilingual school, high school in Palo Alto, you got went to uni at UCSB. Let's walk through some of that stuff. Give us maybe three, five minutes and it's going to be longer, because I'll ask questions, but what was it growing up as a kid in Niji's life? What was Niji life as as a kiddo?

Niji Sabharwal:  Yikes.

Naber:  Ha, that's a good start.

Niji Sabharwal:  First off, my dad's from India, my mom's from France. I was conceived in Maryland, actually that's where they met. And they were both on foreign exchange programs, in Frostburg, Maryland. Quickly after news of conception was heard, they moved to San Francisco for better opportunities. My Dad actually went to Golden Gate State, basically a community college. I was born in San Francisco, basically first generation. And so I was raised speaking English and French, and I started school at Ecole Bilingue, which is a French-American bilingual school in Berkeley, California.

Naber:  So tell us a little bit about that. You were learning in French, correct? Or were you learning in English?

Niji Sabharwal:  Both, which is kind of crazy to think about now, until probably, when I actually went to high school, I can't remember if I if I thought in French or English. But even to this day, sometimes I'll think of a French word, but...I'll think of a word in French first, and the English word won't exist, for it.

Naber:  Haha, that happens in French a lot actually.

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, totally. Yeah. The languages come from the same place, but there's a lot of French expressions that you just can't do in English.

Naber:  Right, right. So, you and your brother both went to the school, correct?

Speaker 5:        Yeah. So five years, five years younger.

Naber:  Cool. And then what were you interested in as a kid? What were Niji's interests? What were your hobbies? What were you doing?

Niji Sabharwal:  I was really into Green Day, Green Day was my favorite band. Got into rock, and then punk rock in the early days.

Naber:  Best best green day album? Dookie?

Niji Sabharwal:  Dookie, for sure. Hands down.

Naber:  Just making sure. Just making sure.

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, and I was always into building things. Legos, and...and Sim City 2000. I don't know if you've ever played that chorus.

Naber:  Of course, of course. It's a throwback.

Niji Sabharwal:  There you go. Lemmings is my number one favorite game in the entire planet.

Naber:  Awesome. So you're into building things, that makes a ton of sense for what you're doing professionally right now, and how your mind works. Tell us about going into high school, and how you were in high school, and some of the things that you're interested in as well.

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So going into high school, I had little bit of a tough time. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease when I was 13. So I was hospitalized, basically for a summer. It was an autoimmune disease that affected my nervous system. So I lost a ton of weight, had trouble with motor functions for awhile. So it took me a couple of years to get back into it as the beginning of high school. I've been fortunate, but luckily I got through it pretty much unscathed. I have trouble with balance still today. If I closed my eyes in the shower, I don't know which way is up. Yeah. Which it can be challenging sometimes, I still ride a motorcycle today, which, I'm just gonna make sure never to close my eyes.

Naber:  And you've always been in a motorcycling, sorry, motorcycle riding. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, there's nothing like being on a motorcycle with wind at your face. It's almost meditative in a lot of ways. When you're on top of a motorcycle, there's nothing else you're thinking other than the moment that you're in, every second. There's something really, really special about that. I've tried to meditate in a lot of ways, and never been been able to fully do it, completely unconnect. Except for on a motorcycle. On a motorcycle, you're not thinking about anything else. It's kind impossible actually, it's actually very dangerous.

Naber:  Right, right. I mean, and Niji likes to go fast, on on a bike. Tell us a little about how motorcycle riding has played a role in high school, and as you were growing up. Because you were really good at it, and you did it with a lot of people, it was a big part of your life. Tell us a little bit more.

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So, it's a very dangerous sport, first of all. So we would, basically ride in pretty big packs, full leathers. We would go up and down the coast, and all the way out to almost to Nevada and back, through these mountain roads. And yeah, a few guys from the group, broke tons of bones. Luckily we didn't have anyone die on the team, but, had a couple of guys actually helicoptered out of the canyons from crashing. And so it was a pretty intense sport, and intense group to ride with. But, looking back on it now, now that I'm middle-aged and have have a lot more to lose, I would never go back to those days. But in the moment, there was was something just so excited taking life to the edge as much as you can. Putting myself back into my 20 year-old body, there was nothing more exciting. There's nothing cooler that you can do. I'm glad I made it through that period, and didn't die, of course.

Naber:  Jenn's glad too, Jenn's glad too. Again, I've known you for a long time, I know you really well, but I always think that those stories are fascinating. And it's such an interesting hobby that so many people don't have, and not a lot of people know that much about. And again, I just think your story is fascinating. So you're in high school. You went to Palo Alto High School, and you're going to go to UCSB. Why UCSB? And tell us a little bit about you there.

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So, when I was in high school, I was in California, it was a very competitive time. I graduated in to 2003. It was a very competitive time to be entering the college candidate pool. And I applied to most of the UC's which, in California, they're public schools. They're still ungodly expensive, but, I knew I wanted to do that versus going into private school. It's a difference between $9-10,000 and $40,000 a year. So I was really vying for a state school. Either UC or a state state sponsored school. And there was insane amount of competition, and I didn't have the best grades. I probably didn't apply myself more, as much as I should have in high school, and a graduate with a 3.3 GPA. And my SAT's were pretty average, 1330. But I had a really, what I thought was an amazing essay. And the essay that I wrote was about my second chance at life, going through the autoimmune disease I had. Facing death at a very young age, especially entering high school, and having to really face that head on, and getting through it, and having full capacity coming through it. It really a second chance. And English professor, English is probably my worst subject. I'm terrible at writing, I barely know the English language, and I actually scored way higher. on my French SAT's than I did on my English SAT's, which is pretty funny.

Naber:  Wow.

Niji Sabharwal:  So my English professor in high school was a UC Santa Barbara Alumni. And he spend some time with me crafting the essay, and giving me notes, and helping me make it, you know, a pretty compelling story. So I think that's what ultimately actually got me over the edge. Because, UC Santa Barbara had a 1% acceptance rate, something crazy that. So luckily, 3.3 GPA, it was decent, but at the time there was they could have easily only accepted 4.0 and still had twice as many applicants as they had spots. And I was pretty fortunate there, it was an amazing school to get into, especially because my focus has been economics and business, and UC Santa Barbara had an economics professor that actually got the Nobel Prize for economics, in Finland.

Naber:  Wow, cool. And that's an awesome segue, and it's a really good story for how you got in, and the essay around your second chance at life, and your mindset at such a young age. It's incredible. So let's talk about you at UCSB a little bit. What kind of student were you? And what'd you study? And then we can get into some professional stuff.

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So pretty terrible student. Yeah, I hated going to lectures. I hated the whole system of having...because UCSB was on a quarterly system. It was kind of this terrible cycle of just studying your nuts off, the day before midterm or final. And if you can master that you can get through college, no problem. Which is kind of a terrible way to do it because...it's really terrible. I kind of gamed the system in a way, and figured out that, okay, if I just really apply myself the week before midterms, the week before finals, I can get through the whole thing. So to be brutally honest, I kind of squandered my education, and didn't take out of it what I probably should have, had I known what I know now. And we'll spend...I would l ove to go back to college right now. If someone could, like, float my life to learn for four years, there couldn't be anything better for me.

Naber:  That's cool, it's an interesting thought process

Niji Sabharwal:  Of course. But at the time, the only thing I was concerned about what's next, and partying, and socializing, and all that good stuff. So I spent probably a little too much time partying. We bought a bunch of jet skis and we would, we would basically launch jet skits directly from the beach in Santa Barbara, and just launch them off waves. Tons of fun. But honestly, yeah, I definitely squandered my education there. I didn't spend enough time studying, and spend too much time partying, but got through it nonetheless.

Naber:  Nice. Got through it. It sounds the thrill seeker in you still has an unquenchable thirst at that point. And so you graduate from UCSB. What's your first role out of school? Do you go into HP at that point?

Niji Sabharwal:  So out of school...I did an internship at HP. It was an emerging markets business unit that they've formed, selling a PC to small villages in South Africa, and Brazil, and some parts of Russia - where it was a shared PC unit to provide internet connection, and the ability to communicate and create an e-commerce marketplace for small businesses within those communities. I did that internship for about two years. So basically two summers It was actually really rewarding, a really rewarding project. HP ultimately ended up sunsetting that business unit, but it was a great launch into tech. And you're coming from...in college, Facebook was just starting to get traction at that point. So at this point people weren't quite...the internet was just becoming a real powerhouse as far as connecting people and creating a a marketplace online.

Naber:  That sounds like a really rewarding project. I mean, the goal and the mission of the project must've been really rewarding, especially as you're going through school and had your first types of professional experiences. This must have been really rewarding. Alright, so you go through those projects, and then you end up at LinkedIn. Tell us how you got to LinkedIn, and then walk us through what you're up to at LinkedIn. And I'll stop, and ask a bunch of questions on some of the things that I know you're both good at, as well as some of those experiences you had.

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So after I graduated, I graduated in 2009. The worst year that you could possibly graduate with an economics degree, as this was right after the economic crash. I couldn't get a job at Pete's coffee. I applied to two Pete's coffee's with a degree in business economics from UC, and couldn't get a job to save my life. But went on an ggressive job hunt for months after I graduated, and ended up landing a job as, basically, a front desk cashier at rubber stamp company in Berkeley. Yeah, Berkeley Stamping & Engraving. They did rubber stamps and trophy engraving.

Naber:  Trophy engraving and rubber stamps. So what were you doing for them?

Niji Sabharwal:  So at first I was manning the front desk, taking orders, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and then the owners of the business trained me up on how to actually make the rubber stamps and operate this this old school engraving tool that they had that was run on an old, very old, DOS system that had different fonts for engraving different surfaces. And that was honestly probably the funnest job I've ever had. A whole workshop of rally cool shit to play with. They still made stamps the old fashioned way with a photo emulsion. So, we'd do typesetting digitally, and then we would take the typesetting and convert it to basically a film negative. And then film negative to imprint onto photo emulsion, so that you actually get the crazy amount of detail versus just doing it fully digital. And Berkeley Stamps & Graving was one of the...if you ever look at a bag of Pete's coffee, they don't use stamps anymore, but 10 years ago, if you looked at a bag of Pete's coffee that had a stamp on it that said, dark roast, the odds of me physically making that stamp are like 99%.

Naber:  That's cool.

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. It's funny that I couldn't even get a job at Pete's coffee, but, they were keeping that business alive, more or less. They were based out of, Oakland, California, and they really invest in local businesses. So they would only use local businesses for things like stamps that they use for all the locations nationwide. And that was the account actually kept Berkeley Stamp & Engraving open for so as long as they were.

Naber:  Would it be fair to say you couldn't get a job at Pete's coffee, but you really put a stamp on their business?

Niji Sabharwal:  Oh Man.

Naber:  I know, I know, I nailed it.

Niji Sabharwal:  Typical Brandon.

Naber:  Haha, typical. So let's move to LinkedIn. So you hopped to LinkedIn at that point, how would you make the move, and what were you doing while you were there? And just run us through very quickly the jumps you had while you were there. And then I'll ask you a few questions about them.

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So, I was working in Berkeley Stamp & Engraving, I was living Oakland with a crazy ex-girlfriend at the time. I was actually at, my parents throw this epic Halloween party every year - my parents are pretty multicultural, and have a pretty eclectic, group of friends - and I was talking to this guy at the party. It was one of my mom's friends, boyfriends at the time, and he just joined a company called LinkedIn. And he was telling me about what LinkedIn was, and at the time LinkedIn was 200 people or less maybe, a small company based out of Mountain View. And I was honestly pretty drunk at the time, and we had a pretty long conversation that I probably only remember half of. And a couple of weeks later, he reached out to me about a potential job for LinkedIn in their Sales department. Yeah, completely out of the blue, and I was obviously looking for a better job to really launch my career, and given where the economy was at the time and the job opportunities that were available to me, it was a really great lead. So, after months of interviews, finally landed a job as a Sales Development Representative selling LinkedIn's Recruiting Solution.

Naber:  Love it. And in your Sales Development days, one of my favorite parts about your story is you're relatively self-taught for your jump into Sales Operations and Strategy, learning some of the tools and systems. Talk a little bit that self learning, and then we'll get into your Sales Strategy and Ops role.

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So, started off at LinkedIn and in Sales, and we were...and it as the wild, wild West back then. I was a junior Sales rep. At that point Sales Development was kind of a new idea that was really pioneered by a couple of folks at LinkedIn, Brian Frank being being one of them. And the idea was to have a junior Sales function that would do a lot of the lead generation, and tee-ing up qualified leads for Account Executives to run the Sales cycle through. The idea was to, almost like factory line the Sales process, which seems totally obvious today, but at the time it was pretty revolutionary to have this function tee up Sales leads for Account Executives to close. And I think honestly at that point, the issue was that people didn't want to invest in junior Sales folks knowing that the average return on investment for an Account Executive would...industry standard was about eight to one. Meaning, if your business is run really solidly, you can expect to return $8 on every $1 that that you spend on your Account Executives. So you hired junior a Salesperson, you're not gonna get that return out of them. But, the revolutionary idea that turn in Sales Development was that if you can basically make that Account Executive that much more productive, by offloading all the prospecting and lead generation that is, I wouldn't say administrative, but less strategic than runninga full Sales cycle. you can improve those efficiency ratios. And that's really what landed with me, and making Sales Development what it is today. So, at that point, I was doing Sales and realizing that the processes we had in place were pretty inefficient. At the time I was hired, I was I think the fifth Sales Development rep at LinkedIn, and the Sales processes we had in place were all over the map. It was kind of like, whoever could provide the most leads wins, and that was kind of it. You were given a loose lead list, and we were given the opportunity obviously to sell into LinkedIn's subscribers, their members. So that was the raw tools we had available at the time, but there was no real process to how you go get those leads. So at the time I partnered up with our Salesforce Admin, this woman who probably taught me everything I know about Salesforce. And she howed me the ropes of how we can leverage Sales tools to make myself and the team more efficient. And at the end of the day, I wouldn't consider myself to be a type A personality, and as I don't really enjoy selling, I don't see myself doing that everyday, all day long. So I pitched the idea to my boss at the time, that I thought my skills would be best used in Sales Operations, leveraging Sales systems and Sales tools that we had to make the Sales reps that we have more effective. And that whole process was maybe two days to pitch the idea. And he was like, I totally buy into that, let's do it. And two days later I was now in Sales Operations, or the Sales Ops person.

Naber:  And how long were you doing that role at LinkedIn?

Niji Sabharwal:  Which role?

Naber:  Well, you were in Sales Ops, and then you're leading teams after that. How long were you in Sales Ops at LinkedIn?

Naber:  Yeah. So, I was doing Sales Dev for a couple months, then converted myself into the Sales Ops function. Grew that function out. We built the Sales Ops team and the Sales Development team out significantly over the next few years. We were providing structure, strategic planning, building Sales territories, Sales process, prospecting process, prospecting tools, and ended up expanding from just a small office in Mountain View to, nine global offices. And from when I took on the Sales Ops role to that point was probably about two years. And then, once we expanded into Asia, Australia, EMEA - the office in Ireland, I pitched to my boss at the time, a new boss, that I wanted to expand my skills, and take an opportunity in Europe to build out the Sales Operations team there. So I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to move to Ireland to build out Sales Operations function, and my pitch was to bring the North American rigor to to EMEA.

Naber:  Nice. Awesome. And how long were you doing that? And then, tell us about the next jump as well. Because you were there for a little bit, and then you moved back to San Francisco after that. So tell us about when you were in Ireland, how long you were there, and then tell us about the move back to San Francisco as well.

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So, when I moved to Ireland, that's where I met your pretty face. Built out the Sales Operations team there, and learned a ton about how this type of business was done in Europe. And specifically the challenges of operating with multi-languages, multiculture...you know, learning the hard fact that if you have a thick Spanish accent, and you're trying to sell into the UK, that you're not gonna have a lot of luck. Americans are easy, they'll buy from anybody. But learning how to navigate the European cultural differences, was actually the biggest learning for me at that time.

Naber:  Niji, let's pause there for a minute. If someone's going to go into, either running global portions of Sales Operations, or put global portions of Sales, what's some advice you would have around the mindset they need to have expanding into Europe and starting to own some of those markets that you learned, and maybe some piece of advice you would give?

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, I mean that is a great question. So every market is completely different. I mean, my experience has taught me that if you know how to sell SaaS in the US, that doesn't mean you know how to SaaS anywhere else. Understanding the markets, the cultural differences, the differences in languages and how things translate, and thinking you can scale something from a US market to other markets just because the idea makes sense is not all that that's involved. You need boots on the ground to really understand what's going on. I mean, think of India as an example. Everyone thinks that because of the population and the amount of money that is potentially made in India...it doesn't translate that easily. There's an insane amount of language, cultural, behavioral differences from market to market.

Naber:  Nice one. That's great. All right, keep going. This is good. So, you're in Dublin and then you're working on some of these projects. These are some of the things you learned. You're about to make the move back to SF. What are you doing there?

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, so I was considering...I was planning on doing a stint of...It was open-ended, I was planning on doing about a year in Europe, or a year in Ireland specifically. I was thinking about my next plan after I'd built the team out there, and I was looking at a role in London for one of LinkedIn's newer business units. But, kind of a tricky situation, before I moved to Ireland, actually right after I made a decision, I started dating this this woman knowing that I was moving to Ireland, it was an eight month timeframe. Because I had to basically build a transition plan, hire a replacement to lead the North America team. So I had an eight month ramp time before I was gonna move. And so, I met this woman who completely blew me away, and we started dating. And knowing that I was gonna move away, it was a tricky...a tough concept to deal with. We ended up breaking up right before I moved over to Ireland. And knowing that the long distance thing is challenging and best - I was 28 at the time? We figured that it was just not worth trying to keep going. But while I was there we stayed in touched, and I ended up having to make this tough decision where, I was going to potentially move to London for this role with the new business unit with LinkedIn, or I could move back to San Francisco and actually make a go at it with this woman. I ended up moving back to San Francisco and moving in with my now wife. It definitely worked out in the end. So came back to San Francisco with LinkedIn, moved in with the wife. At the time, we dated for three or four years before we actually got married. But, I was back in San Francisco for about six months, and I was presented with an opportunity to work in a new startup in the HR technology space, a start up called Zenefits.

Naber:  Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. So, let's walk through Zenefits quickly - some of the roles that you had...actually let's pause there for a minute. So while you were at LinkedIn, and while you're at Zenefits, one of the things you were known for is building Sales Operations functions, and having an understanding for all the different pieces involved in that. If someone's going to be building out their Sales Ops and Sales Strategy function, what's a framework that they should be using as they're thinking about the different pieces involved, as well as where to start and the phases that they'll go through in order to build that out?

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, that's a good one. So, first and foremost, as you start thinking about Sales Strategy and Operations, the first question you've got to answer is what is what is the financial plan, or what is the go to market plan? So I think where a lot of folks get it wrong, is they have a product market fit that makes sense. They have a market that they know has demand, but the amount of demand is completely up to what the CEO's telling you exists. So, one of the key functions that Sales Strategy and Operations play is the ability to quantify that demand, and really put a plan together where you can really make the rubber meet the road. In taking...at an early stage you're not going to have a ton of metrics that you can really pressure test. But, good Sales Ops folks will take the data that you do have, identify the lead volume that you've been getting across the different channels, and put a strategic plan together, a go-to-market plan that quantifies that demand. And we'll extrapolate by channel what your conversion rates are going to look like, should look like. What are good industry benchmarks for those conversion rates? And then taking your Sales capacity, the AE's and Sales Development reps that you're going to hire, based on the amount of revenue that that they're gonna bring in - which is a function of the amount of leads, times the conversion rate, times your average selling price to get to a month over month extrapolation of what your business can actually do, versus just putting your finger to the wind on yeah, I think we could turn this into a hundred million dollar business overnight.

Naber:  Okay. So that's the first step. And what are you doing after that?

Niji Sabharwal:  So, I would say the core pillars to a Sales Operations team are going to be...Sales systems and the core Sales tools that the Sales team is going need, a function for that...and these functions can be carried by one or one or more people. I think over time you're gonna start to specialize these functions, but right off the bat you're probably going to have one to three people wearing a lot of hats. So Sales Tools & Sales Systems is going to be a pretty core functionality that you're going to wanna to knock out right up front. Second is going to be the strategic planning and analysis function, where you're going to want to want somebody that can think strategically about where the business is going, a solid partner with the Sales lead to understand what's possible and the demand that's out there. And then reporting and analytics. That's a really core function that you're gonna want to keep in place. So somebody that can set the metrics, based on that go to market plan, set the metrics, and provide the visibility to leadership team, and on an operational basis to the Sales team, so that they have a true north. I can't tell you the amount of businesses that I've seen that can't even tell you how much revenue they're generating every month. That's an enormous problem. And there are so many level setting activities I've seen where, I went through this Zenefits a few times, where we didn't set the right measurement capabilities in our system to be able to accurately represent how much revenue is coming in. Because as Zenefits was mostly funded by insurance commissions, and insurance commissions are...you don't fully realize them until month two or month three after you sold the deal. So when you have a situation where the company's in crazy hyper growth, if you can't fully realize those revenues until month three, you could be in a ton of trouble. So having measurements in place and having that true North is absolutely critical, and putting as much emphasis on that as you can.

Naber:  Nice. Love it. And so let's go through each one of those things for a second. So you said systems and tools. If I'm going through systems and tools, and building out a SaaS Sales function, what should I be thinking about for the best practices for one, the person that should be doing that, and two, the types of systems and tools that I should putting in place? And your evolution for how that's gonna evolve over time, what you need to be good at in order to get that right?

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So that's not an easy question to answer. I think depending on the business, it, I'll have completely different answers. But as a general rule, experience is key. So trying to try to put somebody that has used Salesforce in the past...If you're an early stage company, generally the CEO or Head of Sales doesn't quite appreciate the importance of systems and tools up front. And they will put in place the person who they think has the most exposure to systems. So, putting somebody in place that has used Salesforce in the past, and they're not quite sure what to, what to do with them in that role, is probably the worst idea you can have. So if you're planning on building a business for scale, you're gonna want to put somebody who has war scars and has seen what good looks like, seen what bad looks like. You're gonna want to put that person in the role. And I've realized that by saying this I wouldn't be sitting where I am today because I wouldn't have gotten that opportunity. But, had I been in a decision making role, I never would have put myself into the role that LinkedIn put me into.

Naber:  Okay. That makes sense. And what are some of the things that both LinkedIn and Zenefits are really good at from a systems and tools perspective? And maybe you can give a couple of examples.

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So I mean, LinkedIn was a pretty special case. They were a picture perfect example of what good looks like.

Naber:  Yeah, describe that.

Naber:  They had a very seasoned leadership team. As far as tech companies go, most tech companies do not start with a seasoned leadership team. If you look at the folks that were in charge of making decisions at the time at at LinkedIn, at the very beginning of it's hyper growth, all those guys knew exactly what the fuck they were doing before. They've done this before. They had a very clear vision. They didn't come up to off with with a cool idea, and then got the people that were closest to them to tell them with that. They were very thoughtful about how they put that leadership team together, and scaled the company, and really came up with that. They were true disruptors. Where, I think a lot of companies, like Zenefits which just grew way too quickly without thinking through all the systems and support that was needed to scale a company at the rate that both LinkedIn and Zenefits scaled at, I think that was probably the biggest difference between those two.

Naber:  What are some of the mistakes, whether it's specifically or just generally, that most of those types of teams that either grow too fast, and don't take the appropriate amount of account for systems and tools, or they just get it wrong - what are some of the landmines you can step on?

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, I'd say the biggest thing is doing fewer things better. And that was something that LinkedIn has imprinted on me, is don't get distracted by all the shiny stuff along the way, and focus on the things that are really going to be core. And if you can't nail on those things, don't do anything else. At Zenefits I was just as much a blame as anyone else for this, it was really easy to get distracted by all the shiny stuff along the way, and we tried to do everything for everyone. And that's not a recipe for success.

Naber:  Fewer things done better. Focus. Love it. All right, let's hop into...you had mentioned resource planning and analysis. So let's talk about that. What's output, and what's the goal of resource planning analysis? Walk us through that process where you can give us a vision into how you think about going about the process of resource planning, and what the purpose of it is, and what the best case scenario is with your output?

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So I mean, I'm assuming the question is specifically for the Sales function, and building out the go to market plan from a Sales capacity perspective. So resource planning is always a pretty tough one, especially when you don't have a lot of data to go off of. So if you're talking about building a financial plan for the next year, when you've had three years under your belt, it's a lot easier to straight line.

Naber:  Let's, maybe we should do some examples at LinkedIn. What would that process look like? And then at Zenefits ,differently, what would that process look like?

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, so at at LinkedIn I was fortunate enough to be learning from a ton of really experienced folks and getting to take what they built and build on that. At Zenefits, we were doing everything from scratch, and the straight line was insane. It wasn't a straight line. It was an exponential curve where...when I joined Zenefits, the year prior we did just under 2 million revenue. And the year I joined we did 10 million. And plan for the next year was 100 million. So it was just absolute bananas, bananas growth. So we were operating with very little data, and almost, with a gun to the head, how much can we do if we really squeeze as much juice out of the lemon as possible. So yeah, that that planning process was...the best way to describe it was we would take all the different Sales channels that would provide fruit throughout that year. So the key ones I would zero in on are inbound leads - so how much coming Marketing, from both word of mouth, our SEM spend, basically all the contact us leads that we get from our website, chat leads we get from from the website, all in the one bucket. Second would be events - so webinars, trade shows, in person events, those kind of things. That would be our events bucket. And then content. So, we would generate white papers, data sheets, we would try to circulate them through every avenue that we could. And that would make up our requested content bucket. One more I would call out is email. So cold Marketing emails would be the fourth bucket. And that was a really important one at Zenefits, especially as we had one of the most ingenious email marketers, probably on the planet, at the helm of the ship that point. So, we took those four different channels and figured out, okay, how much can we squeeze out of those channels, how many leads, given the size of the market? So we did a total addressable market sizing exercise, and understood that okay, there's 8 million small businesses in the US that fit our demographic. How many do we think we can actually go get, and how many are within the general confines of what makes sense for our targeted demographic. Meaning, we wouldn't consider businesses that don't have email addresses or basic things like that wouldn't make them a good candidate for a technology solution. And that was basically our addressable market. And we figured, okay, well let's say we can get there in the next 10 years. So we would take all the different Sales channels that we have, based on the conversion rates that we knew we can get from those channels, and looked at both the costs and the resources that were needed against each channel to generate those leads. And that would be covered in the cost section in the analysis. And on the capacity side, we would figure out, okay, how many, for example, Sales Development reps who we need to qualify a hundred leads. And based on the conversion rates that we knew across the channel, how many of those leads would turn into wins. And so we would, we would take that analysis of total leads by channel, and have...there's a lot of art and science to this stuff. So it's not always going to be an equation where the left side equals the right. So we would take a total amount of leads that we generate by channel, and figure out, okay, how many, Sales Development reps do we need to generate those leads or even qualify those leads. And then how many Account Executives do we need to be on the other side to, to handle those leads. And what we would do to calculate the amount of Account Executives, which I think was one of the biggest faults to original model, was assuming that, okay, how many hours does an encounter executive have in a day to qualify these leads? And we were thinking okay, well it's not just new leads are qualifying, but how much of their day are they going to spend on the second touch, third touch, fourth charge of their current pipeline. So we, generally in that equation a lot of companies will underestimate the time it takes to actually follow up with the Sales cycle. And just think that you should probably spend most of your time on new leads versus following-up on old pipeline, which is absolutely the wrong way to do it. So a good way to think about it is, okay, a third of your time should be spent on new leads, two-thirds should be spent on following up with the existing pipeline. That's obviously a very peanut butter spread metric. And based on whatever that time spend allocation ratio is, you could figure out, okay, how many new leads can an Account Executive actually handle, based on Sales cycles and everything else. So, taking, taking that equation, you can figure out, okay, this is how many leads can go through the system. This is how much capacity each AE can take, and this is how many Sales Development reps we're going to need to support them. And then you play with both the inputs, mostly the inputs, to figure out, okay, at what point do we hit a breaking point in the system, where either you get diminishing returns by generating more leads...it costs you more money to actually generate those leads than it does to put numbers on the scoreboard. And so that was a very long winded way to answer that but yeah, that makes sense?

Naber:  Yeah, of course. That wasn't long winded. It's a lot of detail, which is exactly, what we're looking for. It's great. I was actually hoping you go into some detail because your mind is brilliant, and I I'm glad that we got to see a little bit more into it. Let's say you go through that process, you come over with that Strategy, you've got your numbers, you got your Head count plans, you put the budget against it, you're going to deploy the Strategy next. Then you talked about reporting, metrics, and measurement. So what types of reports, or reporting, or metrics are you building out for each different type of stakeholder in the organization? So Marketing, Sales, maybe C-level, and then subsequently water falling down into management or director level, and maybe even down to rep level, but probably not. What sort of reports, metrics, and measurement are you putting in place, and how do you think about doing that?

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, so, the way I usually think reports, and dashboards, and KPIs is leading and lagging indicators. So lagging indicators are pretty straight forward. I'm thinking okay, what was your conversion rate over this period of time? What was your win rate? What your ACV or average selling price? Those things can easily be calculated, based on the results that you see. I think what's a lot more interesting...Obviously those are going to be the key, really the KPIs that you want to put in place that you can measure business against. And those are the gonna be the KPIs that are built into your go to market model. So that if you're starting to miss on certain KPI's - conversion rate, win rate, ACV - you're gonna start to tend to see those results, on the scoreboard very quickly. But, by the time you start to see the revenue dip below where the plan is, you're way too late. So one of the keys is figuring out what those leading indicators are, so that you can suss out problems, and build almost like an early warning system, before it's way too late. What will tend to happen is...let's say your Marketing machine is starting to either hit its point of diminishing returns, or the messaging is just not landing anymore, or there's a new competitor on the market that your old demand, or the demand that used to get, is starting to go into this other competitor. By the time that you know that that lead, which would usually turn into a qualified lead that would be brought into a Sales cycle by an AE that would eventually close, by the time that that lagging indicator starts to go down, depending on what type of businesses it is this could be anywhere from 30 days to 180 days...By the time you figure out that that your revenue is going down, your 180 days too late to solving the problem. So, really understanding what those lagging indicators are and understand that you should be really fucking concerned if you're used to seeing, let's say, 3000 inbound leads, against that one channel of four channels for inbound leads. If you start to see that number go down by 10%, and the next month go down by another 10%, you should be really, really worried and you should address that right up front. And the only way you're going to do that is by having really good reporting and analytics against this. And the sophistication, or the support by leadership that, if you see that metric go down that you can call fire, and go address it right away. Or it's just having your leadership team say, hey, the numbers look good today. we're closing as much revenue, why should we be worried?

Naber:  Yeah. All that makes tons of sense. Thanks so much for joining on the detail. And you just raised one of the super powers I believe that you have, is gaining the trust to be able to yell fire, and people listen, and act. How would you suggest, or maybe a framework you think about, or maybe it's a mindset you have, on how do you build that trust so that when you say fire people listen, take it seriously, as well as act on it?

Niji Sabharwal:  To be honest, I would say that is probably one of my weak points. There's a politics to this that I've never been able to master. And I think that's actually one of the key things that people in my position need to figure out, is how to do better is articulate points in a way that will resonate with leadership team. When I see that kind of stuff, I see the numbers, I understand them probably...a lot of Sales Ops folks will understand them most better than most people will. And I will see a fire, and I'll yell fire, and I'll show them the numbers, but that's never enough, right. If you're gonna yell fire, there's going to be significant resources behind the firefighting effort, and potentially to scare to the rest of the company, it's not a very popular idea. So understanding how important the politics side of it is and the optic side of it is actually, something that shouldn't be undervalued. So building, upfront, way in advance from day one in the job, build the best relationship with leadership team, from the CEO to the VP of Sales, to the CMO, whomever, building those relationships up front there are absolutely critical. And that becomes really challenging, especially when if you have...In Zenefits case, leadership turning over over, every year, every two years...When you're at a company that has leadership changes more than one or two times, it's really easy to say okay, well there's gonna be somebody else. It's not worth the time to build those relationships. But it always is. Having that credibility, and the trust in leadership team's absolutely critical, regardless if you think there's going to be a new guy coming soon or new gal.

Naber:  Yup. Yup. Got It. Awesome. And you hinted at it a little bit there. I've got just two more topics to talk about, and then we'll wrap. Thanks so much for your time. Actually maybe three, I think it's three. So the first one is, you hinted a little bit there, stakeholder management. When you think about stakeholder management, how do you manage stakeholders from Sales, differently than you do from Marketing, differently than you do from Eng and Product, etc? I mean, do you have a general thought process where, from a Sales Ops perspective this is what's important to Sales, from a Sales Ops perspective this is what's important to Marketing, and product and eng, etc?

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, that's a really good one. So, yeah, I think the best way to think about it is to meet them where they are. The type of character, the type of person you're gonna deal with from Head of the Technical team, to a Head of Sales, to Head of Marketing, to a Head of Customer Support. Those profiles are enormously different, right? People are enormously different, right? And so having as much empathy, and I would say empathy is the key key thing that you should be thinking about, is figuring out what's important to them and making whatever you're trying to accomplish, aligning your vision with theirs. Can't stress that more.

Naber:  Yeah. Let's look at an example. So if I'm going to Sales, what's your head space when you're going to someone in Sales, and we'll go through each example.

Niji Sabharwal:  The number. Convincing your Head of Sales, I mean obviously this is very hypotheticaland not all situation here align up to this, but convincing your Head of Sales that what you're trying to do is going to provide the business value that's going to get them to their number. If it's Support, just getting them to understand that what you're trying to do in that moment is going to improve user experience, customer experience, and ultimately provide a better end to end customer customer journey.

Naber:  Nice one. And what about Product and Eng, you've done a bunch of projects between liaising between Sales, and Marketing, and Product and Eng. What are some of the things that you need to think about in Sales Ops, Sales Strategy, Sales Tools, Systems, as you're having those types of conversations?

Niji Sabharwal:  That's a good one. So, I mean, I would say it'd be very similar to, trying to hit on the same points as what would be important to, a CRO or Head of Sales, as well as, speaking to customer experience, and ultimately,customer retention. Interfacing with with CTO's, and Head of Product, Heads of Product can always be pretty challenging because they can have a much different vision, and be motivated by different motivations than, just, just trying to optimize profits. That makes sense?

Naber:  Yeah, absolutely. How have you, any, do you have one or two tips on how to navigate that?

Niji Sabharwal:  So yeah, this might sound a little cheesy, but honestly, just building relationships with those folks that our real. Having a beer with them, having lunch with them, having more personal connections with those folks, goes a really, really long way. Not trying to sound you're trying to buy their affection, but, that honestly to me has been the best way to actually navigate those situations, building personal relationships with them so that they can, they can trust where you're coming from. I mean, I'm assuming you are trustworthy person.

Naber:  Fair enough. That's great detail. Thank you. So you're at LinkedIn, one of the fastest growing companies ever. You're in Sales Ops and Strategy. Then you move to Zenefits, also one of the fastest growing companies of all time. Two more things that I see as a bridge or a commonality between those two things. One is, something you had to do often. And the second one is something that they did as one of their, I think core competencies did really well. The first one is, you've had to sell a vision to a group very often. And my understanding, it's one of your fortes, and one of your superpowers. So how do you think about going about doing that? Getting people to, the right place with the business case, getting people to act, doing the right thing for the business based on the vision that you have, and even if it's not necessarily one of the things that they want to do, or if it's not necessarily within the scope of the way that they see things in their vision?

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, I mean, that's a million dollar question.

Naber:  More than that. Billion dollar question somewhat.

Niji Sabharwal:  I'd say really thinking about your, wherever you're selling this vision to, making a shared vision. And that's really the key is understanding your audience, where they're coming from, and going back to the empathy issue, where you need to connect with them on a level where it means something to them. And it sounds super obvious, but tailoring that message to connect with them on a level that makes sense for their role and what they're trying to achieve. It's really hard to do obviously when you're, when you're pitching big business direction change for example, to the leadership team, where you have representatives from each side of the business. But thinking through how, not that you have to pretend that or change the mission or the initiative that you're pitching, but making it resonate with all the folks that are in the room, or all the folks that are going to be making this decision. And that's absolutely key.

Naber:  Right. Awesome. And then do you have a process you go about doing that? To make sure that it's a vision. Do you have a checkbox list of things that you check off in your head, or maybe a couple of steps that you take in order to do that?

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, so it really depends on the environment, the company. I think an easy to go to would be, thinking about the company's mission statement, or the company's key values. LinkedIn was really great about this where, every employee can on command recite the company's mission and value statements, at any given point. Even as those evolved over time. So those are really easy to go to's, where you can get everyone rallied behind that initiative, if you're able to hit on those values. Otherwise, thinking through, just to folks that are going to be in that room are the folks that you really need to get to, thinking about what is what is relevant to them in that moment or what is relevant to them, for that specific initiative.

Naber:  Yeah. Nice one. Okay. Last topic, Niji, and and then we'll round it out with two rapid fire questions. So last topic is building an Inbound Engine. You've had to do this at LinkedIn with a significant amount of sophistication. You have to do this to build massive scale into Zenefits growth model. The way to operationalize a lot of this growth, is to make sure that you have a very sophisticated Inbound Engine. What are the steps you go about in order to build that out and make sure it's sophisticated enough from a Sales Ops and Strategy perspective?

Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, so there are so many tools out there today that that make this stuff a lot easier, as far as systems go. But I'd say the most important piece of operationalizing it would be speed to lead. So figuring out speed to lead. So figuring out whatever you need to do to minimize the time between once somebody raises their hand or submits an inquiry, to getting back to them. So, at LinkedIn, the process was somebody would submit a Contact Us form. We would usually respond within 48 hours. So pretty typical to a lot of Sales functions. But what we we figured out very quickly is that the inbound lead channel is by far the highest converting channel. Somebody raised their hand saying, I want something, give it to them. Why wouldn't you? And so providing as many those touch points as possible. Chats a really great example. Chat was extremely valuable when we launched at LinkedIn. When we launched it at Zenefits, same deal, it was gangbusters. If you're able to connect with your buyers, in a place where they're coming to you, take advantage of that in every way that you can. So I would say that that would probably be the number one thing I would think in operationalising and the inbound channel. Speed to lead. One more thing I would add there actually is...Speed to lead and also just making it stupid easy for people to come to you. If you have a contact us form that has 10 fields to fill out, you're gonna have a lot less people coming to you. If you have somebody coming to you where you just ask the basic question, give me your phone number, I'll call you back. You're going optimize conversion rates with the ease to get to you.

Naber:  Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening. If you appreciated and enjoyed the episode, go aHead and make a comment on the post for the episode on LinkedIn. If you love The Naberhood Podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and give us a five star review on iTunes. Until next time - go get it.