Ep. 208 - Yamini Arun (VP Sales @ Datamatics)

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:22):
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of
Your Intention Matters thePodcast.
Thank you very much for joiningme on this one.
My name, of course, is PaulMadad.
Today we have Yemeni Arun.
She is VP of Sales coming to usfrom London, UK, VP of sales at
Datamatics.
How are things?

SPEAKER_00 (00:40):
Absolutely well.
Thank you, Paul.
Thank you so much for having metoday.
And it's uh really nice to seehow you have conceptualized this
whole podcast on mindset.
And uh and and it's kind of aplatform to celebrate sales
professionals, if you like.
So I totally appreciate thisinitiative.

SPEAKER_01 (01:00):
I appreciate you being here.
You know, we were talking beforeI hit record about London, one
of my favorite towns.
It's so big.
How are you doing in that bigcity?

SPEAKER_00 (01:10):
Oh my I'm thoroughly enjoying it.
It's not as though I'm cominghere for the first time.
I have been here for a while.
In fact, this is my second stintin London, if you like.
Sometime uh back about 10 yearsback, I was here as well for two
years.
So uh London is not new to me.
It's my second home, if youlike.
So, you know, after Mumbai,perhaps London is my second

(01:31):
home, and third is Geneva.
But yeah, large part of my timehas been in London, so it's I'm
not very London is not new tome.

SPEAKER_01 (01:40):
Gotcha.
Well, one of one of my favoritecities, I forgot how big it is
every time I go there.
You know, you take a look at aGoogle 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 forbeing here.
Nice to meet you in thiscapacity.
You know, yeah, many.
As we were talking before I hitrecord about the kind of the
goal of this podcast and therationale behind it, is that

(02:03):
from my perspective, you know,organizations can provide
salespeople with every tool inthe toolkit to go achieve their
results.
They can give them producttraining and systems training
and skill set training, they cangive them marketing documents,
competitive intel, they can givethem inbound leads as well.
But if they're not set from aproper mindset perspective,

(02:25):
they're unlikely to get theresults overall.
And I'd love your thoughts onthat as well when it comes to
mindset and the role ofoverachievement overall.

SPEAKER_00 (02:33):
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So uh yeah, we can uh uh youknow, to me, mindset
essentially, you know, evenbefore if even before I attach
mindset to a sales as aprofession, a mindset to me
essentially is the ability tothink beyond uh your
conditioning, beyond yourupbringing, beyond your

(02:57):
environment, current or past,uh, and also beyond your
learning from your pastexperience.
Yeah, so um especially, youknow, 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 myfavorite uh London business

(03:17):
school professors, it's calledas never normal.
So we are living in the world ofnever normal, right?
And uh he can talk a lot andmesmerize 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 youneed to embrace the uh the

(03:40):
disruption that is going on onan ongoing basis, be it in the
form of AI, be it in the form ofmarket volatility, or be it in
the form of you know, some ofthe uh untoward things that
happen to the humankind.
So uh so that's how I look atit.
You know, I basically that'swhat I promote essentially.
You have to embrace thedisruption.

(04:02):
And I have I have kind of I'mlearning, 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 onmindset is concerned.
And coming to sales profession,you know, sales profession, as
you know, is um is goessomething like this you have,
let's say, certain number ofbets that you play on to be able

(04:25):
to clinch the deal.
Usually approximately about 20to 40 percent.
If you're highly effective andif you're if you're just right,
you know, at the you're rightthere at the right time, uh
perhaps up to 40% is are yourchances of winning.
Rest, all of the chances are aregoing to go down the drain,

(04:46):
right?
So 60%, if I were to take thehigher conversion rate of 40%,
the 60% of your time and effortsare going to go down the drain,
which means you have toconstantly live with the
rejection.
And if you are in salesprofession, you simply cannot
have fear for rejection.
In fact, you have to have anatural tendency to bounce back

(05:08):
and go for that another bet.
So that's you know, that's howimportant it is.
You know, the mind the kind ofmindset you need to have to be
able to, you know, uh come overyour failures and still succeed.
So that's how I kind of relateto my sales profession about the
mindset as a as a concept.

SPEAKER_01 (05:26):
You know, I'm curious about something.
You know, you've been able tocarve out uh 20 plus years uh in
a as a in a successful sellingcareer.
Right.
Um, but there really is noschool for sales.
How'd you even get into sales atall?

SPEAKER_00 (05:41):
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 myturning point in life.
So uh after come after doing mycomputer science, I actually was
hired as a programmer for uhdiversified group of companies

(06:02):
back in India.
It is a Pune-based organization.
I worked with them for aboutfive years and I grew in the
hierarchy to manage theirthen-called uh electronic
document processing department.
So I developed a few solutionsand software for them, and then
I was promoted as well to managethat whole department for them.
And I, you know, I was not haveI was not satisfied, frankly

(06:25):
speaking, in that role.
And one thing that constantlyfascinated me was, you know,
having to work or go to Mumbai.
Mumbai is a city, it's like, youknow, you can you can relate
Mumbai with New York, the pace,the attitude of people and the
pace at which that whole cityoperates.
And it always fascinated me forits pace more.
And I used to go to Mumbai oncein a while, and I had this um,

(06:50):
how should I say, tendency orrather uh inclination towards
doing business or havingsomething of my own.
And I had started one smallbusiness on the sidelines where
I used to kind of you know uhget the clothes, ready-made
clothes from the market withinMumbai, the wholesale market,
and I used to sell it in a smallscale with within the social
within my immediate socialcircle.

(07:11):
So I started off as a smallenterprise.
It did not fetch me muchprofits, it only fetched me some
you know small amount of um, howshould I say, earning or rather
rather some free uh uh clothingfor myself.
But what I'm trying to say isMumbai fascinated me.
And I decided I want to be inMumbai.
And I started applying withinthe organizations in Mumbai, and

(07:32):
I applied to this company calledSoft Tech, which was started by
us, it was a startup thenstarted by IIT's and applied
there.
And the HR head interviewed meand I said, I said, I'm here to
apply, you know, to uh work withthis company for software
development essentially, becausethat's my background and stuff.
And he's when he aftercompletion of interview, he

(07:53):
called me back.
He said, just he told me to waitfor some time and he called me
back and he said that you haveflair for sales.
Would you mind being in sales?
And I said, I have never doneit, I don't understand sales.
He said, I will train youbecause I have been a sales
professional myself, and youknow, now I'm kind of groomed to
handle the HR part of it.

(08:15):
Uh, I said, but how would I doit?
And uh my objective was to be insoftware development.
So that's when he said thatlet's give it a try.
If you want to be in softwaredevelopment, you can't be in
Mumbai, you need to go to Delhibecause that's where our RD
center is.
And uh uh let's give it a try.
I, you know, I said, give me aday.
I just went back, thoughtthrough it.

(08:36):
I said, I have come to Mumbai,there is no going back from
here.
I'm I'm going to take thatopportunity.
And that's how it happened tome, frankly speaking.
And the story after that is muchmore interesting.
But since I'll I'll take a pausehere, how sales happened to me.
And today I call that gentlemanas my angel.
So you can imagine how much I'menjoying my profession.

(08:58):
So, but I'll pause here sinceyou asked me only how I got into
sales.

SPEAKER_01 (09:02):
You know, we when you talk about the question of,
well, how do I do it?
Is something that I think mostuh new sales new salespeople
have that question.
I think about my own sellingcareer.
Where I gained my pedigree andmy experience in sales is I was
a sales rep at Xerox.
And I kind of went through thethe I guess the career path,

(09:26):
sales rep, product specialist,sales manager.
I never made it to a VP of saleslevel, but I went through
multiple different levels, salestrainer 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 wasa finance guy.
That was my background.

(09:46):
There was no real drive forcommission.
Quite frankly, I had sales as aas very much a very dirty word.
Like it was it was grimy.
It was like it was like a Idon't know where it came from,
but I I never had it as aprofession.
I had it as a as like a dirtyjob for some reason.
And so um, how did it go whenyou first got into it?

(10:09):
Did you take to it right away,or did it take some time to
figure it out?

SPEAKER_00 (10:13):
Oh wow, that's an interesting part.
So, first three months, it wasthe company which was selling
products.
So those were we our job was tosell licenses.
First three months, and they wewere expected to be productive
after a month or max two months.
Yeah, so uh that was uh we had agood target, and it was a
regional office.

(10:34):
Uh and I started working.
I was honest and hardworking,and that's the only thing I
knew.
I was not street smart thentoday.
Uh yeah, so uh I was doing mywork, putting in a lot of
effort, and first three months Idid not have my deal.
First month went by, no deal.
Second month went by, no deal.

(10:55):
Now my HR head who had hired mehad started feeling a little bit
uncertain about what which whichway she's heading.
So he sat me through.
I mean, he he he kind of took asession or coaching session, if
you like, and he said, What'sgoing on?
I said, I'm doing my best.
I'm you know, not I'm doing somany calls every day.

(11:17):
I'm meeting the customers, I'mtrying to convince in my best
abilities uh I don't know whatmore I can do.
But I'm happy to take in yourfeedback and if anything more
can be done.

SPEAKER_02 (11:28):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (11:29):
And then so he he tried to give me some tricks of
the trades and stuff, tricktrick of tricks of the trade and
some uh you know uh ideas ofwhat more can be done.
I tried implementing them aswell.
After the third month is when myfirst 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

(11:50):
biggest customer later.
But what I'm trying to say isfrom that point onwards, there
was no stopping, and the orderskept flowing because I was
really hardworking.
And in a year and a half, I wasuh uh declared as best performer
for the organization.
I was promoted, I was given ateam, and then there was no
looking back since.

SPEAKER_01 (12:09):
You know, I'm curious about the promotion path
because uh you can hope I hopeyou can appreciate my thoughts
on this, where there's a lot oforganizations that have the same

kind of progression (12:20):
individual contributor, team leader,
division leader, uh you know,conglomerate leader, and so on.
And and when when I went throughthat path, sales rep to product
specialist to sales manager, Istruggled because they're very
different jobs.
Yeah, like like very differentin terms of responsibilities and

(12:43):
skill sets.
Like as a as a sales rep, I didvery well.
As a sales manager, I wasterrible.
And the reason why the reasonwhy is because I didn't want to
be, of course, but the reasonwhy is because when I look back
on it now, uh my way of leadingthe team was this is how I did
it, so this is how you should doit, which was a complete recipe

(13:05):
for a total disaster.
It was just just terrible.
And so as somebody who's carvedout 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 doit?
Did you like it?
What was behind that decision?

SPEAKER_00 (13:22):
Okay, so it was I it's like this, you know, the
promotion comes by virtue of youperforming.
Unless sales is all about blackand white.
I mean, it's numbers, it'shardcore number-driven game,
right?
Yeah, there is nothing great,nothing uh qualify qualitative
criteria, if you like.
You might have for your uh uhother, you know, overall
appraisal and stuff, butultimately when it comes to

(13:44):
sales, it's largely based onyour targets and the achievement
of those.
So promotion came naturally tome by virtue of my performance
over a period of time.
So initially I had just oneperson to manage in that
organization.
As I grew and changed theorganization, I started managing
the larger teams, and of course,initially I would have been uh I

(14:08):
may not have been the bestmanager, so to say.
I did learn on the you know as Igrew in that role and as I grew
managing the team.
One thing which helped me growwas simple.
What I liked the most about myprofession or the most about my
job is freedom to operate,number one.

(14:30):
Second, second, what I so Ilooked, I always reflected upon
what I liked about my job, and Ikind of perceived that if I can
perform well, given thesetenants of freedom to operate,
ability to decide, ability to,and what what drives me the
most, right?

(14:50):
Closing deals and the sense ofachievement.
If these are the tenets that Ilook for, perhaps people under
me are also looking for that.
And I always I was consciousabout that fact.
And I started as I grew in thehierarchy, I started managing,
of course, with the companies, Imean, future companies that I
changed and now I'm inDatamatics.
I do have pretty senior membersas part of my team.

(15:12):
And I'm able to manage because Ican connect very well.
I know what sales profession isall about, and I know what is
required for a salesperson to beable to grow.
So yeah, these are some of thethings I worked upon.
And you know, I kind of it came,some of them came naturally to
me, some of them I had toreflect upon.

SPEAKER_01 (15:29):
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (15:30):
So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (15:32):
You know, as as as we're getting to know each
other, and I was kind ofprepping for this conversation,
I saw that you spent uh almost20 years at Datamatics overall.

SPEAKER_02 (15:42):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (15:42):
Uh which I think for some, especially the maybe the
maybe the younger employeescoming through today, the
younger generation, the20-year-olds, and even the
30-year-old today, that seems uhuncanny to them.
Spending 20 years at onecompany.
You see so many people onLinkedIn with 18 months at one

(16:03):
company, two years at onecompany.
There seems to be a bit of aninterest in jumping ship, either
the company lets them go or theymove on, and so on.
What I'm really curious about isI had a conversation with a
salesperson that I worked withyesterday, and he's based in the
U.S.
As you know, I'm based inCanada, and we were talking
about his career as he has anopportunity to progress with the

(16:26):
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 apretty sizable uh shift for him.
And so you talked about the factthat you're now in London for a
couple of years, but you'reIndian from India.
Did your company ask you tomove?
Did you raise your hand?

(16:47):
Was that uh an easy choice foryou to kind of pick up your life
and go from India to uh England?

SPEAKER_00 (16:54):
Yeah.
So uh, you know, uh it's likethis.
Yeah, this time around, I saidyes, the opportunity was there,
and my CEO said yes, if you youknow, uh you can be based in
London.
Uh but you so so the choice wasgiven to me, and I opted for
that choice.
Uh but I would like to give youa little bit backstory to this,
if you if that's okay.

(17:14):
So um so this is not the as Imentioned, this is not the first
time, this is my second time Iwould have stayed away from the
family and done it.
So this is not something new tome.
But on the first ever occasionwhen this opportunity was given
to me, when I was asked to getrelocated to Geneva many, many
years back within Datamaticsitself.
And my global sales set said,Yamani, you have been managing

(17:37):
so many equations within uh UNNinternational organizations, it
makes sense for you to be basedin Geneva because that's where
they're based, large, large partof those organizations are.
I simply said no, up front,because my mindset then was as a
married woman and as someonewho's having family and kid,
yeah, it is not right for me toeven think about it, you see.

(18:01):
And I simply said no.
And I came and discussed thiswith my husband and he said, Are
you foolish?
You are a career-oriented woman,you are an ambitious woman.

SPEAKER_01 (18:13):
Are you foolish?

SPEAKER_00 (18:15):
Why would you and if you're getting this is an
opportunity for you to grow?
How can you simply say no andcome back and discuss this with
me?
You rather should have discussedthis with me before, before
saying no, and even after that,I was not convinced because my
mindset was as I said, that itis not alright for someone, and

(18:36):
especially Indian families aregenerally very family-oriented,
and you know, they believe inthis whole concept of being
together, all of that, right?
And that you know, so I did Istill did not change my decision
then, even after listening to myhusband.
But that got me thinking thathe's so open-minded about it,

(18:56):
and I'm holding back.
And he and he gave me aconfidence that it is
manageable, you don't worryabout it.
If you have a good opportunity,go for it.
So there's also driving eyes inthe sense some motivation that I
got from my husband, I wouldsay, which allowed me to take a
little bit change my mindsettowards this whole relocating
and stuff.
So that's a backstory.

(19:17):
But now I'm also a confidenthuman being, so yeah, I'm I can
be I can get relocated and bevery comfortable in any new
city.

SPEAKER_01 (19:27):
You know, as we as we as we've been talking during
this episode, getting to getyour perspective on things and
kind of learn about yourbackground and your career.
You mentioned that uh you've haduh some some great mentors and
people in your life.
There was somebody you said thatyou referred to them as your
angel, who kind of got you intothe world of sales and so on.
And I'm sure you've met manypeople over your career that

(19:50):
have supported you and have beengreat resources and so on.
And I always love to close thepodcast with a thought or two
regarding if you think aboutyour career, has there been any
best practice or an approach oradvice has been given to you
that has served you well?

SPEAKER_00 (20:06):
It's been given to me, or I have come to believe.
Is that okay?
I mean, either believe me or Ihave come to believe.
So I would like to present whatI know, I would like to talk
about what I have come tobelieve.
So one belief that I carry withme is adversity gets better of
you.
Yeah, adversity gets the betterof you.
Or rather, or you you you becomea better human being if you're

(20:29):
faced with adversity and learnedhow to deal with it.
So that's one thing that I havelearned, and whenever I'm faced
with any adversity, I say bringit on.
I will be able to handle it.
So that's one thing, you know.
I convince myself if that's thecase.
That's you know, if that helps.

(20:50):
I mean, since you're asking howuh 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'salways an opportunity to grow.
So the moment you look atadversity in that frame or

(21:14):
through that lens, things justfall in line because you start
taking actions on those lines.

SPEAKER_01 (21:21):
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (21:22):
So that's that's how I look at it.

SPEAKER_01 (21:25):
What a great way to wrap up the episode.
Thanks so much for being here.
Nice to meet you and your timetoday, sincerely.

SPEAKER_00 (21:31):
Same here, Paul.
We'll speak soon.
You take care and all the best.

SPEAKER_01 (21:35):
Thank you very much for being here again.
Okay, everybody, if we're gonnawrap up this episode right now,
remember, as I always say, yourintention matters.
Why?
Because that's the result you'lltend to get.
We're out of here, we'll do itagain next week.
Hope to see you in the nextepisode.