One activity that we will be doing regularly in this community is covering interviews of sales and thought leaders from across industries and sharing with you people. As part of that activity, here we are with our first interview with Head of Sales in ManageEngine, Mr. Promoth Kumar. Promoth began as a humble sales representative and grown to become the sales head of this multi-million dollar IT company from India, taking ManageEngine from zero to over 100,000 customers. What was his secret to scaling sales? Let’s find out:
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Tell us about yourself.
Hello, my name is Promoth and I’m Head of Global Sales and Channels for ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corp. I’ve been with Zoho for last 18 years.
Can you take us through your sales journey?
I started my career as a sales executive in a pharmaceutical company. It was in early 2000 that I thought of moving into the IT industry because it was the booming sector then. The initial challenge that I faced here at Zoho was timing. Our primary market was the US and it was difficult to connect with customers due to different time zones. We were on Indian Standard time, 9 am to 5 pm, which generally was the time when the US sleeps.
Once I drop an email to my client with proposal or quote, I’d have to wait for the next day to come and see if he replied. This was taking a lot of time for conversion. I suggested that I’d work as per the US timezone and started the night-shift culture in the office. Talking to clients over the phone helped us close deals more effectively and efficiently. We brought down the conversion process from 10 days to just 1 day. When the dot-com bubble happened, it helped us more since the companies were looking for affordable and reliable IT solutions. We always stuck to our basics and pitched our products honestly. Today, we have over 100,000 clients across the globe.
How do you sell? What is your sales methodology?
We always wanted our products to do most of the talking. Our approach was to put out the products for a free trial and let the customers evaluate. More often than not, they will get impressed and come back to us talking numbers. We would ask them if they are evaluating us against any competitors and send them a detailed comparison doc. So, it was the ‘Try, Buy, Deploy’ approach that really helped us close deals.
Do you sell directly to your customers or through partners? What are your selling channels?
For all the English speaking countries, we do both – we sell directly as well as we have partners. But for non-English speaking countries, we go only via our partners. When compared, I believe that selling directly is better than selling through partners because, beyond a point, partners lack that extra motivation. After achieving a particular number, they tend to take things easier. But for us, we never relax. Even if we hit our target, we try to close the year with our maximum achievement.
What strategy did you adapt to SCALE sales?
Together with focusing on bringing new clients into our portfolio, we were focused on increasing the LTV of individual clients. We were very serious about getting renewals and nurturing a client to upgrade his license or even buy another ManageEngine product. With this in mind, we formed a separate team of the enthusiastic salesperson who would work on making sure that our clients are happy and that they renew their licenses on time.
This strategy helped us multiply our average client’s value by at least three times and thus scaled our revenue. But as I said, nurturing existing clients was only one part of our scaling story. We were also aggressive in finding right partners in different markets who could bring in qualified leads. You scale with a right amount of mix and match of your selling and nurturing strategies.
How many tools do you rely on to manage your sales? Which tools are they?
We use Zoho CRM.
What was the sales revenue of your organization in 2017? What is your YOY growth rate?
I can’t tell you the numbers but it was a very aggressive growth in 2017.
What does your sales funnel look like today?
We break down our funnel as Downloads to Hot Leads to Customers. It is different for different markets but on an average, we convert 10% of our downloads into hot leads and 30% of hot leads into customers.
What is the average time taken for lead conversion?
Across our product portfolio and markets, the average lead conversion time would be between 45-60 days
Is there a particular instance you’d describe as the highlight of your sales career?
As I mentioned earlier, USA was our primary market and we used telephone and email as our communication channel since we operated from India. I remember during one such call, I’ve closed a half-a-million dollar deal. There was a time when I thought I could never make a sale over the phone and then I closed a half-a-million dollar deal without even meeting the client. That, I think, was the highlight of my career.
What is the most annoying/funny thing you have heard on a sales call?
One thing I find most annoying is when a big client thinks of us as a petty small vendor and don’t pay heed to what we have to offer. I’m OK with clients dictating terms of deals. But sometimes, when I’m on a call with any giant MNC corporation, they want to walk all over you. That’s what annoys me.
What is your inspiration? (any book, movie, or person)
I look forward to Sridhar Vembu as an inspiration. Also, I’m influenced by a book called ‘Art of War’ by Sun Tzu.
What advice would you give to a budding salesperson?
To keep it simple, ‘Never Give Up’. There is nothing in this world that cannot be sold. Just be yourself and keep trying.
