Paul Writer launches SAP Think Tank , 
Video interview series with Head of Sales highlighting best practices
Sameer Kaul
Chief of Operations
Metropolis Health Services Ltd.
Your advice to young professionals looking at sales as a career…
Sales primarily has been a little unstructured in that sense, I would advise young professionals especially embarking a sales career to maintain a calendar because a lot of times sales people have no clue, they get up in the morning and they start making these calls so they have to prioritise, they have to have a calendar. And they have to dress up properly. It is still felt in the industry that the sales people are the ambassadors of the brand so do they really carry that the way they approach, the way they position themselves, the way they carry themselves so there is a lot of focus on dressing up correctly so that they give a professional look. There is a big need that I have seen sales people are still not so well-dressed like the marketing guys so there is a big disconnect. Also, sales primarily has worked on pricing as a differentiator if you see in any industry. It is all about pricing. They will have to talk about all the USPs of the brand where somehow there is a disconnect in what the strategy is at a super-ordinate level and they need to get into other USPs of closing a brand. Price is one of the USP’s but it is not the only USP. And they need to get into this whole notion about closing a sale because your clients will bring a lot of hurdles in the sales closing process so the idea is to convert every negative into a positive. Also, there is a big need in India today, especially in healthcare and some other sectors this whole notion about value-selling. Lots of sales people focus only on the first degree customer, what the need is to focus on the customer’s customer. This means a total change in the way the sales pitch is made and in the way they present themselves. It’s always about the customer’s customer because if your customer sees value that it helps him to grow his business, it brings a different kind of perspective so it is a value-selling concept which is still needed to think beyond the customer, to think customer’s customer and also to evolve as a hybrid sales professional, to not lose sight on what is happening in the new-age, traditional methods are still important, especially in healthcare where it’s more about touch and feel, more about personal rapport, people choose doctors based on word of mouth, based on reputation, based on all those factors, digital helps you to reach out faster, digital helps you to appeal to a larger audience quickly so the execution speed increases but the right balance is required. Both are required in their own way, so the idea is to evolve as a hybrid sales professional rather than just this or that. So both are important.
” There is a big need that I have seen sales people are still not so well-dressed like the marketing guys so there is a big disconnect.”
