In this episode of the Sales Hacker Podcast, we have Anjulika Saini, a sales leader helping drive new business for LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Join us for a great conversation about Anjulika’s career, how she discovered that she wanted to get into sales, the qualities that make successful salespeople, and hiring with the future in mind.
If you missed episode 170 check it out here: Building a Company from the Ground Up with Zach Rego
What You’ll Learn
- The importance of curiosity in sales
- Selling is relationship-based
- Finding a job that gives you energy
- Hiring with the future in mind
- Everyone has something to teach you
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Show Agenda and Timestamps
- Anjulika Saini & LinkedIn Sales Navigator [2:26]
- Moving from individual contributor into leadership [10:18]
- Strategies for today’s sales teams [13:13]
- Principles of team leadership [14:58]
- Talent development & hiring on potential [17:11]
- Sam’s Corner [23:42]
Show Introduction [00:09]
Sam Jacobs: Before we get there, we want to thank our sponsors. The first is Outreach. Outreach has been a longtime sponsor of this podcast, and they just launched a new way to learn. Outreach on Outreach is the place to learn how Outreach does outreach and how Outreach became such an amazing company. You can see how they run account-based plays, manage reps, and so much more using their own sales engagement platform. All you have to do is head to Outreach.io/onoutreach to see what they’ve got going on.
Our podcast is also sponsored by Pavilion, formerly Revenue Collective. Pavilion is the key to getting more out of your career. Our private membership connects you with 1000s of like-minded peers and resources where you can tap into leaders, opportunities, training, mentorship, and other services made for high-growth leaders like you. Unlock your professional potential. With Pavilion membership, leaders at every stage can get started today at JoinPavillion.com.
And finally, Ambition. Every sales leader feels the pressure to predictably close more deals – take control with Ambition, an end-to-end sales management platform that syncs with your CRM and existing tech stack to turn overwhelming data into real-time goal tracking and instant recognition for your teams. See why brands like FedEx, ADP, Waste Management, Outreach, the Phoenix Suns, and Devin Booker use Ambition – and check out exclusive offers for sales hacker listeners at Ambition.com/saleshacker.
About Anjulika Saini & LinkedIn Sales Navigator [1:48]
Sam Jacobs: We’ve got Anjulika Saini, and she is a sales leader at LinkedIn, working on the sales solutions business. She’s a segment leader on the new business side, pushing and selling and helping people understand LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which we all know and love. It’s one of the most ubiquitous and essential tools that any sales team can have in their toolkit to make sure that they’re connecting with people in the right way. Prior to LinkedIn, she spent 12 and a half years at American Express. She’s originally from Ohio. She’s got an undergrad degree from NYU and an MBA from Columbia. Anjulika, welcome to the show.
Anjulika Saini: Thanks. Wow. That’s quite the intro. Thanks.
Anjulika’s Baseball Card [2:27]
Sam Jacobs: That’s your life, you should be proud of it. We’d like to start with your baseball card. I gave a little bit of the bio, but tell us what your official title is and give us a little bit of sense of your official responsibilities at LinkedIn.
Anjulika Saini: I sit within our sales solution side of the business, which is the side of the company that sells to sellers. We really get to talk to the people that are in our field, which is amazing. I manage a team that sells all new business. They’re the true hunters, like you said, pushing and selling. And I spent a number of years on our customer side of the business. It’s a great growing business, we obviously feel really passionate about our product. And we obviously use our own product, too. I’ve been sitting in this role for about three years or so and I’m excited to chat with you today.
At the end of the day, selling is relationship-based. And that’s really what it boils down to. We’re just a platform that enables it. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is just one of those tools that can help you to open up that conversation and keep it going.
Sam Jacobs: It’s a very powerful tool and the platform is ubiquitous. It’s definitely the largest. It’s changed the game in so many different ways. But let’s talk about your game. How’d you get here? Tell us a little bit about your origin story. How’d you get into sales? Walk us through your background a little bit.
Anjulika Saini: Like a lot of people that end up in sales, I really didn’t intend to be here at all. I actually went to NYU to be a broadcast journalist. I wanted to be Connie Chung, right, or Barbara Walters, I actually wanted to be on TV. I finally landed an internship at CNN, FN, which was CNN Financial News for those who remember it. I loved the internship, but I figured out that this really wasn’t the industry for me, and it wasn’t the job for me.
I think that the biggest change that I realized was, they were asking for me to move to a completely different location very, very far away from not only things that I was comfortable with, but my family. That was just like something I realized I wasn’t willing to trade off. I figured out it wasn’t for me.
The Importance of Curiosity in Sales [6:55]
Anjulika Saini: That allowed me to focus on what I found super interesting, and what other career options were out there. I have always been curious. That’s why I wanted to be a journalist. I decided to take a different approach in school, I decided to go into the marketing field, and it was really that curiosity about why do people buy, why do they do things? Why is their behavior XYZ?
I was a mess. I was doing Excel, I was creating models, I was managing marketing channels. But I started to really hone in on where I get my energy from. What did I like? What did I not like? The time I spent with people, whether I was managing a vendor, whether I was talking to internal colleagues, or whether I was managing a client-based conversation. That’s really what pushed me towards wanting to be a seller.
I got an IC sales role, basically, within the biggest b2b part of our business at Amex, and I found my groove. It was super exciting. I had never been in an external-facing role before. And now I got to manage clients’ businesses and help them grow. I really figured out that was when that was my first sales gig. And ever since there, it’s been building relationships, obviously moved into a sales leadership role for the last 10 years. Now my energy is coming from helping my team, being their confidant, really driving the business working in the business and on the business. And that’s where I’m at right now.
Sam Jacobs: You reflected on where you got your energy from – is that framing something that you intuited? I find that so powerful, it’s about what energizes you, what motivates you. Is that something somebody helped you discover or is it just you reflecting? Because I think the framing is interesting. Sometimes people say this is what I’m good at, what I’m interested in, but you specifically talked about where you derived energy.
Anjulika Saini: Everyone feels like you have to have this typical linear path, you go to college and post-college, you get a job, and then you stay on that track for the next 20 years. I realized, even starting during my undergrad degree, that it was okay to sometimes take a few steps back or take a lateral and go deeper there before moving up. When I was making those decisions, it was 100% based on my energy. No one’s going to continue doing something if you’re not happy about it; you could stay in a role even if you were bored. But it’s that sense of complacency or when you are at a low energy level that forces you or has forced me, to pick up and consider a change.
That’s the largest driver of my successes, curiosity. It is no different as a people leader, instead of being curious about a customer’s business, I’m just curious about my people right now. I ask them questions, I want them to come to the realization on their own. That same curiosity works when you’re a people leader because it truly does show you care. And it helps you to learn about your team.
Selling is Relationship-Based [13:20]
Anjulika Saini: We’re not in the days of wining and dining customers, and that’s not the only way you can build a relationship – there are other means to do this. It’s not necessarily that you need to take a digital format only. But in order to be a seller, you have to be creative.
The best sellers I see are two steps ahead of what is happening right now. They’re always thinking about “where do I see my practice evolving?” Or internally looking at themselves and saying, how can I be a better seller in general, because those trends are going to take them to the next level. Right now, what we’re seeing is adopting a digital format as part of your toolkit. Your actual sales strategy is critical because it’s productivity, its time, and in a time where the hours are blending right now. It’s really important to be able to be productive, whether you’re a small business account executive or whether you’re a key accounts relationship manager.
I’m ready to get back on a plane. I’m at that point where I’m craving the physical interaction that you just can’t replicate online. But I think it’s going to be a blend just like remote work. It’s not going to necessarily be remote, it’s going to be probably hybrid for many folks. You need to figure out truly being yourself again, being curious, put yourself in the seat of that customer and think about what’s going to make a difference? Do you need to be in person for the first selling call? Chances are, your customer is not even going to give you the chance to do that. But you should be in person for a quarterly business review, if you’re a relationship manager, you should be in person for a proposal or a contract negotiation. Then you can spend the rest of your time online, working from your office or working from home. Think strategically about those key sales interactions that need that in-person element. What can be done more productively?
Hiring With the Future In Mind [17:11]
Sam Jacobs: Let’s talk a little bit about talent development. That’s so important for you as a leader, building a team, growing a team. You’ve talked a lot about hiring on potential – walk us through your perspective there.
Anjulika Saini: I am an advocate of not only hiring but promoting potential. I think the reason why is it’s not necessarily realistic that you’re always going to have the exact experience or skills necessary to walk into the role from day one. If you are, then you’re probably taking a lateral which is great. As a leader, you always want to be thinking where do we see our business evolving in the future? What skills are going to be required in the future? Do I think that this person could accomplish them? You have to have your baseline minimum requirements, what you want people to walk in with, and that might be a certain amount of years of sales experience. I think, again, is this person curious? Is this person hungry? How do you assess their motivation level, because that’s the person who’s probably going to stick out to the end, and figure out how to launch the next solution in your business or develop the next go-to-market. What you really want to focus on is forward-looking, is that person going to be the next bestseller or not?
There’s a lot of bias that can be put in the interview process if you don’t set a structure. So we’ve laid out one, it’s like a crystal clear profile based on what the demands of the business are. Here’s what we need our sellers to look like, these are the competencies that we need, here is the baseline experience.
One particular question that I love on understanding motivation and curiosity is asking them, “Tell me the last thing that you taught yourself.”
Sam’s Corner [23:42]
Sam Jacobs: Hey, everybody, Sam’s corner. I really enjoyed that conversation with Anjulika Saini. Here’s a couple of things to think about as a takeaway.
The way that Anjullika framed thinking about her career, she thought about where she derived energy. I think that’s so important to reflect on what are the things that are energizing to you? What are the moments in your tasks in your day to day that are providing you with momentum and with motivation with energy? And what are the tasks that aren’t? Thinking about those more deeply and more holistically than simply labeling them, like I don’t like spreadsheets, or I don’t like sales, or I don’t like marketing, but instead thinking about the specific activities.
One of the things that she talked about was that she derives energy from interacting with other people. Obviously, sales is about that. That helped inform her decision as she moved from what she was initially doing into being an individual contributor role.
I think energy is so important, the flow of energy and where you get it from, and then how you become a conduit for it.
We talked about curiosity and why it’s so important, and I think Angelica is probably more optimistic about people’s ability to fake curiosity than I am. My experience is that it’s kind of either there or not, but nevertheless, it’s a critical tool. It’s a critical characteristic or quality. And like I said, it reflects humility, right? The point of curiosity, it does a number of things. Sales is about them. It’s not about you. It’s about you listening, you listening and understanding, and seeking first to understand. It’s not about pitching your solution.
I want you to be a big listener, I want you to be big, to ask questions. Be curious about the world. You don’t know everything. We’re just one part of this macrocosm, this universe that is beyond our comprehension. You should ask questions about it.
If you don’t have that level of curiosity, if you are the person at the dinner party that talks about themselves the whole time and never asked the question to anybody else, then you are doing it wrong. It’s not just because they might be the most interesting person in the world. They might not be on the surface, they might not have the most prestigious job, but they might have insights about humankind that are really interesting.
Everybody has something to teach you. You have to be quiet long enough to learn and listen. One of our values at Pavilion is “Listen Closely.” You don’t have to make all the motions and it doesn’t have to be about you. It’s not about you. It’s about them. Sales is about them. It’s not about you. In fact, life is about them, not about you. It’s very Buddhist, very Zen, very deep.
Don’t miss episode #172!
I hope you enjoyed the show. Before we go, let’s thank our sponsors. The first is Outreach, the leading sales engagement platform. Check out how Outreach does outreach by going to Outreach.io/OnOutreach.
The second is Pavilion, my company. Get more out of your career – unlock and achieve your professional potential. The doors to your success are open. Come on in at JoinPavilion.com.
And finally Ambition. Check out how brands like FedEx, ADP, Waste Management, Outreach, and even the Phoenix Suns use Ambition. To check out exclusive offers for sales hacker listeners, visit Ambition.com/saleshacker. If you want to reach out to me with feedback, you can find me on LinkedIn.
