December 20, 2022

1118: Higher Complexity Results in Lower Sales Productivity with Pouyan Salehi

45 minutes

Pouyan Salehi is the CEO and Co-founder of Scratchpad. Sales is a complex job, and it is made even more complex when salespeople are part of a larger organization. The fast pace and the need to constantly be finding and managing new and existing customers make it difficult to execute well.

Over time, things tend to become more complex, rather than simpler. This is due to the introduction of new technology, different types of buyers, and various processes. The question is whether or not this complexity is necessary, or if it could be streamlined to make the selling process easier.

Andy and Pouyan agree that just because something can be done with new technology, doesn't mean it should be — and that this often falls on the back of the sellers. They believe that time is not the only factor that is impacted by complexity, but that the emotional hit it takes on salespeople is also significant.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

A complex tech stack drains much more energy than many might think - Pouyan: "You look at a sales organization and you think, okay, I have X number of salespeople, they have this amount of time and they can sell. Well, guess what, they're also human."

"And so, yes, they may have that time, but one of the things that I struggle with in the job that I do is the context shifting. When you have to shift contexts quite a few times, it drains your energy and so the 8 hours or 10 hours you may normally have may actually look very different when you have to switch context a bunch of times."

The trend today is reducing the cost and complexity of the tech stack - Pouyan: "I think right now, we're probably in the stage of tool reduction. When you're in the growth at all costs stage and let's say that comes down from the very, very top, from the board, from the investors saying, hey, you have all of this capital, deploy the capital so that it can turn into growth, and that drum is constantly being beat on, well, the execution turns into, okay, well, let's spend. And so, the threshold to buy something, to implement something, goes down generally.

Find out more about Pouyan in the links below:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pouyansalehi/

Website: https://scratchpad.com/

Email: [email protected]