190: Sales Success at Oracle: Samir Dandekar's Journey to a $150M Deal

0:08 Scott Ingram: You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Samir Dandekar. Samir just finished an incredible year with Oracle in their Oracle Cloud Infrastructure group, where he put up a massive $150 million plus deal. And Samir, I'm just so glad we finally got a chance to do this. Welcome to the show.

0:42 Samir Dandekar: Thank you. Thank you, Scott. Thanks for having me. Really humbled to be here. Longtime listener, first time being interviewed.

0:49 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. You know the format. Let's start with that immediate value and talk about the top 3 things. I think you turned it into 4, which is cool. Always overachieving. But what are the top things that you believe you believe have contributed the most to your success in sales?

1:03 Samir Dandekar: I would say starting with the first one is keeping the focus at the center of who you're trying to help. In this case, it's the customer. And it's really about the customer, what they're trying to achieve, and really understanding that customer as not only just the business, but also as the person. I think in my younger days, it was all, you may leave out the fact that, hey, this person is actually engaging with you. And this person will actually recommend your services or the product. So it's really keeping the focus on the customer and also being honest with yourself and the customer. So once you understand that, maybe you can help the customer, maybe you can't, but unless you start off with really focusing on the customer and understanding what they're about, what they're trying to do, it's not about you, it's about them. That's just one of my principles in any kind of conversations, regardless if you're selling or if you and I are talking, right? It's all about keeping the focus on who you're trying to learn about and be curious about.

2:01 Scott Ingram: What's the second thing?

2:03 Samir Dandekar: The second thing I would say, just perseverance with grit and self-control. What that really means is that in sales or in life, you're going to hit obstacles and you can either let those obstacles turn you around and you can go the other way, or you can try to overcome those obstacles. So in sales, it's a hard job. You have to persevere. You're going to get told no a lot. And in order to persevere, you gotta have a lot of grit. So grit is just that about, okay, I fell off the horse, I'm gonna get back on. All right, I tried to run this mile, but I skinned my knee. The grit is the piece that gets you out of the pain component and into kind of the pleasure component. If you feel pain and you're selling, so doing something may not be right, but you're getting the bruises and the burns because you have to have the at-bats. You have to have the cycles to learn. Okay, what did I do wrong? What do I need to improve on? In fact, I was listening to your podcast just this morning from earlier, and you talked about being improvisational. You can't have the ability to improvise if you haven't built a foundation. There's that. And the self-control piece is really about being self-controlled in terms of how fast you move, how slow you move. You have to be very intentional because oftentimes as sellers, you get happy years, and those happy years can sometimes mean The customer just asked me a question for knowing more about my products and services. I need to fire off an email and respond ASAP so I can show that I'm listening. And maybe it's prudent to step back and really understand what are they asking and maybe get some other folks involved in that. So that's kind of one of the pillars.

3:39 Scott Ingram: The happy ears piece, just to touch on that real quick, I think is really interesting just to drive that point a little bit further because I think what happens in those scenarios is The customer says something and we make it mean what we want it to mean. Well, that may not be what they meant.

3:54 Samir Dandekar: Yes. Yep.

3:55 Scott Ingram: So it's really getting clear on, hang on, do you mean this or do you mean something else? And really getting clear on that. And because a lot of times we get in that space and now we're all euphoric and we shut off our brain, like the ear-to-brain connection stops working correctly.

4:10 Samir Dandekar: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. My mom used to say, don't answer the question how I think I want you to answer it, how you're going to answer it. Right. And so you have to stop and think because the immediate gut reaction reaction is, oh yeah, I need to tell my mom I'm not going out. You have to stop and pull back. And one of my previous managers, Mike Piket, he always talked about, really good guy, he's at Oracle too, but he always talked about outsource your selling. And what he really meant by that is that doesn't mean don't do anything. It means bring other people in, bring other people in smarter than you, get their input, get their advice. That's one of the things that stuck with me.

4:42 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. Brilliant. You had a couple more. Let's hit the next one.

4:45 Samir Dandekar: Yeah. So indomitable spirit, again, you'll notice that these have a theme and it's really wrapped around my passion in martial arts that we can get into. But indomitable spirit is really kind of positioning yourself to certain victory. So in Korea, there's a term called pilsang. So certain victory is what you are positioning yourself to have that outcome. Now that outcome, depending on how you define it, maybe positive, maybe negative, maybe the right outcome for what you're trying to do. Is not doing the business with that customer because it's the wrong type of business to win. You have to really be careful in how you define that outcome. But that indomitable spirit is really about being honest, being modest about what you're focusing on, but really striving and pushing to meet that goal, whatever that goal you've defined, and never giving up. Just keep pushing and don't give up, but be honest about what that line is.

5:37 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. And you had one more. What was that?

5:39 Samir Dandekar: Yeah, sorry, I probably belabored this, but there's this thing called practice makes perfect. And really, I think that it's not practice makes perfect, practice makes confidence. Getting back to having the at-bats and having the cycles, if you practice a lot, you're going to have the confidence to stand up and deliver a speech. You're going to have the confidence to get in front of your classroom and tell your story. So practice is Not about getting to perfection. That's that line out there. And one of the stories I have about this is that one of my students, he's going to be testing soon for a black belt, but he was in a situation where he could not learn the steps to a form. And what he kept saying is, I can't perfect this. I keep trying. I said, let's slow down. I said, how do you learn? And he said, well, I write things down. I said, okay, we're going to do each move and we're going to write it down. By the end of that session, he had 3 pages of each step. What that did was it kind of transferred a lot of the physical piece from his brain to his hands. And so he made that kind of connection, that neurological connection, and the practice became more about building his confidence. And the confidence then became more into that he has the ability to do this. It's not that he doesn't know how, it's just that he hasn't connected the dots in his brain about how he learns. And that was a telling moment for me because Everybody learns differently. And just because maybe if you're going to do a practice your sales pitch, maybe it's not just reiterating it 10 times with no emotion. Maybe it's more about turning it into a story, right? Things work differently for different people. Practicing gives you confidence, not necessarily perfection.

7:16 Scott Ingram: Nice. Perfect. Let's contextualize maybe just about your role a little bit more. And then I definitely want to dig into this deal and hear about the ins and outs of this whole thing. What is your role? What exactly are you doing at Oracle?

7:29 Samir Dandekar: In June, our new fiscal year start for FY26. If you haven't seen in the news lately, Oracle's really making some waves in terms of the cloud infrastructure business and the customers who are coming to Oracle to host their applications, their workloads, and really seen as one of the true hyperscalers. So my role is in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure business. And last fiscal year, I was on a team called the Cloud Native Team. And we had a patch of accounts. We had the luxury of having all the accounts that were either on AWS, Azure, or Google, because these are cloud-native companies who were pretty much born on the web, right? Born in the cloud. You're approaching these companies to try to build the awareness. Hey, we're out here. Maybe there's aspects of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure that may make sense for your business. Maybe it's cost, maybe it's performance, but there's trying to get those kind of greenfield accounts. To pay attention and maybe even land a workload. Now, this isn't my term, but I've heard this before. You know, selling technology is like pushing rope up a hill. One thing with our accounts in our patch, nobody's in market. These cloud-native accounts, they've been around for 15, 20 years. They're not in market to be on the next cloud because they're stable, they're set. There's got to be a really compelling reason for them to even make any kind of considerations. And typically what we've seen is It's usually around cost, but cost doesn't solve the entire equation. So it becomes more around performance, flexibility, how locked in are we in these contracts? Should we consider, should we be all in on one provider? Maybe we should have multiple providers. Let's pick the right cloud for the right type of solution or workload that we want to run. So that was what I was doing. And during that time is when we were able to close this deal with the web hosting company, Newfold. Amazing.

9:16 Scott Ingram: Amazing. And to the point where you got the shout out on the earnings call from Larry Ellison. This was obviously significant, not just for you, but for a very large organization.

9:25 Samir Dandekar: I didn't know. We were operating a little bit in stealth mode, but I can't really go redact when Larry says something. I don't have that power.

9:32 Scott Ingram: Amazing. And that was part of the reason why we waited. You and I have been talking about doing this for months and months. I knew what was at stake in terms of your commission check. I kind of wanted to make sure that cleared first before we started getting public about it. And now it's nice that it's fully out there so we can talk about it and dissect it a little bit more. Samir, let's go all the way back though. How did you get into sales and into this current position initially? Yeah.

9:56 Samir Dandekar: So interesting. I didn't really start off after I graduated high school and go to college that I was going to be into sales. So I grew up mostly in North and South Carolina, just like any kids. I was in Scouts and we did door-to-door selling candles and popcorn to raise money. In Franklin, North Carolina, which is in the mountains of North Carolina, which I still have some great relationships there. We used to get a flea market and back in the late '70s, early '80s, and go rent a flea market and sell whatever we could all gather, put it out there and sell it for 10, 15 cents. But it never really crossed my mind that I wanted to do it. So I really focused on, my dad was a mechanical engineer. His brothers were all mechanical engineers. My mom's side, everybody was either an engineer or a doctor. I wasn't going to pursue the medical path, but I went to North Carolina State University in '91 and graduated as an electrical engineer, probably more because of my grades versus the economy then. I could find a decent job. I worked on an assembly line QAing electronic boards for, you probably remember Westinghouse way back. And then I landed in a position at GlaxoSmithKline and helping them deploy their mobile robots. So it was more technology. And then after that, I went to a small lab automation company, and that's probably where I got my first kind of introduction to these customer relationships, B2B relationships, because as a programmer, my job was to deliver an application in DOS, by the way, back then, and drive a robot that automated a chemistry, meaning like the pipettes and automated their manual workflow. That's when things started clicking a little bit more that, hey, now you were really building for a customer and solving what that customer is trying to do to make their life easier. Maybe they speed up their drug discovery process, et cetera. So that was my first exposure to get… this still wasn't sales, it was more kind of customer relationship. But from there I went to a small startup company, more of a consulting services company, had still had a technical role, but more even client-facing. Then the person I met there, Mike Brown, and I started what was called Code Refinery in '97. As a medical device software company. And now it was just me and him and all these fake employees we had to really go out. So I took the job of doing the technical piece, but also selling. And he took the job of being the operations person and doing technical piece. So we did that for about 16 years. It was a small business based out of Cary, North Carolina, and did that for a while. But we were able to give a few folks a good living. And when I was in North Carolina, I had my kids there and it provided. And that's where I really got more into sales. But even then, I would say that it was selling as a business owner versus an individual contributor. When I went to Forrester Research, that became even more of an individual contributor because I got a job as a director of consulting. After that, I went to a small SaaS company called Percolate, which got bought by Seismic. And that was my first, I would say 2019, you could officially say I entered as an individual contributor in sales. Old in the hair, but young in the career.

12:51 Scott Ingram: It's an interesting journey. And to your point, I'd love your perspective on the difference between selling as an owner and selling as an individual contributor, because that's also how I got my start, right? I started my first company and went, oh, wait a minute. There is no company if we're not selling something. So probably need to make some sales and get some clients so that there is some revenue and something to actually do here. Right.

13:14 Samir Dandekar: Yeah. When you're selling as an owner. You're not operating with a safety net. It's true to some form as an individual contributor, because nobody's selling to get their base, right? Everybody's selling to go beyond. But as a business owner, the level of what's ratcheted up in terms of who is counting on you is a lot larger. It's beyond just your family, right? You got employees working for you, you have vendors who are serving you, you have your customers who are counting on you because some of these customers, they're entrusting their decision in working with us that they're going to be successful. And as a small business, that's a lot to ask for when they could easily go to some large consulting company, right? And get the software development done for their systems. So I would say as a business owner, your responsibilities and who you're responsible to is a lot larger versus as an individual contributor.

14:05 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious about, I mean, gosh, if you really unpack this, you've been in sales for 6 years as a committed, like this is your role. Talk about kind of the last mile of this, like why Oracle, why this part of Oracle? How did you get to this place? How intentional was that?

14:23 Samir Dandekar: Good question. When I was at Seismic, they were going through a little bit of a shift. I was an individual contributor there. My options were maybe do some sales engineering, be more technical, and I kind of said maybe let me step back. Maybe I need to really think about roles as a SaaS seller in a larger company. I'd never worked for a largest company I ever worked for was Forrester. And Seismic was probably second. Good and bad, right? Everybody says, oh my God, why do you want to work for a 100,000-person company? But there's a lot to be learned. Again, I still have a lot to learn. And I felt like that could be my next opportunity to get a position in a SaaS company. Unfortunately, when I joined, there was a little bit of a reorg 8 months after I joined. Moved my daughter into school and then reorg happened. But I was able to find a home at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. So The intentional piece is probably my want and desire to get more into an enterprise company selling to larger customers. The luck part of it, one of our leaders, Luis LeMaitre, his tagline, his bio or his one-liner under his picture is, I engineer luck, right? I always use that as a motivator, but the luck part was really falling into this role in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure group. And I haven't looked back just because of the culture and the opportunities that are yet to be discovered. Working at OCI.

15:39 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There's lots and lots on… Oracle's a big company. There's lots and lots of parts, but cloud piece, the reputation is absolutely stellar. You're in a great spot. I'm curious, given all of this background and all of this experience you have, sales and beyond, if you were starting your career over right now, like in this environment, how would you approach it? How would you think about it?

16:03 Samir Dandekar: That's a good question. I would not be so focused on, and it's hard to do that when you're younger, but if I had to go back and tell myself, don't focus so much on the title. Don't focus so much on the type of labor that you're going to be doing. Don't focus so much. Focus on the work and focus on what you're going to eventually learn. Focus on the skill sets that can be useful. Focus on the fact that you're not going to like everybody that you work with. Focus on understanding those dynamics. And really, I would say most importantly, understand how to have great relationships, develop relationships, and be a good storyteller. I know you probably asked for 1 or 2 points, but I would say when you first graduate, you're really focused on what's my title, what's my pay, what kind of job am I going to do? In '91, when I graduated, the options for me were really just I was an electrical engineer. So did I have the skillset to do that or was it the software development? So you had to pick, but probably were more focused on, oh, that's a programming role that maybe I could have stepped back a little bit and say, hey, maybe I have a knack for selling and maybe I need to be more customer-focused roles versus dive in on all technical. But at the end of the day, I think kind of like you pointed out in your podcast, more or less, you got to have a foundation in whatever that is before you figure out what you're really going to do.

17:23 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned getting good at storytelling. What's your favorite sales story? Maybe it was this deal, maybe it was a part of this deal, maybe it was something else. What's your favorite personal sales story?

17:34 Samir Dandekar: Good question. I would say my personal favorite sales story, I mean, this ranks right up there, but it would probably be when we had our small business and it was just myself and my business partner. And we were at a crossroads where we said, okay, we can kind of make this pivot. And it was a big opportunity. We got to be willing to hire people and take the risk. And I still remember this is a very large pharmaceutical company on the West Coast we got connected with and they wanted a firm to come and help their retool their lab automation. We're a 2-person shop with the facade of having all these resources. And I kid you not. We wrote up the contract and my business partner was having his second kid and I actually called the nurse's station and I said, this is back in the days of fax, right? We faxed back then. I sent the contract and I said, hey, we got to get yours. So the nurse's station got it. I actually took it into the room and got Mike to sign the paperwork and sent it back to me. Luckily I didn't get killed by his wife, but that was one of those stories where we went from just that couple of programmers to, hey, this company really thinks that we can do this for them and set us on this different trajectory in terms of providing these services. But yeah, I would say that's probably one of my kind of favorite. I probably have a lot more stories that like I just have a lot of burns and bruises from than I do the successful ones. Yeah.

19:02 Scott Ingram: You've been playing this game a long time. If you remember closing a deal and it came in via fax, I used to have lots of fax jokes. You know, the fax machine's warm. It's waiting for you to send the contract.

19:13 Samir Dandekar: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

19:15 Scott Ingram: You've had this long career. I'm actually curious about the engineering piece. Do you feel like you use some or a lot of that skillset in the way that you sell?

19:27 Samir Dandekar: I think so. I think though, the people that I talk to, like some of my colleagues and some of the sellers I look up to in the organization, Everyone has this engineering knack and it's really revolved around, it's really about curiosity. It's really about being curious. Maybe it's more you do your own education, but then going back and being really super curious about what it is that the customer is trying to do. That skill, I think everybody has it in them because everybody has a desire to ask questions. Sometimes people don't want to ask questions because they don't want to be that guy that's asking the question. But I think having an honest and very honest and authentic curiosity about your customer or whatever you're doing is really helpful. And I think being in engineering, having that, although I haven't engineered in a long time, but having that as a foundation helps you pick apart things, put them back together, really analyze it in probably a more deeper way. But I think Everybody, to me personally, I think everybody has that innate ability to be an engineer when it comes to engaging with customers. And I think it really revolves around curiosity, just being very curious and being authentically curious about it as opposed to just, I know we'll probably cover sales methodology, but as opposed to being curious to drive your bank checkbots or your medic checkbots, right? It's beyond that. It's more about understanding what this customer and business are trying to achieve. You just gotta be curious. And use that to your advantage.

20:58 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it really aligns back to your first point about keeping the focus on the customer. I think that's the way I'm hearing it is if I'm focused on, I'm truly curious, almost empathetic way, right? I'm trying to understand your perspective and what you're really trying to solve for, as opposed to, let's call it selfish curiosity, right? Oh, I'm curious about the answer to the questions that I need to fill out my CRM or my MedPic or whatever else. Exactly.

21:23 Samir Dandekar: And I'll tell you, this guy Brent Lindell, awesome engineer there. And he gave me some perspective and he said, they've got over 7 million customers. He said that what we do is really important to my customer who's been a customer for 10 years and they have a 5-person landscape company. If my server goes down, it impacts him. It impacts his wallet. It impacts his family. It impacts his employees. And so While we sit here and say, that's a big deal. Well, the spend, maybe they're spending $400 or $500 a year to have the digital presence, but it means a lot to them to be able to have that because it impacts their business, their scale, and downtime and a spinning wheel in a browser for a business like that is equally as important as a 10,000-person company selling HR software. So I think that kind of ties into when you're really curious about your customer, you then can really understand what's important to them, what really drives them. And that was really impactful to hear from him as a customer identifying this small business who has a 5-person shop that they're like very important and their site goes down, that means something.

22:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. From an accomplishment perspective, what are you most proud of?

22:42 Samir Dandekar: Huh. I would say Family foremost. Yeah, I got 2 kids. One's 21 at University of Georgia. She's a senior and I have a son. He's going to be going to Oklahoma University. So family first and foremost, and being able to at least be an example to them in terms of what hard work gets out of, because my parents were immigrants and that's what hard work was always an example from them, right? So my dad moved here in the '70s. He was an engineer, but he worked at 3 different hospitals in New Jersey. Riding buses from hospital to hospital. So I would say what I'm most proud of is setting an example. But personally, I would say being able to have a school and teach martial arts. It's totally outside of selling and technology, but being lucky enough to get involved in it in '87, but continue it and then teach it at a community center. I don't look at it as the way to pay bills. I look at it as more of like, hey, this is some way, a small way I can give back. To others and instill confidence in them and still let them achieve something that they probably thought that there's no way that in the world that no matter how many years of training that they would've gotten a black belt. So I have students that are young, I have students that have families, older, whatever. It's just unlocking an ability inside of themselves that they never thought they had the ability to do that. Awesome.

24:03 Scott Ingram: Awesome. What about the flip side? What's your biggest challenge? What do you struggle with the most?

24:08 Samir Dandekar: Wow. Time management. That's probably one of the… how do you slice up your day to be the most effective no matter what you're doing? For example, with your customers, where do you need to spend the most amount of time? How do you bring in people to manage expectations in terms of what that customer is trying to achieve? Because really being focused and intentful on There's obviously this third, there's probably 10, 15% of overhead that you have to do, like administrative stuff, right? These systems you have to fill out, these spreadsheets you have to enter because leadership wants to know what you're doing, of course. Then there's this angle of, hey, I need to continue upskilling. So there's an element of that during the day where spending time on reading, doing some trainings. And then there's the element of really focusing on the customer, which is probably the bucket of revenue generating at Activit. It's really slicing that time, because one of the things everybody has the same amount of time, no matter where you go in the world, unless you just don't sleep. So the biggest challenge is making sure that you're focused on how you're effectively using that time so that some days maybe you just spun the wheel so much. But what I try to think about is after the week is over, did I land on the right side of the curve? I started each day with these 3 things to accomplish. Did I get most of them done? Because we got Slack, we got Zoom, we got phones, we got our texts, right? All these things are just buzzing around trying to get our attention. And to some part, you can shut a lot of that off, but some of it you can't. And so it's just more about managing your time effectively so it makes a difference in what you're trying to do. Yeah.

25:43 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Let's dig into that a little bit, just in terms of not only how are you managing the time, but how are you structuring your days? How are you structuring your week? Walk us through a day.

25:52 Samir Dandekar: Right?

25:52 Scott Ingram: Your alarm clock goes off. What time does that happen? Give us the blow-by-blow until your head hits the pillow again.

25:58 Samir Dandekar: Brutally honest, I'm not one of those get up at 4:30 and go work out person. Definitely not one. I've tried it, but it doesn't… so I usually get up around 6, 6:15, then get ready for the day. One of the things I've been trying for the past 6 months is just every day make my bed. It kind of sounds cliché-ish, but I find, at least personally, that if I introduce that as a habit, and you've probably read the book Atomic Habits, another good read, but I find that if you do that, it gives a little bit of this micro focus time of really having something that you're doing. And it's kind of a mindless activity, but I find that if you do it, it's almost meditative. So I'll get ready, always try to make the bed. I do a little bit of an exercise in the morning, 15, 20 minutes, try to find some peaceful time to whether you call it meditate or you just Shut your eyes and get ready for the day, whatever that is, listen to music and then have a coffee and then sit down. Usually that starts with the emails, but I try to at least sketch out like, hey, today I need to do these 3 things. Maybe it's just 2 things, but at least because you want to at least feel good about getting one of those checked off. A lot of times you can get in the habit of all the things that you have to do are just stuck in your head and you know what you got to do, but they haven't really translated out of your head to a process and to actually get those things done. And then I work my day, evening rolls around. I usually try to usually spend time with family. If it's a Tuesday, Thursday, I go teach class. And then before I hit the bed, I try to like check a few emails. Maybe there's an interesting article. And then try to get into bed by 11:30, but sometimes it's different. Not a super awesome, it's a pretty bland day in terms of what I structure.

27:40 Scott Ingram: Yeah, but you know what? I think sometimes there's the simplicity kind of works, right? I don't know how the order of this is all going to work. I've done 2 interviews today, but the themes are really similar, right? And just this idea of, I think you can almost sum it up in terms of positive momentum, right? You get out of bed, you make the bed. Okay. I did something tangible. I'm off to a good start, right? Like that thing got done. And I think also just the Just taking the time to figure out what are those top 2 or 3 priorities. And I think about that a lot too, in terms of, look, if nothing else gets done, if I just knock out these 3 things, the day's going to be a success. And then sometimes you can build momentum from there, right? Oh, I knocked out one of those real fast. Wow, this is feeling really good. And maybe I get 5 things done today that are meaningful. I'm not talking about little things. I'm talking about meaningful things. Things, right?

28:32 Samir Dandekar: And I think to your point, I'm bad about it. You can often overwhelm yourself with the amount of work that you have to get done, and then nothing gets done. Whereas if you just say, okay, there's that big huge thing I gotta do, let me just get one of those pieces done, let me get 2 of those pieces done, and maybe I can go call John over here and he can go do the other 3. So it's easy to overwhelm yourself in this mountain of stuff you have to do, but what I found useful is, okay, There's a lot to get done. Pick 2 or 3 of the things that are going to have the, maybe it's going to have the most impact, maybe not, but pick 2 or 3 things and get through that list. So at the end of the day, you feel like, okay, yeah, it was a good day. And starting with that momentum is key.

29:12 Scott Ingram: Are there any other habits or routines that are core to the way that you operate as you're structuring your day or your week?

29:19 Samir Dandekar: This is a little bit tactical, but LinkedIn tends to be one of those areas that I'm always on and really looking at information and consuming what's out there, also participating because it's like the largest business conversation that's virtual in the world. So being able to take part in that, but that's definitely one of the cores, like making sure. And then at least once a day that at least try to give my point of view. And what I mean by that is, is if I can read an article, understand it, and write up something that it might benefit someone else, that's another one of those kind of what you refer to as momentum things. It kind of gives me another at-bat of explaining my point of view on an article or a piece, but being engaged, having customer conversations. One of the times that I'm least productive is if I haven't had a conversation or if I haven't reached out to a customer. I think it's something about having like meeting customers and talking with customers is like the fuel, the rocket fuel to my day.

30:16 Scott Ingram: So interesting. I don't know that I've discovered that. I think I've known this for a long time, but I was, I guess, reminded of, had a period earlier in the year, actually, it it coincides with… some of you may have noticed there was like a multi-month gap of new episodes on the podcast. That was not entirely intentional, but there were some things going on, got into a little bit of a, little bit of a funk. But just not having those conversations, it was that reminder of, oh my gosh, this drives everything for me. I get so much energy from just talking it out. Sometimes it's sharing my stuff, sometimes it's just collaborating and spitballing and sharing ideas and being strategic. And it might be with my clients. It might be with my friends in sales. It happens in these interviews. What happens as I build the summit and all of these other things are going on. So it's really interesting that you share that. I'm curious, do you consider yourself to be more of an introvert or more of an extrovert?

31:09 Samir Dandekar: I would say definitely more on the extrovert side. My wife would like me to be more introverted, but it's one of those odd things. People talk about work-life balance, and I know you've had some of these conversations on your podcast. And whether this is, I'm not saying this is a good thing, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but to me, work and life kind of intersect. In an hour, you might be doing more work, but there's going to be some aspect of life that might interfere in that hour. If I go on vacation, yeah, I will do work because I think it's fun. And obviously I have to balance that because I don't want to be sitting on meetings while our parent or our family is out at the beach or whatever. But To me, I'm kind of weird like that. I love what I do. And if you love what you do, it's hard to separate what's your life part and what's your work part. Because I think they're just so integrated that you don't exchange one for the other. This is kind of what I'm trying to say. Yeah.

32:05 Scott Ingram: Yeah. That makes a ton of sense and certainly resonates, right? I think my approach and my thinking is very similar, right? I'm switching contexts all throughout the day. Like, oh, hang on. I've got a kid that needs something or my wife needs something and that's just important as my next client call or whatever it is, right?

32:21 Samir Dandekar: Yeah. Yeah. I would say, I kind of heard similar themes from your, the sellers you've had on your podcast where it's not just 8 to 5 and you're done. It's kind of like, it's more integrated than that. And I think that just, if you love what you do, I find myself constantly thinking about work or classes I'm teaching, what can I do better to teach the students something? Or if you love what you do, I think it's just a byproduct of that. You can't escape it.

32:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. Like you, I don't know that I've shared this story on the podcast yet. You're setting an example for your children. And I guess inadvertently, I sat down and had dinner with my daughter. This is a while ago. This is probably late last year, and she's going to be a senior this year. So we're in the middle of college applications and all of that stuff, but just really digging in with her and the, what do you want to do? What do you want to be conversation? And mind-blowing to me, she's like, oh, I want to be in sales. I want to have what you have. And what's so interesting about it is what she sees is I have ownership of my time. She's like, you're able to be there for me and do this stuff with us. And I know you doing the work. And so she kind of recognized the freedom and the flexibility.

33:32 Samir Dandekar: Wow. That's, uh, that's pretty powerful because she's recognizing almost something you can't really value because time is, yeah, being able to own your own time. That's huge. That's pretty forward thinking of her.

33:43 Scott Ingram: For sure. For sure. Now she will go down a sales leadership path. I don't see her as the intentional individual contributor. She is very leader. I am very managed by her.

33:53 Samir Dandekar: I have one of those too. Yeah.

33:56 Scott Ingram: It'll be interesting to see her continue on her journey, but yeah, just exciting to see that stuff. Rub off. I'm also curious about maybe the rest of your information diet. We talked about LinkedIn and that being pretty central. Anything else that you're reading, listening to, watching?

34:11 Samir Dandekar: Yeah, so definitely your podcast is up there. So I listen to Brian Burns' podcast. There's also a podcast by CJ Gustafson on, and now I've already forgot the name, but I'll have to share it too. But he's a CFO, but he brings CFOs on his podcast and he talks to I think he had the CFO of Chime. He had all these different brands and how do they look at the world, right? And if you're a seller, understanding how your business buys and what levers are important, what are not important, it's really important. So that's one. And then definitely do the books on tape type, or tape, I'm dating myself. I don't know if the Cracker Barrel thing, right? You get the books on tape or the CDs. I've read your allotment of sales books that you're supposed to read and pick up different things from them. I tend to consume information mostly when I see a podcast. A lot of the podcasts I listen to are sales. I listen to even our own Oracle podcast for just, there's so much free training and education out there right now. And it's probably the last 5 years, there's just so much out there that you can almost learn, almost be dangerous at anything at this point. But, uh, yeah, my diet is really more listening to podcasts, staying in tune with kind of the latest trends and events. That's primarily it. Don't really have a formal kind of cadence of these are the 3 things I got to listen to. I just, the nice thing about podcasts is that you can just hop in your car and then pick the episode you got to finish. And I tend to get a lot more out of those types of resources than while I'm riding around because your brain is just, you're making sure you're driving safe, but you're absorbing and soaking stuff in. Hopefully that answers your question. It's not necessarily a really well-thought-out way I digest information.

35:54 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah, no, it makes total sense though. And send me the link to that other podcast. We'll put it in the show notes. So top1.fm/this episode number, whatever the heck it is, or top1.fm/samir-dandekar. That'll get you to all of those links and everything else. Speaking of adding links, any kind of tools or apps that are really core to the way that you function?

36:16 Samir Dandekar: Yeah, I would say our phone, our digital computer, which is not more of a phone anymore. It's more of a communication device. It's a really smart AI type of a computer. I do a lot on that, but in terms of apps at Worky, we use a lot of the messaging tools, common messaging tools that we use, but Sales Navigator I use a lot just to do the research, keeping track of notes. So OneNote is great. It seems to be, at least for me, a really good way of keeping things ordered to some degree. And then at Oracle, we use our own type of CRM. So in terms of, we have the Oracle Sales Cloud CRM. If my managers are listening, yes, I'm keeping track of my notes in there. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And then I don't really have any outrageous things. I used to be in this mode of, let me try this to-do automation, right? And let me see if I can get… at the end of the day, it's just, I think I could spend more time learning that tool. And not necessarily get a lot out of it when I could have just had a pencil and a piece of paper to do the job of the customer relationship piece. I need those tools. I need ability to be on their messaging platform and be able to text the CTO if he needs something, right? I wouldn't say I've got this kind of magic set of silver bullet tools that like made my productivity go from 50%. I improved my productivity. Scott, I just don't have those.

37:36 Scott Ingram: It sounds like it's almost like a less is more type of an approach, right? And a little bit just in time, going back to what I heard in the podcast. I'm learning what I need to learn when I need to learn it. And I'm using the tools I need to use when I need to use them.

37:48 Samir Dandekar: Right. Yeah. Probably not. Yeah. Probably it might fail me at one point, but yeah, I try to make sure I'm tracking what I need to track as effectively as possible. But at the same time, I feel like if you get enamored with the next shiny object or tool, you're going to spend more time learning that as opposed to why the heck did you get the tool in the first place? Right.

38:09 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah, totally fair. Do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy approach?

38:15 Samir Dandekar: I wish I had a really eloquent answer for you about that, but I've been through all the, as any, you're working in a company, you're going to get exposed to the sales methodologies of challenger selling, MEDDIC, BANT. I think this is just my own personal opinion. I think it's important to learn those methodologies, those frameworks, but I think you have to understand what is it about those methodologies that are important. For example, how does your customer buy? Is that customer the right buyer? Does that customer, does he have the budget or he or she have the budget to buy your product or service? Yeah, they do. Well then, okay, how does that get done? There's a lot to be learned. Like there's the path to get to yes, and then there's the path to get a purchase. Those tend to be very separate paths and you gotta figure out what the dots are. But from a sales methodology piece, now I would say that Oracle does prescribe to this, to a sales methodology that we should all learn. But I think at the end of the day, it's really understanding that, but going back to the customer, what's the right process for the customer? Because you don't want to make your customer mold into the process that works for Oracle or any other company. It's that customer's process and we have to mold around them. And to me, the sales process is understanding the customer's process, but being honest with yourself and understanding that there's some of that process you may have to challenge about Who signs the final order? What about an NDA? Like there's the blocking and tackling we all need to know. But at the end of the day, to me, a process needs to go both ways. It needs to protect the business, but also more importantly, it needs to somehow work around how the customer works to transact. And sometimes there's give or take, but that's kind of my answer to that.

40:08 Scott Ingram: It's really interesting to me that you called out, it's basically 2 different oftentimes not even loosely related processes, which is the sales process, like getting to, yes, we are going to buy this, different than the purchasing process. And what's really, I think, a thing that I'm hearing a lot, a thing that I'm experiencing a lot, is those purchasing processes have just gotten harder. And I have clients I've worked with for years And I'm having to really recheck those processes because they've changed. Like, oh, it used to be like this. I thought I knew the process. I thought we were doing things the way you needed them, but we've got 2 different steps and this is upside down. And that's the thing I keep joking. I'm like, that's where we need AI. Like, can we please turn on the AI to automate that and make that work? Because man, is it hanging some stuff up and slowing some things down these days.

41:04 Samir Dandekar: I would even add another path. There's the path of the technical.

41:08 Scott Ingram: Yes.

41:08 Samir Dandekar: Because sometimes that might throw a wrench into even being able to get the deal done because we've proven it on paper and we really haven't proven it in the trenches, right? So one of the things we did with Newfold was really pay attention to the fact that let's step back and take 45 to 90 days and let's recreate their solution on OCI and prove it. Because the last thing you want to do is get in a situation and, oh, hey guys, this is, this isn't going to work, right? The third kind of pillar is also getting to a technical yes, along with getting to, okay, the theoretical yes, your stakeholders saying, yes, this looks like a solution, but now the technical stakeholders saying, let's prove it. And now the purchasing stakeholders, okay, how do we get, how do we transact? How do we get this done type of path?

42:02 Scott Ingram: Yeah, fascinating, fascinating stuff. One of the pieces that came up in this last conversation, and again, I don't know how the order will work here. Apologies to listeners if this is like out of context or out of order, but I asked the question, what percentage of your time is spent really externally focused, like working directly with your customers and their teams versus coordinating and collaborating, getting things aligned internally and working within your team? What is that breakdown for you?

42:33 Samir Dandekar: I will speak to now and probably the last maybe 6 months. I would say it's 70%, it's customer interactions. And the reason I say that is because one thing, if you can, they talk about getting embedded with a customer or getting embedded with your enemy or whatever that is, right? If you can get embedded with a customer and now We're on their messaging platform. Like my core team who supports the customer, we're all on their messaging platform. So what that does is, again, we're molding to the way the customer wants to work to a degree. And now what that's enabled is it's almost like being in their office. Like I said, I tell my manager, we are in their office for the most part. They have offices, but you know how it is. They've got over 6,000 employees across the world. You can get enabled. So now just by doing that, your day shifts from now you're 70, you are in the customer with the customer in the virtual halls. It's an open door you can access. And part of that is building that trust. So my day is probably 70% engaging with the account and 30% internal. And sometimes you have to sell internally to accomplish what the customer's trying to do. I would probably 60, 70, 30 is probably where I would put it.

43:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting. And I caught it the first time you said it. I'm glad you reiterated it. The idea that you are on their messaging platform, to me, For me, it used to be once upon a long time ago, we had customers and they were primarily in one location. And if you could get it, you would have a badge. And now I can just walk in and out anytime I want. You could sort of roam the halls and have serendipitous conversations. And there was magic to that. Our customers are now, they're all over the place. They don't go into the office. And so the new badge is to your point, yeah, I'm in their Slack or whatever their primary platform is. I can talk to anybody and this is the way that they communicate. So let me communicate like them.

44:31 Samir Dandekar: And we've seen a really good engagement from them because now they know that no matter what time of night, they're not expecting an answer. They'll put it in and we know whether it's the India team or whether it's the Romania team, whatever, whoever gets up at their time, they see it and it becomes a very good point of connection and connectivity and staying close to the customer, even though you may not be.

44:52 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, it's game-changing stuff too. And again, it depends on the client, it depends on the way that they operate, but more and more I'm finding exactly this. Their primary is Slack. It's that internal messaging platform, whatever it is that they're using, that oftentimes that trumps email. Yeah, email's just noise now, and the important stuff and my boss and all these other things, like, that's happening on Slack. So if you're not there, you're in that pile of unimportant important, that's not as relevant.

45:21 Samir Dandekar: Email is becoming the snail mail.

45:22 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

45:23 Samir Dandekar: Yeah.

45:24 Scott Ingram: So interesting. So interesting. Samir, when it comes to motivation, what drives you? How are you thinking about motivation?

45:31 Samir Dandekar: That's a great question. As a seller, there's the motivation from, okay, the comp plan that sometimes can become noise in how you're setting up your success. Really, the motivation is closing that deal, closing that engagement, and really say, it's a really cool feeling to be able to not just close the deal, but a really cool feeling to shake a hand virtually now, but shake the hand of the person that you're trying to partner with. And when I say person collectively, there's a group of Oracle people and there's a group of your customers and being able to shake the hand and say, hey, All right, doing this. And that is a really big motivator for me. Obviously the attractiveness of being in sales, and I'm going to steal what your daughter said about owning your time, is one aspect, but also the financial reward is there. And there's something to be said about being able to have a financial incentive to do some of the things you want in your life for your family, whatever. And there's something to be said about that. But to me, it's like, The driver is when you have gotten to the end and you've finished and you're shaking the hand and you're like, let's do this. Let's make this happen. That's really rewarding to me. Obviously it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of people to make that happen, but that's pretty rewarding when you can make it happen.

46:52 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. How long was that deal cycle for you?

46:56 Samir Dandekar: That's a great question because it was long and I'll tell you why. Our first deal with them was a really small deal. Almost like a backup kind of engagement. It was in the hundreds of thousands. It was very low, but it was my first one. And I think the motivator there was, okay, let's really turn up the white glove support. Let's really show the love. Let's really go to the parts of space or the ocean where we really don't feel comfortable treading. And one of my colleagues, Esli Gustafsson, great guy. He's got a military background. And he always talked about this concept of go to the problem and sit on it. Don't run away from the problem, but go to the problem and sit on it. So we took that approach and really found how could we best help them and get to that problem, even though it may not be in my sandbox, may not be even in my responsibility area. But the more you show that, hey, this team is willing to do things outside of just this normal scope. One of the ways we helped them was we had a team spend, like, even I was on the phone from Friday to Sunday afternoon, just being on the clock to help support an upgrade of a server. They don't want me behind that server, but it's being there and facilitating things and earning the trust. So once you earn that trust, it's something that you should covet, you should value, because as hard as you work to earn it, man, you can lose it in like a split second. It was all about earning that trust because we knew that if we thought bigger, we could help them transform in a much more impactful way. And they've been down that path before. It's just something that they were trying to consider now, but at some point that would come. That first engagement was October '22 and it took us till November '24 to really solidify that. So yeah, tough to say. I would say maybe it was a 2+ year sales cycle eventually for this.

48:49 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Was that first deal, were you thinking of it as, and/or were they thinking of it as a proof of concept? Or it was truly just as backup?

49:00 Samir Dandekar: It was really one of those truly just backup. It's something that they needed to have done. It was our first instance into bringing a backup to cloud for them because they were using all the other hyperscalers for years now. We know there's a bigger thing. Let's do this versus it's truly unrelated to the bigger deal that they were trying to do.

49:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I think it's interesting. The way I think about this, like, really big picture, is maybe we need to change the term or rethink the term in terms of proof of concept, it being more proof of trust. Because I think the reality is, I can't imagine that they would have done this with you, done this scale of a deal. This is the core of their business. I mean, the whole time we've been talking about thinking about, like, Really how big of a deal this is for them. This is the core of our business that we're choosing to replace. You don't do that in the first deal. You don't do that with somebody who hasn't proven we're going to be able to deliver and you can trust us to deliver because it's just too big of a bet. It's too big of a risk.

50:03 Samir Dandekar: Yeah. Yeah. Because it really came down to the people component during this cycle. Of proving out OCI, the CTO actually said it was tough for him to differentiate in these meetings who was the OCI engineer and who was the Newfold engineer. And that kind of shows you like, okay, you almost have become part of their team and you are speaking in terms of the way and their syntax of way they describe problems. And You're taking that and understanding it and making it, how would you translate that into OCI? So that was really telling. So I think that was a really key milestone that now, okay, they really trust us and they really trust that if there's a gap, we're going to do everything we can to fill that gap and solve it, whether it could be capability in our service, personnel, whatever that may be. Now you've earned that and now you don't have a choice but deliver on it because now you've earned it. Because like I said before, it's easy to lose it because you can lose that trust just in a quick second or less.

51:11 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I think about this a lot and I think part of what makes pulling something like this off so challenging is the lack of patience. We want it this quarter, we want it this year, and the recognition that again, like I think you have to establish that the real foundation there. And it sure, maybe we want the… I can't even figure out how many figures that is. We want the 9-figure deal, but it might need to start with a 6-figure deal. It might feel inconsequential and be nothing, but now we have the business relationship in place. We have the master services agreement in place. We're building the relationships, right? So now maybe we're opening the door to the executive relationships. We're building trust across the team. And now that's what enables the just absolutely massive game-changing deal that gets called out on a Fortune 50 company's earnings call.

52:07 Samir Dandekar: Yeah. Yeah. It was definitely a great kind of evolution of how this happened. But to your point, you're right. Because as a seller, you see this cool logo, right? And you're saying, wow, that would be an awesome technology logo to have on Oracle Cloud. But it's easy to get caught up in the, I'm going to take their entire estate and bring it over. That's a lot for someone to digest if you're the customer. When's the last time you changed your bank?

52:32 Scott Ingram: I use USAA, so never.

52:34 Samir Dandekar: Yeah, exactly. It's a big lift. But if somebody says, hey Scott, you know what? I got this little virtual bank. It's FDIC. We can only take $1,000, but it's going to get you 10% interest. And you actually might consider that because that person's not asking to get your entire banking relationship. They're just trying to say, by the way, really easy way for you to get some upside on your savings and earn 10%. And also all I can take is $1,000. And what you hit on is if you approach these customers who are prospects who've never done business with you, earning your trust can take all sorts of kind of ways, like POCs with a defined success criteria, but also starting, solve something really small. What's a low-hanging fruit that you can solve and earn their trust and get some goodwill and really show them the love? And then they start seeing the art of the possible, right? When we did this first deal, they never thought about, oh yeah, we're going to transform our web hosting with OCI. Didn't even cross their mind.

53:39 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I think about this even inside, again, I'm selling services deals. So inside of my deal, I'm thinking about the change management side of things and kind of the impact. And so frequently I'm looking for, maybe we sold, I don't know, a $200,000 deal and that's going to take us 6 months or whatever the situation is, but I'm looking for what's the lowest hanging fruit? What's the quickest impact we can have so that we have that little story to tell internally?

54:08 Samir Dandekar: Yeah.

54:09 Scott Ingram: We can use that to bring more people on board. We can get more visibility. We can get some kudos. For our sponsors. Hey, this person helped us make this happen. Let's make them look good. If we can make them look good, it all gets easier. And so many different ways to think about this, but I think that approach, let's have a visible impact. Let's create a story that's much easier to do inside the account than telling it from a pure sales perspective where there's not anything actually happening.

54:41 Samir Dandekar: Yeah, 100%. And it goes back to the person. Who wants to be successful and being curious, it's really important that you ask that person, what does this mean for you if this is successful? What does it mean for you if it's not successful?

54:53 Scott Ingram: That's a great question. Yeah. Because maybe the risk is just too high. If this is successful, okay, I look good. I get a pat on the back. I get this teeny tiny bonus. If it doesn't work, I don't have a job. Yeah. Might be too risky. There's no way they're going to try this. The risk reward is, that's not good math.

55:09 Samir Dandekar: Yeah. Doesn't align.

55:11 Scott Ingram: Samir, is there something you believe that the typical sales professional would think is crazy?

55:17 Samir Dandekar: Get to know fast. The word know. I've maybe, maybe, maybe don't think it's crazy, but I think, and I'm guilty of it. A lot of times the way we approach engaging with customers is assuming that whatever I have, that's my product or service, there's no reason why they want some of it. There's no reason why they won't buy it. And you might get to the point where, hey, you got somebody that's interested, right? And now you get into a long drawn-out cycle with this person when you should have probably been focused on is what are all the ways that I can make my product and service unappealing? Because he or she still thinks it's appealing. That means I've got a shot. And that doesn't work all the time, but you can always go into an engagement and interactions thinking that It's just a yes. There's a path of yes. There's no path of no. But if you don't understand the levers of what would it take for them to get to no and get to that no really fast, because I'm guilty of spending cycles and cycles, even getting to a proposal stage and submitting the proposals to come to find out that, oh, by the way, they can't go with us. And not at OCI, but somewhere else. They can't go with us because they have a 5-year contract with this other services firm. And we collectively, or me, didn't bother to ask. So kind of getting to know fast, and a lot of that is also coupled with being patient. I don't know if sellers would think that's crazy or not, but that's what I would say.

56:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What about the flip side? Maybe I can push a LinkedIn button. Like, of the maybe common advice or things you're hearing a lot from salespeople, do you think, nope, that's actually wrong? Everybody has this idea backwards.

56:57 Samir Dandekar: This is a very common one that you see all the time, that if you use LinkedIn, I think a lot of it comes with this notion that if somebody takes a call, somebody reacts to your post, somebody shows interest, that they all of a sudden become a lead. And to me, I don't believe that because once, and again, this is me, Samir speaking, I'm not saying that it's a sales… But me, from personally think that if you start taking the humans that you, the people that you talk to and engage with, and you start bucketing them into a, oh, that's a lead. Okay. That person's now an opportunity. Now that person is a stage XYZ opportunity. You all of a sudden have dehumanized kind of part of selling that I think a lot of sellers enjoy, which is the person-to-person aspect. If you're starting out in sales, You may just get so embroiled in following a process that you dehumanize engaging with someone and really understanding and getting to know them and understanding and being curious about what it is that they're trying to achieve. To me, like the whole notion of marketing supplies all these leads, you're just all of a sudden converting something that's a person into something that's a bit more mechanical that needs to follow a set sales cycle because that's a lead. Oh, that lead is a utility company. Oh, it's a utility company. You need to go do this. I hate this word, sales play. And now the sales play. And now once you do that sales play, now you got to send them this. So it almost, to me, that would be my kind of rebuttal to when you talk about leads. It's, I really think you have to keep the focus on the person as opposed to that person. That's a lead. I know that you have to, marketing has to track it. I get all that stuff, but I like that.

58:43 Scott Ingram: It's so funny. It was very confusing to me at the time because I think the language has changed, the language of dating. My youngest daughter, before she started dating her boyfriend, they were quote unquote talking. I'm like, what is this talking thing? Oh, we're talking. We're not dating. I'm like, what the hell is this? But it feels like that in a way. And I treat my pipeline similarly. I tend to not put in an opportunity. If you look at my close rate on my opportunities that go in that I put into CRM, it's extraordinarily high because in my mind, until we get there, until there's something really real there, yeah, I'm just having conversations. I'm just talking with them. I'm just trying to understand. Maybe there's something there, but until I find that and I've got a good sense, oh, this is tangible, this is real. I think that might be what you're saying. Let's just focus on the human and the conversations we're having, not what sales stage you're in.

59:35 Samir Dandekar: Yeah. Yeah. I think you probably said it a little bit more clearly than I did, but exactly. You're spot on. Not compressing the engagement you're having or the potential point of connection where that business or that person may be able to use your services into a defined set of buckets.

59:52 Scott Ingram: Yep. Love it. Love it. What advice, Samir, would you give to somebody that's just starting in their sales career today?

59:59 Samir Dandekar: Yeah, I would definitely recommend getting your hands on as much content and learn about selling, not just through books, but what we're doing here, talking and having this type of your podcast. And then really define what it is. I think when you're early in your sales and you want to say, yeah, I want to get in sales because I know all these people are killing, doing all these deals and I'm sure they're making tons of money. If you took the money away, what is it about sales that drives you? What would it be that you enjoy in doing this thing we call selling if you just took the money away? I've probably over-pivoted on the no money piece, but I think you have to really distill it down into define what is it about sales that drives you and then focus on what drives you. Is it the ability to have customer conversations, really whittle and be curious and get down and understand their problem statement? And then enable an aha moment for them because you were able to help them see something in a different perspective than the way they were used to seeing. To me, if you're getting into sales, figure out what it is that is motivating you to be in this professional practice of selling, because I fell into it and I love it. But now graduates have the opportunity to get into selling. And from what I can tell, BDRs and SDRs, that's a hard job. They're constantly getting told no. And you have to stomach that part of it. But also, if you don't understand why is it that you're going through this grind and understand this is what's motivating you, then you gotta really start with that and figure out what's motivating you to be in sales because it's a hard job. It's fulfilling, but it's hard. Yeah.

1:01:46 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What about somebody that's further into their career? So I have been in sales for a while and maybe I'm doing okay, but I haven't found that gear that is greatness, and I'm at the top of the leaderboard and where I really want to be. What do you tell them?

1:01:58 Samir Dandekar: I would say if you're coasting and you're meeting your numbers, maybe there's the extra gear in the motor you want to kick up. I think sometimes you got to engage with someone in your own company who's in that leaderboard all the time and talk to that person and understand nobody starts as being number 1, 2, or 3 in the leaderboard. Just like in my class, like I always tell them, I mean, if it's a new student, I say, hey, I started back there. It was a long time ago, but I started exactly where you were. And if you want to be an instructor one day, you can do that too. So I think it's really important to find those mentors, find people you can talk to, understand what is it about the way their process works? How do they sell? What did they do to get to the top? And understand, is that something you can do? Is that something that motivates? Is that something you want to do? Not everybody wants, I think as a seller, you have this kind of this passion. Oh man, I wanna see 15 minutes of fame. I wanna see my numbers on the leaderboard. I wanna see that, right? But that doesn't motivate everybody. But I think if you are trying to get to that level, you gotta engage with others who've gone there and take bits and pieces from everybody and then figure out what is it that's gonna work for you to make the tweaks in your process or from those learnings to figure out what you need to do to get there. That would be what I would say.

1:03:15 Scott Ingram: Nice. Samir, we covered a ton of ground. Really great conversation. Is there anything we didn't talk about that you were hoping we would?

1:03:23 Samir Dandekar: No, I think this was really interesting. Like I said, it's the first time I've ever done this and really humbling to be invited to talk about a topic that you may or may not know something about, but it's great to share these stories and learn about kind of your background and your point of view around selling. So no, it I think we covered a lot of areas.

1:03:42 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Awesome. Let's tie a bow on it. What would you challenge our listener to do over the course of the next week or 2 to improve themselves and improve their results?

1:03:51 Samir Dandekar: Yeah. So I think for me, if I was listening to myself on your podcast, I would say we talked about the morning kind of ritual, find that one thing you can do in the morning that's motivating. So what I mean by that is it's this whole concept of kinetic and potential energy, right? So then you start as the rock at the top of the hill and there's one thing you can do and then you're cruising down and you become kinetic energy. And so find that one thing. To me, it's like making that bed somehow just checks the box. So find that one thing that you can do during the day. And then as you look at your day, pick 2 or 3 things that you feel like you can accomplish and win. And Scott, sometimes those wins aren't sometimes work-related. They might be personal. My wife will probably remind me of this, but I gotta call the car transport company to take my daughter's 20-year-old car to college, right? Because she's gotta go on a trip. But I think those wins, no matter how you shape it, if you're really integrating kind of work and life together, those wins can be personal, right? They can be something like that. But I think find those things that can keep the grind going and keep you motivated to do the next thing.

1:04:53 Scott Ingram: Love it, Samir. This has been awesome. Thanks for taking the time.

1:04:56 Samir Dandekar: Thank you.

1:04:58 Scott Ingram: Thanks for listening to the. Sales Success Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.