Harshvardhan Mishra 👹

I was in my very first Sales Job, right out of college, I was more excited than scared. 

Probably that's a good thing. 🤷 

But yeah, one fine day, I asked help from a Senior Director in my team, to give me some e-mail templates & cold call scripts, if the lord had it.

Lord smirked at me, and said: "You are a wild horse Harsh, you have not been tamed yet"

My eyes wide open, in disbelief, I questioned, 'if I was a Horse all this time?  " 

First of all: "Excuse me, what??" 😮

But come to think of, I do love open grassfields, have empathy and am intelligent but still, the confusion prevailed. 🤔 

Only to realise that he had left me on my own. 

And probably that's a good thing too. 🌼 

Because dramatically getting hurt by his one small comment, I ignited fire in me, called another founder ( Sridhar - B2Brain ) and said:

"I can't take this anymore" 

"We need to build a support system" 

"He said, 'I hear you'" 

"Let's do it" 

And thus somehow a Sales Community for SaaS Sellers was born 🥂

In the midlife, it became to be known as Sales 101, and man we did and do some great fun 🤩 

- Brunches ( Mixers ) 
- Workshops 
- Rant Sessions / Zigs 

and much more. 

So that little idea is now a movement, where we want to build an ecosystem for Indian SaaS Sellers and provide a home, a village, a shoulder to take them forward together 🫂

Account Executive

Working in SMB Sales

Harshvardhan Mishra

I have been a big advocate of Generalists. 

The Jack of all trades, master of few ( or none sometimes ). 

But after doing a lot of general work, I have started to feel the following:
_____

1. General Work helps you identify what you like the most and you are good at. 

That is, you can find where you can be a specialist, by being a generalist. 
If that is clear to you without doing general work, no worries then. 

_____

2. General work is needed at different stages of the org that you are working in. 

Either in early stage, where they don't know what will work the most for the org. 

Or in the later stages, where they need to unlock new or run experiments without disturbing the core business. 

_____

3. General work helps you develop yourself really well, you build your talent pallet across fields. 

_____

4. Generalists often find it hard to express what is that they do well?

They hit a wall, no one wants them, except if they ( the org)  have that exact problem. 

_____

5. Specialists have leverage which goes way beyond the generalists but specialists have least flexibility. 

Example - Someone who built their career by doing code review or inbound lead qualification, they are really good at it, but one day suddenly their work gets assigned to AI or people at lower pay. 

They often don't have any secondary skill or expertise to fall back on. 

But in right opportunities, no one will even look at the Generalists over specialists. ( Generalists are risky, volatile and value add to a specific field is not clear at times ) 

_____

As Bruce Lee said: 

"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

____

Conclusion: 

Be a generalist early on, and then become a specialist. 

If you are a specialist already, try more things, get an edge over other specialists.

India’s OG SaaS Sales Community | Sales 101

Heyyoo!!

Welcome to one of the awesomest LinkedIn of a sales person.
Not saying I am the awesomest sales person, YET. 

I started sales by accident like 99% of us, when I did not want to continue with my chosen subject in graduation. 

Eventually fell in love with this profession. Recently started learning & upskilling, after a few realisations.
I have sold multiple SaaS products to C-level execs, sweet <3

Currently on a mission to be the best AE in the market.

Other than this, I run 3 sales communities catering to 400+ SDRs and AEs in India to enable more people with knowledge and confidence. 

Update-
Doing communities full time now. Don't have a fixed plan to 'where do you see yourself in 5 years?' May be I'll be on TV, and you'll see me. Who knows!

Thanks for reading, for anything else, please reachout.

Astha Thakur

Sales 101 got Sunday all hyped up. 

A group of people who take sales seriously. Who are thinking about craft, not just targets. Who are building, learning, and showing up.

Every time we do this, it reinforces one thing:
Sales can feel lonely. But it doesn’t have to be. 

Celebrated Prakashraj’s birthday, Zainab recorded content for her Instagram, and everyone contributed. That’s the community we have built over 4 years 💅💞

Ps - We also help Sales people get jobs, drop your profile on www dot emplyod dot com if you are in SaaS Sales, or DM me or Harshvardhan 🫂

Jobs, Jargon & Jugaad at Sales 101 - Building India’s first AI native recruitment agency!

No alternative text description for this image

Hi, I think I'm going to talk about my journey now. 

Over the past couple of years, LinkedIn has been the social media I've spent a lot of time on. Now that meant posting, commenting, liking, validating, questioning, getting questioned at, and it's been fun and tiring. My linkedIn account feels sentient.

I want to take a pause on how I use LinkedIn currently and start a new way of using it which will be more about the journey of Sales 101 and 
www dot emplyod dot com. I want to talk about how we are building our hiring business and what am I learning. 

We have talked to 50+ companies, 300+ candidates. I'm sure I'll find interesting bits. 

To get SaaS sales jobs, apply at - www dot emplyod dot com

To hire, check out - www dot blazehire dot xyz

Sales 101 Banger Brunch is back!

Most sales events are built for visibility.
We’re building this one for growth.

The Sales 101 Brunch is a closed room of early to mid-stage sales professionals who care about getting better and not just sounding smart.

No panels and play books recycled from LinkedIn. 

Just real conversations:
What’s working right now.
What’s not and What to change on Monday.

See you all this Saturday, 21st February. 
RSVP using the link in comments or reach out in DM.

I think I'm going to talk about Sales 101's journey, part 1;

When the first company asked for paid help, there was a rush of confusion and confidence. A VC funded company is going to get in business with us? Without being their employee? 

It bloated real quick, real good. We now work with 20+ SaaS companies.

We do outbound to offer our hiring services, that's how we secured majority of the logos, got a few references from clients, word of mouth is quite the thing in our Industry. 

Companies kept coming back as and when they needed help. It became an entire thing. 

And then it followed............ the question we were a little scared of. 

Do we quit our jobs and do this full time?

Answer felt simple and came out quite easily from our hearts. 

We matched our invoices to payslips, it looked promising. 

Mind came on board and said let's do it. 

Our decision to make as much as our salaries felt like a good metric.

But we slowly realised a business you are passionate about and a mission close to your heart has the potential to grow big. 

Our dreams felt small. They were not. Many things in retrospect seem smaller, less aimed for, less controlled upon, and that's not true.

But we are definitely aiming for more and in the pursuit of more, currently building www dot emplyod dot com,  where we help sales folks get jobs. 

You fill out the form, we read through your resume, match skills with current requirement and reach out when there's a good match. 

Reach out for any questions.

Somewhere along the way, SDRs started becoming:

Revenue Ninja 🥷 
Finance Analyst/Consultant 💷 
Growth Hacker
Sales Sorcerer

…instead of just saying what they actually do.

Let’s stop.

If I’m a founder hiring, or a recruiter scanning profiles in 10 seconds, I don’t want to decode your creativity. I want clarity.

Are you an SDR? Say SDR.
Are you doing outbound? Say outbound.

Your job title is not your branding playground.
It’s your discoverability.

When you use random titles:
1. You don’t show up in searches
2. You confuse people
3. You look less credible, not more

If you still want to use fancy titles, at least put a bracket on the side and mention SDR.

Clarity > Cleverness. Always.

Hi friends and attendees of Sales 101 brunch.

The brunch has been moved to Sunday. 

This is the first time we are not meeting on a Saturday noon, but looking forward to spending Sunday evening together. 

Grateful to Canvas Workspace and Anurag Agrawal for partnering up with Sales 101. They are building ultra premium office spaces, and we are excited to host this brunch at one of their spaces.

DM me or Harshvardhan for any questions or registration. 
RSVP link to the event is in comments. See you soon.

Mumbaikars! 
.
.
.
Your time to ketchup with Sales 101. 

We will be in Mumbai 6th March, and looking to spend an evening with sales folks. What to expect;

1. Conversations over coffee or chai pe charcha, whatever your vibe might be
2. Discuss potential challenges, learn or teach something new
3. Get a new job, or just make friends,

 and have a good time with people who get you!

RSVP link is in comments, see you all.

taplio

The Battle

Harshvardhan Mishra

Astha Thakur

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taplio

The Battle

Harshvardhan Mishra

Astha Thakur

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Harshvardhan Mishra's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreHarshvardhan Mishra's LinkedIn Performance