Arash Nejad, Chief Revenue Officer of Novarc: “Stay in the red meat of the business”

If you take away one thing from this interview with Arash Nejad, the Chief Revenue Officer of Novarc, it surely has to be the phrase in the headline of this article: “Stay in the red meat of the business.” Arash attributes this quote to a former colleague, now a VP for Siemens Energy, but the key point is that sales is the red meat. In fact, more than that.

“Sales is the centre of the red meat and that makes it one of the most exciting jobs in any company,” he said. And that makes it an amazing position to be in – especially if you love “talking to customers and solving their problems” – as well as one of the most pressurised ones.

This pressure is something Arash knows all about with more than 18 years of experience in S&P 500 corporations, where he was responsible for global P&L, product management, sales and strategic marketing.

In one of those roles, he had responsibility for a $2 billion sales region and $150 million P&L. Little wonder that he’s keen on finding tools that help him, and critical of those that don’t. “If I compare my mobile phone’s evolution over the last decade, CRMs are a major disappointment,” he told TechFinitive.

To find out areas where Arash is far more positive – and there are plenty – keep reading. And if you fancy feasting on the red meat of business, he has some great advice at the very end.

Related reading: Generative AI takes off in business – but don’t call it a bubble

Can you give an example of a complex problem in sales that you – or your company – have been involved in tackling with technology?

Compensation is a challenging and most often overlooked problem in most teams, but it has the highest impact on the business when it’s applied to sales – the tip of the revenue spear. Compensation has three distinct and important pillars that need to be done perfectly. It has to be simple, immediate and aligned with the business strategy. What every sales leader needs to remember is that compensation drives behaviour. What behaviour is your compensation plan inducing in your sales team?

In your view, how has the role of CRM software evolved over the last decade or so? What major breakthroughs stand out for you?

Unfortunately, not enough. CRMs have been quite slow compared to the other tools on hand. If I compare my mobile phone’s evolution over the last decade, CRMs are a major disappointment.

Having said that, maybe a general CRM covering all industries, all products, all services and all geographies is not the right approach. Of note, is the usage of generative AI in recent months and its ability to garnish useful insights through the data collected in CRMs. GenAI might be the saving grace to leap CRMs forward to present-day expectations of technology.

Related reading: How to build product-led growth

How has technology helped marketing and sales work better together? Or, if you feel differently about it, has it increased the gap between those two departments?

Speaking of CRMs and other tracking and data mining tools, I would like to give kudos to them as they have been able to give marketing teams the power to bring insights to the business and the sales team in a speedy fashion. Data has connected marketing and sales in ways that were unthinkable 20 years ago. Having said that, it really helps when both marketing and sales are under one function, aka revenue with one leader.

Thinking of data, can you share some specific examples of it being impactful in driving revenue?

“If you can’t measure something, you can’t manage it.” Furthermore, data is crucial to sales management. However, data is confusing and can be viewed or skewed to tell many different stories. I’ll give one example of data for sales and sales management that drive revenue:

Sales – customers’ data in your system or within different groups is the most powerful set of metrics; we can pin that to different teams like customer success, inside sales, product teams or frontline sales, but your revenue growth is most definitely underestimated due to the lack of understanding of what customers are actually doing or not doing.

Sales Management – these leaders have either had a lack-of-data problem or have been swimming in an ocean of data. Most of the insights are lagging indicators and finance-driven. A great example of leading indicator data is the set of words that your sales team uses which yields the longest time your customers speak with the sales team. 

Related reading: You’ve heard of journey mapping, now get ready for journey management

When thinking of international expansions, how can technology help? What role can it play in developing and executing a strategy for commercial activities in a multinational context?

This is a great question because the recent pandemic and the ensuing forced adoption of technology at a wide scale, especially within B2B and industrial segments, changed the game when it comes to global expansion.

Imagine being in sales ten years ago located in the US trying to sell to a client in Asia who has no camera and has to pay $2 per minute to call you. Trips are a calendar crusher, never mind the costs of travel. In other words, access to more sensory information such as clear voices, and faces (video calling), and a wide acceptance of these technologies have sped up the global expansion capacities of teams. It is now much easier and faster to build bridges across different languages and cultures in very distant time zones.

It’s worthwhile mentioning no technology has been able to remove the need for an in-person meeting, yet. But technology has helped to drastically reduce the number of in-person meetings.

What advice do you have for those wanting to start a career in sales?

Years ago I was speaking to Adam Middleton who was my boss at GE, a high-power executive at GE, and now Siemens. He said to me “Stay in the red meat of the business”. Sales is the centre of the red meat and that makes it one of the most exciting jobs in any company but also extremely difficult. Sales members’ performance, ie sales, is widely known across the company.

My advice to anyone who is looking to change their career is to focus on their happiness and sense of fulfilment. If talking to customers and solving their problems is a major driver of your happiness, sales might just be the best job you’ve ever had. If interested in learning more, visit the Positive Psychology Center at Wharton Business School online.