When Anuj Sehgal, who is VP of Sales today, joined BayOne in October 2013, we were only about one year old. He was among our very first salesperson and was also among the first BayOners to jump aboard after our founders, Yogesh Virmani, and Rahul Sharma. On account of this, he’s had the unique opportunity to witness BayOne evolve and grow from up close. We had a candid conversation with him to get his thoughts on BayOne’s culture, and his journey and learnings so far.
Your tenth anniversary at BayOne parallels a little over a decade in our journey as a company. Describe the early days as part of the team.
Like any start-up story, we had to make room for a tremendous amount of hustle. I remember clearly that we were all on a steep learning curve. Of course, it certainly helped that we all had the same vision: We wanted to create a difference in the industry and the community. We had similar passions and were pursuing the same dream.
Building a company from scratch allowed us to create a company culture that matched what we wanted to achieve in the larger tech landscape. These values – that I see playing out at BayOne even today – were built on four main pillars:
1. Looking after each other
2. Ensuring that everybody was successful
3. Ensuring that everything they needed to do their job in the best possible way
4. Allowing everyone space to be themselves
What would you say are your top learnings over your career and your time with us at BayOne?
I’d say that there are four sides to this:
Continuous development
It is important to have the right attitude towards risk-taking and learning. We have high expectations for ourselves and the people around us, but mistakes are a part of the process. It’s okay to fail, so long as you learn from it. Getting feedback is a part of this. It pays to be proactive about getting feedback because it fuels continuous learning.
Mentorship is also key to the process of continuous learning. There’s a lot of valuable data and information and learnings that we can get from each other, as well as the larger ecosystem that we work in, whether it’s our consultants, employees, or customers. Of course, you can also pick up ideas and best practices on social media and professional forums.
Effective communication
I cannot underscore how important it is for everyone to develop strong communication skills, no matter what role you are in. I see it this way: In their absence, it becomes difficult to convey ideas that drive value.
Effortless adaptability
I think it’s important to remember that adaptability isn’t just about embracing new technologies and growing responsibilities, but also about adjusting to new processes and approaches as the world around evolves.
Here are some ways we can go about this:
- Talk to vendors, partners, customers, and other employees to understand how the sector is evolving.
- Today, certification is another great way to stay up-to-date, especially with easy-to-access learning tools such as Udemy or YouTube. We can learn about anything from new-age technologies like AI or cybersecurity, or anything else that we think will benefit the role that we are in.
- Another way is to create new partnerships that can help us deliver cutting-edge results in everything we undertake.
Relationship building
Providing value to anyone – whether its customers or employees – it all boils down to relationships. You need to go beyond checking off boxes and simply looking to get jobs done. Instead, start considering how you can build relationships that generate loyalty. I routinely track service delivery because I see sales as being answerable to customers right through their journey with BayOne.
What are some words of advice to budding sales leaders?
Well, I’ve got five simple rules that I practice in my day-to-day, and these are:
# 1 Know your team
In my experience, sales heads should know what each team member’s passion is and how they want to operate. You want to know their individual strengths and weaknesses and then allow this to guide how you allocate work.
# 2 Train your team
Once you have a clear picture of your people’s strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, you can outline KPIs thoroughly and align these with a clear path of coaching and development for the whole team. I also believe in leading by example. That’s why I take time out to demonstrate how my team can get things done more efficiently.
# 3 Listen to your team
Regular team meetings are critical to ensure a tight feedback loop. As we continue to grow in our careers, we tend to share knowledge more than we listen.
# 4 Reward your team
Celebrating milestones, recognizing contributions, and rewarding achievements are crucial to maintaining morale and boosting motivation. I feel like you have to make a case for this as a leader.
# 5 Be transparent with your team
Honestly, I learned the hard way that transparency in decision-making is vital. When there is transparency, the team tends to be more invested. I invest time and effort in ensuring team alignment. This includes resolving conflict within the team – which managers may not enjoy but is absolutely critical.
What are your favorite things about our Make Tech Purple initiative, and how do you and your team contribute to it?
I love that at BayOne, diversity is in our DNA. Gender disparity is a problem statement in the wider industry, and we believe in being part of the solution. I believe that across roles, diversity is important because a diverse workforce drives high innovation and performs better than non-diverse companies. Diverse teams have been proven to deliver higher returns and lower volatility.
My favorite things about the Make Tech Purple initiative are:
- We pledge to create one million job opportunities for women in tech in five years.
- We offer free webinars that encourage young women to study STEM.
- Furthermore, we host free-of-cost boot camps to enable specific skills in minority communities.
- Best of all, we lead by example. Our women hires have gone up from 26% to 46%.
- We offer a $1,000 sponsorship for Amador Valley High School girls who want to study coding. The goal is to motivate them to pursue a career in tech.
As a sales team, we take our ability to influence our customers’ work culture seriously. We educate the stakeholders on creating a more diverse pool, starting with adopting a neutral hiring and vetting process. We help them understand why a diverse workforce is important. Not only that, we also advocate equal pay for everybody within our customer ecosystem and internally.
Make Tech Purple’s ideals also impact how I interact with my own team. For example, I attempt to incorporate diverse perspectives in all discussions. I see it this way: We have an extremely diverse workforce by design. However, having a diverse workforce and not creating an active listening environment causes that diversity to fail. Encouraging diverse perspectives in everything we do makes all the difference.
Name two colleagues who’ve played a special role in your journey at BayOne.
I’ve had a lot of friends and mentors who have played a significant role in my twenty years in this sector. One of these is my long-term peer, Neha Malhotra, Head of Recruiting, who is also celebrating a decade at BayOne. There’s also my sales colleague Pratik Sharda who has been a fellow BayOner for over five years now.
Those are just a few, the list goes on. Everybody makes an impact on a daily basis.
This has been a delightful walk down memory lane. If you were to sum up BayOne and your journey here in one word, what would it be?
It would have to be passion. Anybody we talk to within BayOne is passionate about bringing their unique strengths to the table to make a difference for themselves and for the organization. On my part, too, I look forward to using talent and learnings to create growth and value within BayOne and for our stakeholders.