As part of our quest to get you meaningful and powerful stories from India and around the world, we invited another passionate entrepreneur – Madhu for an exclusive interview with BrilliantRead Media. Madhu is a Leader, Mentor, Sales Coach and Co-founder of 3X Enterprises. Let’s learn more about his incredible journey, his background and his advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Madhu:
We are aware of your contribution to the ecosystem, talk us through your background and your journey as an entrepreneur, please;
I did my schooling in a very normal govt regional language medium school and completed my MBA from Bharatiyar university Coimbatore. I was told from childhood that study well and you will achieve what you want. So I was very studious and my numbers in academics have been always above average.
What I was not taught both from my environment and from my academics are how to think and how to find your passion and pursue it. Until the age of 34 I was going with the flow. Unknowingly I landed in sales and later I find out that I am in love with this profession.
I find out my passion on the flow but once I find out that going with the flow will not help you to reach anywhere; I started thinking about how to go about it. I invested almost 1 year in identifying my purpose, life mission and vision and creating a framework to how to go about it. The moment I was clear about it I started taking imperfect actions.
As I mentioned sales has been my passion, and I started my career as a door to door salesman for Hindustan Unilever for their pureit, water purifier. Later I landed in the hospitality industry and get into the worlds super growing low-cost airline based in UAE. All this while I was learning the nitti-gritty of sales.”
Recruiting my sales team was also my job responsibility, whenever I conducted an interview I understood that most of the people not/desired to be sales professional. They are landing in sales rather than choosing the sales profession.
I could feel the gap between availability and employability in the sales profession. Various researches also show that there is a huge gap in the availability of workforce and employability of the workforce, especially in sales. Most of the graduates and MBA’s are actually not having the skills which an entrepreneur is looking for.
So I decided to address this problem and after doing a lot of research and studies in the area of sales and attending many international workshops and courses, I came up with the unique concept called 3XYour sales.”
3XYour sales are based on the concept that if an entry-level sales professionals are trained properly and set a process to amplify his or her career and make him skilled, the entire sales profession can be revamped.
Entrepreneurs are ready to pay if the salesperson is extra skilled and can push the money needle of the organization. There is no scarcity in the potential salary and incentive an entry-level salesperson can get if he or she can prove that they can really take the organizational sales area to next level.
So my mission is to create 1 million super-skilled sales superstars who will change the way people are selling.
3 benefits out of this:
1 – Entry-level Sales professionals get paid more
2 – Organization’s profitability will increase
3 – Customer will get a different purchase experience
I am convinced in my research that sales is the only profession apart from entrepreneurship where even without an engineering or a medical degree, you can achieve financial freedom. Here you need skill and your certificates play a very minimal role here.
This is my conviction and I believe
“SALES IS A WAY OF LIFE NOT A PROFESSION.”
How did you find your passion and purpose and started working with it?
Just like many people I was not aware of my passion and purpose. Of course, there was something missing in life and the challenges I faced were simply trying to tell me to look in a new direction for a new journey.
However, I was able to find it with the help of my mentor. Hence, I strongly believe in the power of mentoring and coaching because that changed my life.”
Transforming entry-level sales professional and making them super skilled and by doing so their financial freedom will take off and the entrepreneurs also will get benefited as salespeople build a business.
That is one of the reasons I started the 3XYOUR SALES mentoring program to make a different breed of sales professionals
My mission is to create 1 million super-skilled sales professionals and amplify their career and 3X their income from their sales profession.
‘3XYourSales Consultant’ is such a unique name; talk us through more about it, please. Our audience would also love to know what kind of problem you are solving with the help of your startup?
I have come up with this name sighting the entry-level sales professionals. They are the strugglers in their profession and most of them live a very mediocre professional and personal life and end up being frustrated both in career and personal life. Their financial position is also a matter of worry. They do not have the choices to switch their job because of the fear factor.
They are continuously stressed because they are not able to achieve the numbers and usual corporate training are literally not helping as well
Here we are solving the problem of their skill set and mindset towards their profession. We are building a process through which they can see where their career is heading and increase their own market value.
We are setting up a process through which they can 3Xtheir sales as well as their financial position. It is a well thought out process where we amplify the 3 areas which are necessary for successful sales professional which is performance, influence and delivery.
How sales can help with our career/business growth?
Sales are the lifeblood of every business. If you don’t sell you starve. They say gold is real money rest all are credit. I would say in business selling is the real game, the rest all are the cheer girls. A skilled salesperson can take the company to next level and convert the entrepreneur’s vision into money.
So sales are very important we are lacking skilled sales professionals at entry-level. This is the real challenge every entrepreneur are facing.
If you are a sales person your primary job is to make yourself super skilled, right from prospecting until taking referrals, you need to have a process in place which will push the money needle of your organization.”
This process will take at least 2-3 years if you have a process in place if not then it can take a minimum of 8-10 years or sometimes you end up staying in a mediocre level of employment.
Could you please share with us the issues you face with entry-level sales professionals?
Yes, as an entry-level sales professional the biggest problem you will face is how to handle the rejections and failures. No one will not have a process to handle rejections. Everyone will tell you to meet 50 people then you will get 5 sales. But the 45 rejection on the course will make an entry-level salesperson to stop meeting the next prospect because of the fear.
According to studies sales professionals are working only 90 mins a day just because they want to defer the failure and rejection. Earlier stage when I was doing door to door selling the amount of rejection and humiliation you will face is unimaginable. Because people are sceptical about sales guys come home selling things.”
I was also frustrated each time people bang their door on my face even without hearing what I want to say. This is making most of the sales force unproductive and eventually, they landed up underpaid. They started complaining about this profession like there are so much pressure and no growth etc.
But in reality, this is the only profession that allows you to grow exponentially in your career. You can quantify your performance and no one can deny the numbers.
What are the sales traits that are necessary for success?
Active listening and trust-building are the two sales traits which will reach you on top of this profession. You need to understand the fact that the more you listen the more you can win trust, people do business with people whom they trust. Even though the brand name of the company plays a role but the salesperson who has the face – time of the prospect decides whether the prospect will buy it from you or your competition.
During this COVID-19 crisis, what are the measures you have undertaken to continue your business without disruption?
As the business is born during COVID, each measure is taken to ensure that the model aligns with the challenges of the pandemic.
~ Our business model consists of a lean team which is not at all resource-heavy and has minimal overheads.
~ The freelancer model ensures each and every work can be handled remotely, where we don’t need to do physical meetings
~ Every aspect of the business is online and tech-enabled to ensure automation as much as possible.
How do you manage yourself and keep on going despite the challenges? What drives you?
I always try to make sure that I empower the right people for the right work. This way I do not feel overburdened with work that leads to stress. In my free time, I try to travel, spend time with my family, and try to maintain my work-life balance as much as possible. Travelling helps me clear my mind and focus on issues that need my attention.
I would say that I get motivated seeing my parents work tirelessly in their respective fields and that drives me to go on despite all the challenges.
Please share with us – what has worked well for you so far?
One thing I would say that helped me and my company grow is the ability to listen to our customers. We believe that customers are not interested in products but in getting their problems resolved.
The more we listen to them, the problems they face in their business, the more efficiently and effectively we can resolve them. We believe that we are capable to do that and it is the only reason for our growth.
In your opinion, what is more necessary: an idea or a good team for a successful startup?
In my opinion, it should be a mix of both. You just cannot go ahead with an idea jotted down on a piece of paper without like-minded people working on it.
I have seen companies with very innovative ideas with niche market segment fail just because they lacked proper team spirit in them.”
To be successful, you should team up with co-founders who share your vision behind the idea and you also need to hire the right people for the right position so that it gets implemented in a proper way.
You are always positive and motivated, what keeps you going?
I love my work. Anything you do in life you have to have a passion for and should not feel like work.
I enjoy the challenge of developing novel technologies to become a truly disruptive force in investing by leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career?
Look at marketing not just as a job function, but a collective domain comprising several job roles. You should be able to identify the key skills and personality traits required to succeed in brand, media, digital, influencer, product, or any other area of marketing.
Most early starters get lost among marketing verticals within the first 5-7 years and find it hard to switch roles after that. Career decisions require a long view of what comes after and a good understanding of personal skills and ambitions. Make informed choices and build a professional life that empowers your lifestyle.
There is so much to be shared, but this conversation limits how much I can communicate on this platform. Students and young professionals regularly reach out to me on LinkedIn with their specific queries.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
