Qayam Noorani is a recently-promoted Account Executive at Klue, an AI-powered Competitive Enablement platform designed to help product marketers collect, curate, and deliver actionable competitor insights to empower revenue teams to win more business. Prior to his promotion, Qayam had an unbelievably successful run in SDR-level roles where he put up some incredible numbers. Qayam credits much of his success to a moment in his SDR career where everything clicked. He started prioritizing the relationship-building aspect of prospecting and that made a huge difference in the results he achieved. Qayam realized that, to be a successful sales professional, you can never play the short game. It’s all about putting in the time and effort to reach the goals you’ve set out for yourself.
In this episode, Scott and Qayam discuss the concept of building a world-class sales team and what that entails. They speak to the importance of elevating everyone on your team. Qayam identifies and expounds on his three keys to success. These include his hungry to be the best, an obsessive curiosity to know more about sales professionals on his team and in his industry, and having a great, supportive team behind him. Qayam opens up about his proudest accomplishment to date, earning a seat at the table with his company and becoming a better teammate. Qayam takes the audience through a typical day in the life, from his morning coffee to how he builds out his list of prospects. Qayam takes a unique approach to prospecting that allows him to introduce himself and his organization without being too overly aggressive. For Qayam, it’s all about the outbound activities and utilizing tools like LinkedIn to hone his skills.
Qayam reflects on his time as an SDR and specifically calls attention to how he spent the perfect amount of time in that role to prepare to become an Account Executive. He speaks to the challenges and obstacles he’s had to overcome throughout his career and the invaluable lessons he’s learned from mentors and colleagues with whom he’s worked. Finally, Qayam poses an actionable challenge to the audience. He suggests spending a week obsessing over everyone else’s pipeline and identifying where the leaders are and how they got there. He is certain that you’ll learn so much from doing that in one week and that it will become organic and second nature. And, for the first time ever, Scott poses his own actionable challenge to the audience on how you can literally change the trajectory of someone’s career path.
What We Covered:
00:01 – Scott thanks the sponsors of today’s episode, Gong, Terryberry, and Vidyard
00:38 – Scott welcomes today’s guest, Qayam Noorani
01:07 – The top three attributes that Qayam attributes to his success
01:21 – Number 1: Being hungry
01:47 – Number 2: Obsessive curiosity
03:20 – Scott takes a moment to thank one of today’s sponsors, Gong, and asks Qayam about how Gong has powered his latest obsession
04:34 – Number 3: Having a great, supportive team behind him
05:13 – Qayam talks about the biggest chip on his shoulder
06:52 – What Qayam is noticing about what doesn’t work in sales
08:36 – Qayam discusses his background, his new role at Klue, and his sales results
11:17 – How Qayam expanded his role while working as an SDR
13:43 – Qayam talks about the humbling experience of becoming an Account Executive
15:25 – Scott and Qayam talk about the concept of building a world-class sales team and what that entails
17:40 – Scott thanks another one of today’s sponsors, Terryberry
18:16 – Scott and Qayam discuss the importance of elevating everyone on your team
21:16 – What being disciplined means to Qayam
22:11 – What Qayam would do differently if given the chance
23:43 – Qayam recalls his favorite sales story
25:16 – What clicked with Qayam in his understanding of how to prospect and talk with clients
30:46 – Qayam reflects on how long it took him to really turn it on and find incredible success as an SDR
32:52 – How Qayam is building relationships through prospecting
34:29 – Scott thanks the final sponsor of today’s episode, Vidyard
34:56 – Scott and Qayam continue to discuss the importance of relationship-building
37:45 – Qayam’s proudest accomplishment
39:12 – Challenges and obstacles Qayam has had to overcome throughout his career
42:09 – Qayam takes the audience through a typical day in the life
48:55 – How Qayam uses emails to warm up prospective clients before calling them
50:54 – Tools and apps that are critical to Qayam’s success
51:26 – Qayam details his prospect research process
54:43 – Scott talks about one of his favorite Daily Sales Tips of all time
58:24 – The books, news, podcasts, and trade information that Qayam consumes
1:00:37 – What motivates and drives Qayam
1:03:58 – One of Qayam’s beliefs that the average sales professional would think is crazy
1:04:52 – Qayam reflects on how the time he spent as an SDR was the perfect amount to prepare him to become an AE
1:08:19 – What Qayam wishes he learned from his time as an SDR that would have better prepared him for his role as AE
1:10:13 – Advice Qayam would give to an upstart SDR
1:12:03 – Advice Qayam would give to find that second gear to success
1:13:01 – What Qayam is looking to learn from other AEs in his industry
1:14:25 – Qayam tells a final story on how he managed conflict
1:16:50 – Qayam’s actionable challenge to the audience
Tweetables:
“You can have a culture where it’s a bunch of pieces coming together and hopefully creating a puzzle, or you can have a culture where the puzzle is everything.” (16:16)
“My dad had this saying that, ‘Tomorrow never comes.’ So, if you are thinking about doing something and you say, ‘Ah, I’ll just do it tomorrow,’ that’s not gonna happen. Just do it right now.” (21:04)
“The thing that clicked for me internally was just that I’ve got to start approaching these prospects in such a way that I’m earning their respect and I’m earning a place at the table before I ask for anything.” (26:51)
“I think you absolutely should provide as much feedback as possible because, if you help one person like me, you could potentially turn their whole career around.” (32:17)
“That’s where I’m at as an AE. I’m still in a phase where I’m trying to get as many reps in as I can. Because not every demo is perfect. Not every follow-up email is perfect. Not every conversation is perfect. But, the more of them I have, the more I’ll learn, the more times I’ll fail, and the more times I won’t do those things again.” (48:31)
“I think it really does come down to the whole chip on my shoulder. I just want to better myself every day and want to learn. Knowing that I’m not the best and I’ll never be the best even if I get to a place where I’m the best at my company, there’s still going to be someone out there who’s doing better, so that drives me.” (1:01:09)
Links Mentioned:
[email protected]
Sales Success Stories Podcast
2021 Sales Success Summit
Qayam Noorani on LinkedIn
Klue Website
SDR Episodes on Sales Success Stories podcast
Kobe Bryant On Cold Calling
How to Politely Handle Aggressive Salespeople
Kyle Coleman on LinkedIn
Podcast Mentioned:
Tools Mentioned:
LinkedIn
HubSpot
Twitter
Zoom Info
Medium
Outreach