e010- "I never lose. I either win or I learn."| Ed Bilat with Harsh Sabikhi, Country Manager, GitHub

Harsh Sabikhi is the Country Manager for GitHub Canada responsible for growing the Canadian region.

Harsh started off as a software engineer writing applications in C, C++, and Java for Texas Instruments. In 2006, he transitioned into technical sales and eventually into software sales. Harsh is passionate about perpetual learning, change, and lean operations.

Harsh is a native of Toronto and holds an Electrical Engineering degree from McMaster University.

Outside of work Harsh is a new dad and has a 3-month-old boy. He enjoys spending time playing hockey, golf, and baseball.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:

• Inspiration story of Jack Ma (Alibaba Group)
• Storytelling techniques deployed at GitHub by Harsh
• The importance of keeping up the pace of change in the sales world today
• How competition and cooperation will influence the future of sales.

SHOW NOTES

[00:08] Introduction

[00:36] Welcome Harsh

[00:49] Type of business stories that inspire Harsh

[00:52] Jack Ma’s story ( Alibaba Group)

[01:06] Being a firm believer in positive thinking

[01:56] The win or learn Strategy

[02:34] Transitioning from Software Engineering to Sales

[05:49] Presenting and gathering feedback

[06:36] Product knowledge

[08:06] Bridging roles (having a cross-functional team)

[08:46] How it felt to be the first Canadian sales rep for his company

[11:25] Isn’t it hard to coach and mentor cross-functional teams?

[12:01] Knowing the profile of your team is a key

[12:37] What kind of stories do you tell to gain customer’s trust?

[14:50] Customer experience and community

[15:25] The future of software development

[16:19] Why do some sales teams fail?

[17:07] The relationship between the pace of change and commoditization

[18:30] Advice for starters and college students

[19:24] Challenges facing business owners

[21:23] The future of businesses

[22:00] The Art of Storytelling

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Harsh Sabikhi: 00:00 To me, the art of storytelling is you tie personal experience to the product that you're selling.

Automated Voice: 00:12 This is the storytelling for sales podcast, a show about leveraging the power of storytelling to ignite your sales performance and grow your business.

Ed Bilat: 00:22 Hi, and welcome back to the storytelling for sales podcast. I'm your host Ed Bilat. Today we have Harsh Sabikhi country manager of GitHub joining us from Toronto, Canada. Harsh Sabikhi, welcome to the show.

Harsh Sabikhi: 00:39 Thank you.

Ed Bilat: 00:41 Great to have you here, so Harsh, we'd love to hear your story. It's very exciting. But before we jumped in, we'll ask you one of our traditional questions. What type of business success story inspires you and why?

Harsh Sabikhi: 00:53 Sure. I would have to say Jack Ma, he had failure after failure, but he never gave up. I can't remember how many times he actually got rejected from jobs and some schools. Personally, I'm a firm believer in positive thinking. Where a positive mindset, leads to great results. However, failure allows us to take a step back and analyze ourselves. The situation and why we failed, this is where combining a positive attitude with learnings from failure comes into play. Jack Ma learned something from each of his failures early on, to now create one of the largest companies in the world.

Ed Bilat: 01:34 That's a great example. I think he was... I think he applied them for a fast food restaurant like 20 times and he was the only one rejected, I think.

Harsh Sabik...