SaaStr 255: Why Enablement Must Be An Early Investment and How To Structure It, Why The SaaS Incumbents of Today Are Not As Strong As We Think & How To Build A Sales Culture of Confidence Without Arrogance with Vikas Bhambri, SVP Sales and Customer Experi

Vikas Bhambri is SVP Sales and Customer Experience @ Kustomer, the startup providing Real-time, actionable views of customers with continuous omnichannel conversations and intelligence that automates repetitive, manual tasks. To date they have raised over $113m in financing from some of the best in the business including Tiger Global, Battery Ventures, Boldstart, Canaan, Cisco and Redpoint just to name a few. Prior to Kustomer, Vikas spent over 20 years implementing, consulting, marketing, and selling CRM and ContactCenter solutions with companies like LivePerson and Oracle. 

In Today’s Episode We Discuss:

• How Vikas made his way into the world of SaaS and came to be at the rocketship that is Kustomer?
• Why does Vikas believe that a wave of SaaS incumbents are about to be displaced or disrupted? What about the changing tech stacks and infrastructures makes them vulnerable to up and comers? Does this not lead to a consolidatory environment? How does Vikas see the space play out in the coming years when it comes to acquisitions?
• What have been the dramatic changes that have happened in sales over the last few years? What is the right way for startup founders to address sales rep onboarding? Why is it so crucial to invest in enablement in the early days? How should this enablement be structured? How does this change sales rep payback periods? What is a good payback period? 
• How does Vikas feel about discounting? If accepted, what must the startup ask for in return? How does Vikas think about multi-year deals? When are they good? What sort of terms make them less beneficial for the vendor? 
• How does Vikas think about professional services? What is a good margin for professional services? What ratio of revenue is healthy for professional services to account for? When should one look to hire their first customer success reps? What should they look for in those reps? 

Vikas’ 60 Second SaaStr:

1. What does Vikas know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
2. What is his secret to building diverse teams?
3. The sales leader Vikas most respects and admirers and why?

Read the full transcript on our blog.

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Jason Lemkin

Harry Stebbings

SaaStr