What I learned from Mr. Kamal Nagpal at Nortel

Continuing from last week, I would like to share yet another lesson from my Nortel days, this time from Mr. Kamal Nagpal, who was a sales manager during my early days at Nortel.

When you change roles, you must change perspective too!

I had joined Nortel from Power Grid. I had been in Power Grid for 8 years and had been a buyer of the telecom equipment during those several years. I guess, I was a good engineer and always had a lot of confidence in designing and choosing the best solutions. If you are a buyer, you will know that one of the main roles is a comparison of available solutions. Typically you will compare the solution with your requirements and find a list of missing functions/features.

In a public sector, you cannot overspend. So, you develop a critical and a comparative mindset. If someone offers more than what you need, you will be happy, but you may not give any additional weight to it if the other solution meets your needs. In short, if I come across two solutions both meeting my needs, but one offering more at a higher cost, I would recommend going with the solution that is cheaper and meets baseline.

When I moved to Nortel and got my first chance of making an independent presentation to a customer, I was conservative in highlighting our plus points and used our own products to compare feature support, creating a negative image of at least one of them in mind of the customer.

I asked Kamal for feedback after the meeting. He told me, “I was wondering whether you had any intention of presenting our solutions in the positive light at all?”. He was kind enough to give me critical feedback and help me understand that the perspective of the seller is to highlight the best of what we sell and help customer realize the benefits that we can bring to them. All that was missing from my first attempt at presentation.

I learned quickly and focused on the application and the benefits our solution brings. I realized that the change of role must lead to a change of perspective.

Some of you may have already experienced this, but others may be struggling because people do not provide candid feedback and wait for you to fail. If you are facing issues, it may be your perspective that needs correction and like they say, “You do not know, what you do not know”, only others can provide you the right feedback.

Go and actively look for the Kamal in your life, who can share candid feedback and help you become a better version of yourself.

Stay tuned for more next week.