Profile Overview
Name: Nikola Neskovic
Title: Vice President of Sales
Company: CAKE.com
Location: Palo Alto, CA, USA
Contact Information:
- Address: 2100 Geng Rd STE 210, Palo Alto, CA 94303, USA
- Phone: +1-866-348-6668
- Email: support@cake.com
Career Journey and Current Role
Nikola Neskovic began his sales career in a student organization, gaining foundational experience in fundraising and sales strategies. Following a role as a sales field representative at a food delivery company, where he directly engaged restaurant owners, he shifted his focus to the IT industry. In 2020, he joined CAKE.com, a product-based software company recognized as a unicorn, and swiftly advanced to the position of Vice President of Sales. Neskovic's appointment was driven by his extensive sales experience and ability to manage a sales team, which he built from scratch within two months of joining.
Sales Strategies and Team Management
Key Sales Strategies
- Inbound Sales Strategy:
- Focused on warm leads generated through SEO optimization and targeted content.
- Regularly engages with potential and undecided customers, maintaining up to 100 conversations simultaneously.
- Outbound Sales Strategy:
- Concentrates on converting newly registered users into paying customers.
- Relies significantly on the human touch and accurate customer profiling to predict which users could benefit from additional product offerings.
Challenges and Solutions
- Team Management:
- Managing a team of extroverted and dominant personalities requires a strong leader with a fair internal system for lead distribution and acknowledging team efforts.
- Creating a team culture built on respect, fairness, and open communication to mitigate rivalry and ensure balanced opportunities for all members.
- Operational Hurdles:
- Handling a team working in shifts and ensuring 16 hours of daily availability poses significant coordination challenges. Nonetheless, the team supports each other in managing shifts and daily operations efficiently.
Role and Contributions at CAKE.com
Neskovic’s sales team is crucial to CAKE.com’s success, underpinning customer retention and company growth. The team contributes to approximately 77% of deals with active workspaces with over 100 users. The sales strategies deployed by Neskovic ensure high sales conversion rates and effective customer relationship management, essential for demos, negotiations, and closing deals in the SaaS domain.
Team Building and Training
Candidate Selection Criteria
- Emphasis on extroverted personalities with public speaking and social group involvement signs to ensure communicative and engaging team members.
- Computer fluency is mandatory due to the technical nature of their products.
Team Dynamics
- Neskovic focuses on creating a balanced team with varied roles akin to a sports team, ensuring diverse skills and personalities.
- Ensuring financial incentives like sales commissions to motivate team members is fundamental.
- Regular informal gatherings and daily team problem-solving meetings foster team spirit and cooperation.
Training Programs
- Regular internal training sessions are organized to keep the team updated with new product features and technical knowledge facilitated by the success and support teams.
Remote Work and Future Prospects
Neskovic advocates for remote work, noting its advantages in providing a distraction-free environment for the high volume of meetings his team conducts monthly. Asynchronous communication is a regular practice, ensuring smooth operations.
Innovation and Growth
- The future plans of the sales team align with CAKE.com’s product developments, such as the recent launch of their project management tool, Plaky. The team is expected to grow to 50 members to cover all products effectively.
- While exploring AI tools for sales, Neskovic emphasizes the irreplaceable value of human interaction in sales, suggesting AI is more of a support tool rather than a replacement for human sales teams.
Company Collaboration and Impact
Neskovic’s team collaborates closely with the customer support and success teams, ensuring a seamless transition from lead generation to post-sales customer relationship management. This teamwork is vital for improving overall sales processes and enhancing customer satisfaction.
For further information, refer to Nikola Neskovic's [interview on CAKE.com](https://cake.com/empowered-team/nikola-neskovic-importance-of-sales-in-business/), which provides in-depth insights into his sales philosophy and leadership strategies.
