PayU - Sales Operations Professional of the Year
Company: ValueSelling Associates, Carlsbad, CA
Company Description: ValueSelling Associates equips B2B sales professionals to compete on value, not price, using a time-tested methodology with proven results. Our expert Associates deliver custom sales improvement training globally in over 17 languages. With ValueSelling, sales professionals get the tools, skills and processes to effectively qualify, advance and close more sales with higher margins.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Sales Operations Professional of the Year
Nomination Title: PayU: David Sebel
PayU is a leading financial services provider operating in 50+ markets and home to 43 different nationalities. Its vision is to create a world without financial borders where everyone can prosper. Today, PayU empowers billions of people and millions of Merchants to buy, sell, and operate online—seamlessly and securely.
David Sebel, Head of Commercial Excellence at PayU, is responsible for improving sales capabilities, systems, processes, and overall collaboration. Quite a feat as PayU grows by acquisitions and territory expansion.
Reporting to the CCO, David started his new role in October 2019 with the mission of driving sales efficiencies by standardizing sales processes. All well and good, except no documentation existed, the Salesforce instance had been developed piecemeal, and the global sales team had 35 unmaintained brochures to choose from.
Meanwhile, the onboarding was siloed, there was no standard sales methodology, and PayU’s 80+ Sales reps worldwide demonstrated varying levels of proficiency and professionalism in presenting PayU’s complex solutions.
Luckily, making an impact is what drives David. From entrepreneurial ventures to enterprises such as Phillips International and T-Mobile, David is well-versed in orchestrating organization-wide change management that addresses the key challenges of Sales, Marketing, Customer Care, and Financial performance.
To drive change, you deploy a baseline of standards, then adhere, measure, and continuously improve. With a small band of direct and indirect reports, plenty of cross-functional collaboration, and project management-based principles, David spearheaded numerous achievements.
Single source of truth:
Launched the Commercial Excellence Sharepoint as a platform for change, guidance, and collaboration (YTD 940+ unique visitors, 110K+ site visits)
Sales Materials: Created a team that turned 35 outdated sales brochures into one product deck, one country deck, and one USP deck. All available to sales via Sharepoint and updated quarterly in collaboration with product team.
Training: Teamed up with functional experts and updated, created, and published trainings on product, process, and systems. Implemented the ValueSelling Methodology, based on a skill building Canvas plan. Trainings are available on the Excellence Sharepoint and published as videos, decks, virtual hands-on training, and supported by knowledge tests, and trackable to ensure adoption and Progress. Individual knowledge assessments identify knowledge gaps, which are addressed through training and one-on-one coaching. Launching e4enable, a coaching platform that drives skills and performance improvements.
Pitch Battles: Established a Sales League that creates good energy, excitement, and competition. Each salesperson selects a Merchant and prepares a seven-minute pitch with three-minute Q&A, presented to a jury of leaders from PayU’s C-suite to Senior Sales Managers. Winners are recognized and rewarded.
Technology: Overhauled Salesforce, simplifying number of dashboards and opportunity types, integrating the eValuePrompter, and connecting data between Salesforce, Finance and transaction platforms.
It takes a special person and band of teammates to draw the map and then walk the paths to optimize business processes and make change stick. As the metrics bear out, David Sebel and the GPO Process Board do just that.
In less than two years, David and his team have had enormous impact on driving sales excellence and supporting overall PayU Financial performance.
The key project, Lead to Live, aimed to reduce the cycle time of the sales process for Large Merchant onboarding. It was launched January 2020, and resulted in over 47 key initiatives cross functionally with all key departments involved (e.g., compliance, risk, legal, pricing, etc.). It included process mapping, simplifications, and enhanced salesperson training and guidance. The result: about 50% reduction in Sales Cycle time for Large Merchants. Today the project scope is extended to include improvements to: Forecast accuracy, Merchant Ramp-up Accuracy, Salesforce.Com Simplification, and increased data connectivity between Salesforce and the Revenue transaction platforms.
This project together with other key Commercial Excellence initiatives contributed greatly to:
-Reducing the sales cycle time by 50%, creates about 4 month of additional Sales capacity p/y in the Large Merchant segment.
-Enhancing the Sales process and onboarding experience for Merchants and Salespeople, resulting in an 88% satisfaction rate by Merchants regarding their onboarding experience.
-Increasing Average deal size +33%
-Increasing Overall Revenue +66%
-Increased Revenue per Salesmaker +70%
David has a passion for Commercial Excellence. As he said, “It’s chaos and I love it. There’s so much to do, and it’s so nice to see the impact.”
David and a team of Stakeholders have transformed a change management program into “business as usual” through a Commercial Process Framework that ensures sustainable improvement that drives scalable growth. This Framework serves as a roadmap to support Sales Executives, Account Managers, and Sales Engineers throughout the sales cycle. See “Supporting Materials for PayU nomination.PPT”
Slide #2:
Introduction to the Process Framework.mp4
Learning Design Canvas
Slide #3:
The Lead to Live (L2L) Program was an amazing undertaking that saw the majority of its 47 key initiatives completed. Resulting in 50% reduction time in Merchant Onboarding Cycle time. That means the sooner a merchant is on-board with PayU, the sooner the Merchant can conduct financial transactions globally.
Lead to Live Program did its job!
Completed projects
Lead to Live Process overview
Lead to Live Process Board
Excellence post - cleaning the system of old opportunities improved the quality of pipeline and forecast accuracy
Latin America market growth
Slide #4:
Lead to Revenue (L2R) Program is the next generation of the L2L program. The current focus is on seven strategic initiatives that span from opportunity lead to Merchant ramp-up.
Sales Capabilities & Performance.pdf
Rescoping L2Live program to L2Revenue
4 projects move from L2Live to L2Revenue
Connecting the platforms