A Year In Review

As life is becoming super crowded and fast paced, too often we conclude a project or an assignment and then move on to the next immediately. We forget to celebrate our success, learn from it and analyze what we could have done better. Also we should take the time to learn from our failures and what could have been done better. And to thank the people that supported, motivated and inspired us to keep doing what we do best and to keep going even when we feel exhausted or put down. As FY20 is coming to an end, I am taking some time to reflect on the past 12 months focusing on 3 important areas.

1. Most important lessons learned
2. Proudest achievements
3. Thank people who positively impacted my life last year

Most important lessons learned

In life we never stop learning and expanding our knowledge while also growing wiser. Taking the time to reflect on the Lessons learned, allowing myself to look at things differently and makes me want to do things better. 

Atomic Habits

I started my career as a software engineer and I spent a good time in the technical field, later as part of my own career development I had to take on different roles and landed last in sales, despite the fact that I was very worried at first maybe because of all the negative stereotype and perceptions that a salesperson is considered, as a person who is pushy, nagging, transactional, and would do anything to get the money, while I am the exact opposite.

With time and experience I found all of those perceptions to be myths, wrong and they have nothing to do with the role itself but rather with individual behavior. I learned that every one of us is a salesperson in our own lives. I found myself succeeding in sales being myself without changing any of my believes, my principles and my values. I found it motivational and rewarding every time I get a customer to respect & trust me more and come to me for advice. It makes me feel proud enabling my customers to excel and to pioneer.

This positive feeling is addictive. In sales, however it gives me and my customers the opportunity to enjoy it all the time.

Last month, I read the New York Times’ best seller book, “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. I liked this quote.

“Desire is the engine that drives behavior. Every action is taken because of the anticipation that precedes it….... The expectation of a rewarding experience that motivates us to act in the first place.”

That takes me to my top 10 lessons learned during the last fiscal:

• Find the reward, the feeling that will keep you always motivated to work and to accomplish
• Focus more on building trustful relationship that last a life time. Don’t build trust for the sole purpose of transactional goals, which can lead to be destroyed in a single moment.
• Have patience and stay persistent without letting anyone to put you down or make you doubt yourself.
• Work on mastering serenity and learn to dance in the rain. Don't blame, but survive and thrive.
• Embrace honesty and always go for a win-win. It sounds easy but it is about actually doing it and not just saying it. Do not be shy from stopping your customers when they are making wrong choices and wrong judgments. Give them your advice and back it up with facts.
• Always prepare and practice before any presentation and any meeting. Do two or more dry runs as it will give you magical results.
• Talk about value and less about product.
• Be customer centric and strategic. Do not be transactional and tactical.
• Give your work your all from the bottom of your heart, and in return it will return spectacular results.
• Last but not least, please do not walk in the corridors of your customers trying to sell them anything. Appreciate their time and their privacy by taking appointments before showing up at their offices.

Proudest Achievements  

Achievements and satisfied customers are what keep me motivated and fulfilled.

Achievements as we all know, has different meanings from person to person. For me, it is very much not only linked to meeting or exceeding my targets [obviously as I am currently in sales], but it also revolves around bringing a lot of value and benefit to my customers regardless of the product they buy. When I can provide my customers with the right advice while reflecting sincerity and be genuine. Establishing the trust that I feel is very difficult to achieve when wearing the sales hat. Gaining my customer’s trust keeps me motivated and fuels my desires to do more and bring more of my knowledge and expertise to any feasible opportunity.

I am very proud and honored that I was able to close one of the largest deals in ECEMEA under Oracle Cloud applications and across other pillars with Kuwait Petroleum Corporation in FY20 and received the VP award Top Sales Rep for H1 in Upper gulf cluster which covers Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain.

Thanks!

People that supported, inspired, motivated, coached or even brainstormed with me on ideas and solutions.

To all my customers who trusted me and continue to do so. I will again be there for you next year. KPC, KOC, KNPC, KGOC, KPI, KUFPEC, KOTC, PIC, KIPIC, STC, & ZAIN Thanks to the people who believed in my work style and extended their support to me whenever needed.

Thank you Arun Khehar & Alaa Jaber for your unique leadership style and your commitment to our customers at your level Mohamed Qasim for your coaching and support, Hani Diya for your guidance and advice and also for your calmness and wisdom, Swami Natarajan for your support and your thoughtful approach, Shobha Singh for your commitment and passion to make a difference, Louay Zeaiter, Kareem Gharib for your continuous support to myself and to our customers, Sherif Ghaleb for your commitment and eagerness and passion you put in your work supporting me and our customers at all times, Aarti Mohan, Gary Brocklehurst for your great initiatives to supports cloud applications transformation Rami Riachy, Charbel Abi Saad, Rajat Sharma, Puneet Jain, Burak Gorsev for demonstrating deep customer understanding and product knowledge helping our customers to clear uncertainties and doubts Kiran Gedala for your deep knowledge and support in cloud security and operations along with data privacy and your great help and presentations during our customer visit to our data center in UK Steve Cox, Ian Humber, Paul Littler for your tremendous efforts put to show our customer the cloud in a day, George Chaikalis, Muhammad Sherif, Sumiit Chowdhry, Walid Mohsen, Vishal Sharma, Lara Chedid, Vikram Bhalla for your commitment to the success of our project deployments and successful go lives!

Osama Eid, Farshad Bahmed for your consultancy in helping us identify the right business case and customer ROI and TCO, Karim Elhelaly, Esma Aydin, Csilla Manto, Cynthia Kimornah, Ajaya Kumar, Silviu Butunoi, our amazing legal, deal management & booking teams who work day and night restless to support all our deals.

A special thank you to Maurice Hellemons for his inspiration and coaching and for encouraging me to write this! and to Norma Rashdy, for her support beyond her duties at all times.

I also would like to thank my family. My parents & my children for their beautiful words and support. I am stronger and I turn 'I can’t !' to 'I can' because you are all in my life.

Last but not least, I would like to thank my husband for believing in me, always supporting me and standing by my side. Thank you!

In times of Covid19 when all seems different and we all think forward to the new normal, please continue to stay positive and make sure you have established a routine that will help you in fighting any negative feelings. Enjoy your time around your families and plan well for your year by building a solid system that will help you in achieving consistently.

Thank you all and see you next fiscal.

Sundus #SundusSpeaks