Why Transparency and Autonomy Are the Secret to Team Retention

Ever watched a talented hire stall because the first win never came? 

In this episode of Elements of Culture, hosts Taryn and Julie sit down with Pranav Hundu, VP of Sales at Saras Analytics, to unpack what it really takes to build and scale high-performing teams in today’s evolving workplace.

Join the conversation as he shares how his journey took him from engineering to sales leadership and five years scaling a startup from near $1M to near $10M. 

From creating a “safe nest” for your team to empowering employees through autonomy, transparency, and trust, Pranav shares what separates leaders who simply manage from those who truly inspire.

Join us weekly as we dig into the real stories behind work culture transformation.

Not theory. Not fluff. Just honest conversations with leaders and innovators who've been in the trenches.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Background;

Speaker 2 0:00

Sales will always feature. You will always have people move over. And that's that's part and parcel. You need to kind of be accepting of it.

Speaker 1 0:09

At Elements of Culture, we sit down with experts in leadership and team building to explore the DNA that drives a thriving organization. Welcome everyone to Elements of Culture. My name is Taryn, and I'm joined with my co-host Julie. And today we have the pleasure of speaking with Pranav Hundu. He is the VP of sales of Saras Analytics and has just an extensive background of sales and leadership in the tech space. We're excited to have a conversation with you today, Pranav. So thanks for joining us.

Speaker 2 0:38

Excited to be here, Darren and Julie.

Speaker 1 0:41

Thank you so much. So tell us a little bit. I know your background specifically is with sales leadership and on elements of culture. We like to talk all things leadership, all things culture, team building, those types of things. And we'll get into more of those specifically. But before we dive into some deep conversation, help us paint a little bit of a picture on your background. What brought you into the sales space, tech space? What's kind of led you to where you're at today?

From Engineering To People Problems;

Startup Shift And Scaling Teams;

Speaker 2 1:06

Sure. So essentially, I've always been fond of solving problems. I think that's that's the number one superpower that I have. I like to solve stuff problems. That's why I went ahead and did a computer science engineering, was working with a couple of Fortune 500s in the computer science engineering space. Figured out that while there are technical problems to be solved in large tech firms, it is the people problem which is a tougher one. You know, getting the people to be motivated to do the right things for the organization, give the 100%. And I think that's where I found myself drawing towards. And while I was doing that, I realized that if all of this, if the people are aligned towards a common goal, the company is gonna succeed that much faster. So did an MBA, went deeper into problem solving, went deeper into the strategy space, worked with another Fortune 500, then the analytics strategy division realized you know the domain might change, the problem isn't changing. The problem is the exact same. People still need motivation, people still need to be given the right direction, and so they can unlock top line growth. That's when uh you know the startup bug bit me. Um, and I was because I I felt that I could be a lot more impactful if I had more autonomy. And while Fortune 500s were great, the hierarchical systems there were significantly slowing down the phase at which I wanted to run. Uh, we moved to the startup space, helped a couple of startups go from zero to one million, uh, set up building some teams along the way, picked up the skills of what is uh right mix of uh talent, density, and uh foundational knowledge that needed to set up these teams. And now for the last five years, I've been with SARS, uh taking their business from you know, uh closer to 1 million to closer to 10 million now. Um I'm having a good time along the way.

First Wins And Hands-On Coaching;

Speaker 1 3:06

Well, congratulations. That that's a story now. I know you've been there in that space for about five years. I love that you you really hit something that we talk a lot about on this podcast, and that's the people. Um, you know, you can solve all the problems in the world with processes, systems, but at the end of the day, it comes down to people. You touched on motivation. But tell us a little bit about what that looks like. And based on your experience when it comes to the people, how do you really attack that? As you scale, of course, revenue is at the forefront, but how do you scale this the team while seeing them as people? What are some of the strategies that you uh that you great question, Bill Tyrant?

Speaker 2 3:47

Um I think particularly with faith, it's a it's a very momentum-based change. If you it's all about if you're bringing in a new talent, uh, it doesn't matter if they were a rock star or superstar in their previous organization, unless and until you get them to their first win quickly in your org, they're not going to skip failing. They're gonna get stuck in a rut. So, how can we as leaders work in step with the new resources that we are bringing in to make sure they get to their first success or the first couple of successes really quickly becomes very important. If that means getting down in the weeds, sitting on their calls, helping them actually negotiate with the customer on the line items and just getting the deal over the line. Do what it takes, get them to their first win, celebrate their first win along with them and the teams, make sure they feel seen for even if they they only like shadowed you, they didn't do much in the deal, doesn't matter. Make sure they feel seen. And I think that really sets the stage because then they know that if there is intensity to be brought in, uh, they are able to bring it that intensity because they have seen you bring it that intensity in. And if they need to, you know, grow that extra mile because they have seen you do it firsthand, for them, they are more than willing to do it from their self as well. I think that's that's one thing that kind of worked a lot for me.

Speaker 5:11

Pranab, I think that is absolutely amazing because me and Taryn and I have had lots of conversations with people on sales teams who were like, they just threw me out here and I don't know what I'm doing. And so, like, you can listen to, I think you can listen to calls, I think you can watch calls, but I think navigating through that, um, especially when there's not enough product knowledge or if it's something new, can be very difficult. And so as you're saying that, I feel like there might be some leaders that are like, that's not my responsibility. That's the person who's training. Um, that's the person who's supposed to be facilitating the training. That's not my responsibility. Talk to me a little bit about like it seems like you go an extra going, you're going the extra mile for your team. Talk to me about how that, you know, one year down the line, two years down the line is that are you seeing more of your sales leaders stay?

Speaker 2 6:02

Fantastic. Um sales will always see churn. You will always have people move over, and that's that's part and parcel. You need to kind of be accepting of it. What I have seen is I have had the distinct pleasure of working with the same set of people in multiple orgs, which means that they might have churned, but in a later organization, they'll want to come back to you because as people go around and they work with different sales mentors, there are some which they naturally feel working better with and they'll come back to you. So I've had people, uh, and it's like, you know, you're creating a nest, they've the birds will fly away. Let them fly away, eventually they're gonna come back home in a different org. And that's I'm kind of pretty okay with that. And yeah, I I don't know if I got your answer absolutely right there, but uh I think that's my take on it.

Speaker 6:58

I think that's a very healthy answer. I don't know that I would get that from a lot of leaders. I I see a lot of leaders trying to just hold on for dear life to some of their employees. And so um that's actually refreshing to hear it from you. Um, because I think people who want to grow and want to expand and want to move up, those are the options. And they always come back to you. So it really speaks to your leadership qualities as well as people are trying to find you and work under you. So I think that's amazing.

Speaker 1 7:30

Yeah. That's so good. So build the nest, build a safe nest, right, for the team. I love that.

Speaker 2 7:35

Pretty much.

Onboarding Essentials And Data Dictionary;

Speaker 1 7:38

Yeah, with salespeople, I think there isn't a lot of movement. I think people, you know, they they might have different passions depending on what the the company, what the product set is. You know, that aside too, people follow people that they they love or that they enjoy. And so if you're building that, you know, kind of safe environment for them to learn and to thrive, I think they do come back. Uh, let's talk a little bit about churn specifically. So obviously, you know, you you're not going to be able to keep everybody. There is churn with sales. Uh, I want to talk about like the onboarding and the training process a little bit. How important do you think that that is to really set up the salesperson for success? Because you mentioned earlier being able to help them see and experience that first win is key. But what are some things that you feel is so important along that journey to getting them set up for success? And then a follow-up question to that would be what are some things that are not so healthy, which is going to increase the churn factor for companies?

Speaker 2 8:37

Probably uh loaded question there. Uh I know it's a little bit loaded.

Speaker 1 8:42

Sorry for not.

Avoiding Burnout With Smart Ramps;

Speaker 2 8:43

Yeah, good. I'll I'll take the first one. Um, I'll break it into two parts. You know, what will enable them to get onboarded in a simpler way? I every business uh has its own, I like to call it like a data dictionary. There are different phrases that a business uses that are very particularly relevant to their industry, the way they speak and the way their customers speak. It could be, you know, it could be highly technical phrasic, it could be some industry-specific jargons, but every industry will have these few phrases that will, the minute you say them, your clients as well as your teammates will get what you're talking about. And they differ slightly in every org. So if you can get a data dictionary created for your org and your space and share that with the onboarding members, uh, it's just easier for them to have those, you know, conversations in a lot more fluid way because they are going to have coffee cooler conversations. If you can give them some phrases and they will use them, uh, it will just be a little easier for them to kind of gel up with their other colleagues, uh, even when they're speaking with the customer, if they're using the industry specific words, it's easier for them to strike a rapport with the prospective customer. Uh, yeah, this guy gets me, this guy knows my industry. Rather than using maybe you're trying to say the same thing, but the words are just not there. So it just kind of adds a little bit of friction. So that data dictionary for me is very important. I think I have tried to create my own data dictionary whenever I have switched industries because it helps me. And then I've just tried to pass it on to others who are joining my team, saying that this is what helped me, see if it helps you. Um, that's the that's on the first part of the question. There are probably a lot more things that we can get into there, but uh, I'll keep it to one. Something that has seemed to add a lot of friction. I'll move on to the second far channel. Um, asking them to do activity-based, I mean, so sales is activity-based. At the end of the day, you are going to be measured on how much activities are you doing. Getting into that activity-based mode very early on when people are still settling in, kind of puts an additional layer of pressure on the new employer. Uh, let us see you hired an SDR, and then your quota or your goal is to have like 50 calls made a day. Don't push them to make 50 calls in the second week. Give them at least a couple of weeks. Or even if you want them to do activity-based, you give it in a very nice ramp so that they can progress. Because it is going to be tough to hear a bunch of no's very early on. And let's be honest, SDRs will hear more no's than yes any day of their life. So, can we make it a little easier for them as they settle into a new role versus just overloading them? I need you to make 50 calls. I want to see uh we have at least 10 connects in the day. That's just gonna foot additional pressure. And before they have had a chance to settle in, it's just that pressure is gonna just take them away from you sooner than later.

Speaker 1 11:39

Yeah, that's good. Thank you for answering that. I I like that the data dictionary. That's, you know, I think that that's so helpful, you know, because when I think in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, it's almost like a language barrier, right? So you have someone coming in who doesn't understand the context of it and really it's language that they do understand, but we're not translating it properly. So that's so helpful. Yeah. And I do think that a ramp time period is certainly important. Otherwise, you're gonna have burnout real quick and just overwhelm, and you know, they'll be gone in two weeks.

Speaker 2 12:11

Pretty much.

Transparency, OKRs, And Alignment;

Speaker 12:13

Um, Pranab, with the with the changing of how I think industry is going um with the generations entering the workplace and how the culture of I think corporate America is changing in general and corporate even all companies. I think the culture is having to change to be able to tread water at this point. Talk to me about a little bit in your experience what has changed for the better as far as as we are progressing and we're getting a new younger workforce in and how do how can we accommodate them? So I know there's certain leaders that are struggling with how to really keeping their young talent. And so, what does that culture look like?

Speaker 2 12:54

Yeah. I think one thing that's definitely that I've been observing across um the industry is the leaderships, irrespective of their age, irrespective of whether they are young or old, they are just starting to finally accept the fact that transparency is key. And organizations that are fully transparent with their, you know, the last mile employee are certainly finding it a little easier to have their employees be more connected, the employees be more geared towards overall uh success of the organization as a whole. Um, OKRs, while they have been around for close to 25, 27 years now, um, I'm finally seeing OKRs being implemented across the majority of the leaders that I'm speaking with. Either they have an OKR initiative already, uh, or they are starting off on an OKR initiative and they're finally realizing that historically, while they said they adopted uh OKRs, it was almost just a top-down goal setting. Rather than it actually being, you know, top, top-down and bottom-up meeting towards each other and then a proper as OKRs are supposed to see. So I'm I'm seeing better adoption of OKRs happening, and that's really um an area where at least some of the leaders that I look up to, I've seen them transform their organizations by really making sure that the last mile employee actually knows how their work is contributing to the overall success of organizations without really recognizing every single employee, because it's not possible to recognize 500,000 employees every year, but it is still making them feel that their work is contributing towards the larger goal and they feel heard, they feel seen when they see there are a bunch of amazing tools out there which are really making the okay things roll up well. So I think that's that's an area that I'm seeing a lot of value come out from.

Autonomy With A Safety Net;

Speaker 14:43

Yeah, you said the trigger word, transparency. I think companies are now gearing and going towards more transparency and authenticity to get, I think, buy-in from their employees. And I think people assume that bad news is going to create some type of exit, but what the studies are showing that that's not the case. People love to they like to be loyal, um, but you know, they want to know what's going on as well. They want to understand the reality of what's happening. And even through like tough seasons, like you would want that type of transparency to understand what to expect.

Speaker 2 15:21

Right.

Speaker 1 15:23

Yeah, transparency is definitely a key word. We had a recent conversation with another leader, phenomenal conversation, and it was so much of the conversation had to do with transparency and how that creates just such a safety for the team and understanding the vision direction where everyone's going. Um, I want to kind of pull back to something you said early on about your previous experience with Fortune 500 companies, and now you've got the startup bug and there's more autonomy in that. So maybe you have a bit more freedom to make some of those decisions. Maybe there's more clarity in the direction that you're going, a direction that you're building. Because I do see that where autonomy or authenticity, transparency, where those types of pieces and elements of the culture, the name of our show, where where those pieces are part of it, you have a healthier team and you have a team that really wants to help you build it. And they're not just in it for the paycheck. They're in it for the long haul. And so, you know, if I, you know, we're seeing that as well as we continue to have more conversations, Pranov, but what would you say, you know, along those lines, what are some of the trends that you're seeing that's helping companies, you know, within your network, what are those trends that's helping companies achieve more of that transparency or achieving more of that autonomy within the teams? What are what does that look like if you were to break that down? Because we've got leaders, we've got salespeople, different folks that are listening to this type of content. If they were to walk away from listening to our conversation, like how could they start implementing some of those approaches?

Speaker 2 17:04

Well, you guys don't hold back on the little approaches at all.

Speaker 1 17:09

Well, you know, we we really don't. We want to talk about the hard things because there's been such a change in culture, you know.

Spotting And Growing New Leaders;

Speaker 2 17:18

Yeah, yeah, totally doubt. Uh all right, so um here is how I would probably approach this. Um there are two elements of it. One is autonomy. Um I think it is very important for people to know that it is absolutely okay to make mistakes. If you give autonomy and there is a fear of I must be right every single time, that autonomy is going nowhere. They're not really going to take up ownership, they're not really going to try out new things. The first thing that you must put in place along with giving somebody autonomy is let them know that you have a safety net around this. It is totally okay to make mistakes. It is absolutely not okay to make the same mistake twice. 100%. You should not repeat the same mistake again, but make a new mistake. Go ahead, try a new thing, make a mistake, learn from it, improve on that. And as long as you're able to, it's easier said than done. Um I'm absolutely being candid here. I find myself pulling out my hair often because somebody makes a mistake so trivial that you can't even acknowledge it. That how can you do this? But it's okay. You gave them autonomy, they made that mistake, give them a safe space, don't bite their head off, and then help them figure out what's the learning in it. Um because if they are learning and they feel more, it's gonna be a journey from their side as well. They'll make a couple of mistakes and then they'll get better. If they are getting better at the at a good pace, you have got a great talent, you have got a high potential person working for you. Give them more autonomy. I think that's that's what the the pull and push is. You give them some and let them take now. Uh, you give them some and let them take more. If you are able to strike that right balance, um, it's a win-win. Um it won't happen in 100% of the cases. It might end up being a little more push or somebody trying to pull too much, and you have to kind of balance that for sure. But uh, yeah, that's the push and pull part of it. Uh on the autonomy side of it, um, and transparency just works side by side because they know from day one what is the end goal that you're going after. So they know exactly what, and then from your end, if you can make it explicitly clear that if we want to achieve that, A, B, C, D, E needs to happen. And we together are probably just focusing on A, B, and C. DE needs, or D and E initiatives need owners. So whenever you feel you can, raise your hand, take ownership of DE. So always give them like options of mini initiatives that they can pick up. Initiative that would help you scale faster and let them own it, run it end to end, work with other uh business functions, stakeholders to kind of take that, take that to solution. Um again, you probably might not be able to do that with workforce that's joined you very recently, but people who have with whom you have already had a good push-pull relationship and they are becoming more autonomous, they kind of take to these initiatives like fish to water, helps them really grow in their career, helps us really identify people who can take the more initiative, take more responsibilities, and deliver more. So it's it's a win-win for everybody around.

Speaker 20:35

Pranab, you you talked about autonomy. So I want to shift gears a little bit. Talk to me about how you find leaders within your organization. There's a lot of young leaders that watch our content. And so what are some so twofold question. What are the characteristics you're looking for and selecting leaders? And the second one is what are some mistakes young leaders are making that you see happen frequently and you're coaching through?

Closing Reflections And Thanks

Speaker 2 21:00

Yes. Um love it. Uh almost all high potential talent. I'll I'll call them high potential talent because you still need to cross the chasm to become a leader. But at least people who are showing that right talent have always found them to be always looking to support areas of improvement in any process. You might think you have the best process, but the every process can still be improved. So they're always looking to optimize processes, always looking to identify gaps in your processes, and then they don't only flag those gaps of process improvement, they actually come with a plan of action. It can be the perfect plan of action or it can be a terrible plan of action, but they don't try to come just with the problem. They try to come with a solution from their perspective to that particular problem. Now, if you can work with them to, you know, uh make sure that solutions is actually going to help the organization, help the overall process, and you let them actually go ahead and implement it. Um, that's when they start crossing the charism and becoming a leader. Because once you identify a process improvement and you create a the improved process, you then need to educate a bunch of people to follow that process for you. So that process of education helps them become a leader themselves. Because until now they were following instructions. Now they are the ones who are giving those instructions in a way that actually leads to adoption. Because if they are too harsh and saying this is how we are going to do it tomorrow, nobody's gonna listen to them. So they have to figure out what's the best way that I can communicate my thoughts so that people actually listen to me and so people actually follow me. The right balance of assertiveness with politeness is struck, you know, get it executed. And I think that's the that's the key skill that I'm often looking for in spotting that next sales leader per se within the org. Yeah, I think that's enough.

Speaker 1 23:02

That's so good. I think one of the things you touched on this earlier too, Fanav, is as leaders, and you said, I think you're the language you use was you can't bite their head off, right, when they make a mistake. And as leaders, you might have a vision, you might have a, you know, kind of an end goal in mind. But in order to develop those next leaders and to create that safe space for your team, as a leader, I think you have to be more aware. And Julie and I have a lot of conversations about communication, healthy communication, and what that looks like. And I think those that have regulated emotions as leaders, that is such a skill set and being able to personally reflect on your own, you know, language and conversations that you're having is so vital because you can go after success all day long and tell your team, we gotta go hit these metrics and that metrics. But if you as a leader are not reflecting on, okay, how am I best showing up for my team, am I really, you know, translating that? Because when we talk sales, one of the things that we often ask folks like yourself is how do you scale a team? And as I'm sitting here listening to you, Pranav, like ultimately it boils down to transparency and safety for the team. If you want to scale a team properly, you have to have the right culture in place to be able to do that. Because otherwise it's just numbers, is you know, you're going after the KPIs. But that's just my thoughts there for leaders.

Speaker 2 24:25

Yes, totally. Um, everybody tries to build a talent lens leaf. And I'm sure there are amazing talent that's out there, but I think it all just kind of comes to a uh, it all kind of comes together in the right way when you are giving them autonomy, when you're giving them enough transparency and you're allowing them to, you know, seize the day essentially. It's all about enabling them, being the fire beneath their wings rather than torching them from top down, because I think that just won't work in the modern day.

Speaker 1 25:00

You're right, it doesn't. I think, you know, we talked about shifting in cultures, uh, you know, corporate culture versus what we're seeing now and different um, you know, generations in the workplace. Yeah, you torture employees now, they're gone. They're not sticking around. So as we wrap up, Pranav, is there any tips or things that you've learned along your journey as a as a leader? You're you've obviously had just uh a wide background, which we so appreciate the conversation. And, you know, has there been any things along your journey that's just been like one thing that really stands out? Of course, we've talked about transparency, but one thing that you could leave with leaders that, you know, walk away and implement with their team to help develop their team or themselves.

Speaker 2 25:49

Sure. Um, I'll give an example from quite a few years ago when I was a salesperson myself, working with one of my first true sales mentors. Now, this guy coming from a very different industry. This is because he he has been around the block for a very long time. He had seen the entire evolution of the internet and all of those pieces. And now he was, you know, helping coach a team that was pure cutting-edge, like uh, an area in which he had no past, you know, uh, experience of. Um, and I think working with him and learning from him gave me the biggest appreciation of the fact that the problem is not just I need to sell this solution. The problem is how do I need to solve the problem of my customers and really developing more empathy towards why does the customer need a solution in the first place? Like what's the real pain that they are experiencing in their day-to-day? Because, in especially in tech sales, it's super easy to just become a feature center. It is extremely tough to become a value center. And I think appreciating the value that your solution is going to solve, uh, or value that your solution is going to bring to the table is super important. And I think I learned that from him that he didn't have any technology background per se. But he was able to, you know, strike up real meaningful conversations with the customer. He didn't used to talk about the solution at all. He only used to talk about their problems, how their day-to-day is looking like. And it really made me appreciate the tangible impact of a human relationship, especially in this pay-for-sales. And of course, you do need to know all about your features so that you can actually tell and compare all of that. But having that human uh element is super important. That's what that's been my biggest learning in over the years. And I think I try to bring that to the table every day.

Speaker 1 27:43

That's beautiful. I love that. Um, we, you know, at the end of the day, we're all human beings, we're all people, and we want to be seen, we want to be heard, we want to um, you know, grow as individuals and be able to do that in our workspaces. And so you have to translate those things over into our work culture as well. Well, Pranav, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation. It's been delightful and wish you all the best. We look forward to just continuing conversations and keeping in touch with you and seeing how your how your journey of success goes, especially with the startup. I'm interested in that. We'll talk more offline about it.

Speaker 2 28:17

Absolutely. Thank you, Dylan. Thank you, Julie. This was great.

Speaker 1 28:21

Yeah, thank you.