Head Of Sales Operations – Vera Skulteti of Vitesse PSP

Vera Skulteti, Head of Sales Operations at Vitesse PSP, jumped onto the Sales Operations Demystified podcast to unveil an unconventional side of sales ops from a finance graduate lens. Check out all the episodes here.

Key facts

• Vera’s Linkedin
• Vitesse PSP website  
• Vera Skulteti has 9 years of experience in sales ops
• Vera Skulteti has done her BSC in finance and accounting from Hungary
• Vera Skulteti has previously worked as a finance assistant, finance manager, and finance director
• Vera Skulteti has also spent several years in recruitment
• Yieldify’s biggest sales ops priority this quarter is to focus on sales enablement
• Yieldify has been around for 11-12 years

Key takeaways

• Vera has a financial background, which has helped her in the world of sales ops as a lot of tasks such as commissions or deals have to be taken from a finance perspective.
• Vera always had an interest in sales ops but did not opt for it as it wasn’t considered a high profile position in Hungary. So, she fell into sales ops organically. 
• Taking onto sales ops from a financial perspective, Vera realized the importance of financial processes that can be taken into sales apart from just good communication. As at the end of the day, everything is dependent on numbers and analysis.
• There was a time when sales ops weren’t a thing as its duties were incorporated into different departments, till companies realize these tasks need to be done by an independent team.
• Vera, having done sales ops for different organizations, discussed its similarities and differences. The similarity is in terms of data; it’s that the data quality is always poor and needs to be organized. The difference or challenges are adapting to different systems. Every organization has different people who have different ways to do things.
• Shifting through teams, within or outside different organizations, has helped Vera improve her soft skills and communication.
• Vera agrees that communication comes with age and experience. This has helped her understand certain circumstances much better.
• Vera admits that switching through companies and staying in the same company are both beneficial. Staying in one place helps you with promotion, and switching helps you get broader exposure.
• Vera likes to shift frequently and challenge her comfort zone. She is currently in a transition period as well.
• Taking on senior positions can be time-consuming as you have to learn about the organization, its politics, and all the links between people and how they operate.
• Vera suggests sales ops should be split in half, in which one half takes care of complaints while the other focuses on improvements. Vera has been doing both but personally enjoys working on improvement projects more.
• You can either take requests or make improvements.
• Vera suggests that if your company has resources, you should split the sales ops team’s roles as you don’t need a very experienced sales ops person to take on these positions. 
• Vera’s prediction about sales ops in 2021 is that it is a growing market. She has seen a lot more role advertisements for sales ops within the past year. Companies realize that they need sales ops as the finance and sales departments have their distinct responsibilities. 
• The sales ops department acts as a mediator between sales and finance. This improves communication, and inter-departmental avoids conflict.
• Retaining customers is the most important part of small organizations. 
• Vera is transitioning, and her new role would focus more on exhibitions, sorting out the databases, prospecting, and sequencing – which is a big shift from her current role. Now she will focus more on leads instead of service cloud – its sales cloud.

Key resources

• QuickBooks Time Tracking

#1 sales metric: data analysis

Vera discussed the importance of starting small to make big impacts. The initial step to a bigger picture in sales is the data. Data analysis needs to be incorporated in sales ops as a requirement. Having years of experience in incorporating different sales ops processes, Vera is now stepping into sales enablement with Yieldify, which would focus on the SDRs.

Who would Vera from the sales ops world take out for lunch?

Azuree Kelly – sales ops person at Amazon

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