Nihar Sanghavi, Professional Services Salesperson of the Year, Dishes on his Recipe for Success

Every year at Adobe’s Worldwide Sales Conference, select employees are honored to highlight their outstanding performance and demonstration of Adobe’s core values. And this year, Nihar Sanghavi was named Professional Services Salesperson of the year. We sat down with Nihar to discuss his recipe for success, how he approaches driving customer success, and more.

What is your recipe for success?

Action is the most important key to any success. I’ve been able to do this by having compassion for solving customers’ business problems. I validate pain points with key stakeholders and establish a vision early on. And I stay with the customer and Adobe team until the business problems are addressed.

In addition, Adobe has established an industry leading ecosystem to drive customer success. That ecosystem has enabled the sales team to focus on spending more time with customers.

EVP of Worldwide Field Operations, Matt Thompson (left) with Nihar (right) at the awards ceremony.

How do you approach driving customer success/value realization with our customers?

As I mentioned, I try to establish the vision for customer success based on Adobe’s solution early on and I continue to stay with the team after a purchase has been made. I establish measurable KPIs for our Adobe Customer Solutions (ACS) team in order to track and deliver tangible business values. I ensure that our customer success managers and ACS team are tightly aligned and involved in critical meetings.

Can you give an example of how you’ve built strong partnerships with key stakeholders?

Every individual is driven by organizational goals and individual performance. It is absolutely critical that I understand what those goals are and make the stakeholder realize that we are partnering for mutual success.

How do you deal with setbacks or failure in customer engagements?

Setbacks and failure happen. Failures make me humble and I ensure that failure doesn’t allow emotions to cloud execution of objectives and goals.

What makes a good leader?

Good leaders always lead by example and never take eyes off the big picture.

What advice would you give new people at Adobe?

Believe in yourself and understand your ecosystem well. Also, quickly establish trust and credibility among your ecosystem and leadership.

Any favorite quotes?

I have a few that keep me motivated:

“If you want something you have never had, you must be willing to do something you have never done.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Every problem is a gift – without problems we would not grow.” – Tony Robbins

“Don’t aspire to make a living, aspire to make a difference.” – Unknown

If you are interested in joining the Adobe team in Professional Services, check out these job listings by searching Professional Services to see if you’d be a good fit. Come grow with us!