Succeeding in Sales: Insights shared by Shana Anolik of Nutanix

Shana Anolik from our Nutanix sales team

Charting a successful sales career demands more than just hunger, persistence and grit. So, what sets exceptional sales people apart? And what is the key to a challenging and rewarding professional sales career? 

We spoke with Shana Anolik, Enterprise Account Manager at Nutanix to find out. Shana is a key member of our sales team where she focuses on landing and expanding our enterprise customers in the Eastern United States. 

She opens up about how she got her start in sales, ways to build meaningful customer relationships, and why it’s critical to align your work and purpose with a company that values and invests in you.

Tell us about your role. 

My role is to be an effective listener. I listen to my customers and want to understand their business objective, which is normally increasing revenue or reducing cost. I help them draw correlations to solutions and build out those strategies, whether it be operational simplicity, a specific automation effort, or zero downtime.

I tend to wear many hats–from project manager, to educator, to being a customer advocate. Because I get to work so closely with my customers and create that intimacy, another wonderful byproduct is that I usually get to be their friend too!

Can you walk us through your path to Nutanix?

I’m from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and studied at Ohio University. Upon graduation, I went into numerous sales roles. My first IT sales job was with a traditional staffing company specific to IT. I then moved into a different sales role when the company started a services organization deliverable-based business. I helped them grow globally which involved traveling all over the place–more than I liked!

I first heard of Nutanix as part of one of the solutions that I had sold to a customer. I also had many customers and friends who had transitioned over to Nutanix. So, I was very interested to hop on board in April 2019.

What uniqueness do you bring to your role?

I’m infinitely curious. I’m genuinely interested in learning and want to learn something new every day. Whether it be my coworkers or my customer base, I like to learn about people, and in doing so I am able to invest in them which is very rewarding!

Some may also say tenacity, however, I define it a little differently. I keep going because I believe in what I’m doing. It’s about doing the right thing. It’s easy to be tenacious and not take no for an answer when you truly believe that it’s helping someone. 

I also work really hard. That’s not unique, but it’s an important piece to the puzzle.

Outside of work, Shana loves traveling, spending time outside and enjoying time with her daughter Stella

What makes Nutanix a special place to work?

Nutanix is unique for its culture. The commitment to the customer, the product, and employees is part of why I like working here. I’ve experienced that uniqueness with the customer and as an employee. Nutanix goes above and beyond.

It can be the product team taking feedback from the customer and then seeing that feedback impact the product, or when I show new enhancements and can tell a customer that this is part of what they already own rather than costing extra. These are examples of our commitment to constantly innovate and improve. 

That same commitment is demonstrated to employees. It can be the opportunities to do strategic leadership training, or having the resources available to improve my product knowledge with ongoing training.

Nutanix is unique because of the people that work here. They share the same values that I do and it’s a great place to work! 

Any advice for future Nutanix employees?

There’s a lot of information to absorb and it can be extremely overwhelming. I know I felt that way. The advice I received from my mentor was to take a deep breath because I’m going to learn and grow. 

Don’t get hung up on what you don’t know. Ask questions and lean on the experts. 

Use all the resources that you have. Through that process, you’ll get to know the company, the organization, and the wonderful folks in it. So have some fun in the process!

Thanks to Shana for sharing her experience and learnings. 

Want to learn more about Life at Nutanix and job opportunities? Follow @LifeAtNutanix on Instagram or LinkedIn and explore our careers page.

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