We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cassie Yusofi a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Cassie, so good to have you with us today. We’ve got so much planned, so let’s jump right into it. We live in such a diverse world, and in many ways the world is getting better and more understanding but it’s far from perfect. There are so many times where folks find themselves in rooms or situations where they are the only ones that look like them – that might mean being the only woman of color in the room or the only person who grew up in a certain environment etc. Can you talk to us about how you’ve managed to thrive even in situations where you were the only one in the room?
In my case it was nothing out of the ordinary to be the only one in the room who looks like me. I was born in Afghanistan and grew up in the Netherlands where I was consistently one of out probably 5 kids in the classroom who looked like me growing up.
Somehow this wasn’t a big deterrence for me when it came to achieving things in my career. Having grown up as the outsider or someone who didn’t entirely fit in was a daily occurrence for me so I never really knew another kind of reality. This in many ways turned out to be an advantage. It became my superpower. I was able to understand from a very young age that if you wanted something, you had to work for it. I wanted to be (considered) at the same standards as everyone I was in the room with — whether I had any of the same social-economic advantages that the others did, didn’t matter to me.
If I was in that room, it means I had earned it in the first place, and in the second place, I knew that there was probably a better room out there that I could belong to next. I did that by continuously looking for the next opportunity that could help me evolve and improve beyond my current environment.
Today, I see being the only person in the room who looks like me as a positive thing. It signifies representation and accessibility for others like me, and it ensures that our perspectives are always included. Surrounding ourselves with people who can support us to excel beyond our current understanding of what is achievable is crucial. Those who do not look like us often have valuable insights, regardless of their skin color or background.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
After having spent almost a decade in software sales leading large teams across 3 continents for several startups, I decided it was time to finally build something of my own. I knew this is something that was a long time coming, as I started to dream about this possibility ever since I joined my first startup. It was all a matter of timing and confidence to finally go after it and make it happen.
From my work experience in sales I knew all the challenges that I had dealt with myself in the past:
1. Sales reps spend only 28% of their time selling, the rest goes towards all kinds of admin tasks
2. 60% of sales reps rely on their gut feel when it comes to their deal’s progression and outcomes
3. 50% of sales teams don’t do any data driven sales to find out why they are winning or losing deals
4. Sales managers only have 9% of their day to dedicate towards developing their direct reports
This is why together with my co-founder & CTO Magdalena Okrzeja I built Aimars.io. Aimars is an AI native sales optimization platform. We particularly help sales managers that have a big sales team with providing visibility and transparency within their pipeline with the way we organize the pipelines according to the company’s ideal company profile and urgency. And we help the sales reps with prioritisation, quick overviews of what is going on in each deal with boosters and blockers, and we automatically create to-do-tasks out of the email communications. And on top of that, we build manager 1on1 topics for sales managers to understand what to coach and train each and every sales rep based on data. This way every sales rep makes the most out of their manager’s time and gets the support they need to move deals forward.
We give insights to sales reps in a very unique way: we analyze and help them understand their customer interactions such as emails, notes, phone calls and meetings. This way we don’t rely on CRM data coming from Hubspot and Salesforce too much because we know that 91% of CRM data is incomplete. We rely on tools and information that every sales rep uses anyways in order to do their job.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The first quality within myself that I recognized has helped me progress in my journey was definitely being driven. My drive goes beyond the desire for wealth and financial freedom. I am motivated by a profound aspiration to change the destiny of my family’s future generations. I want to leave a legacy that inspires my nieces for example, and demonstrates that a woman of color can achieve great things in this world. By having a clear vision and working diligently towards it, I aim to show them that anything is possible. It’s about breaking barriers and setting an example so they know they can reach their own dreams, no matter the challenges.
The other ones have been resourcefulness and creativity. These last two skills have helped me to achieve my goals beyond the straight beaten path that others told me about and instead allowed me to find ways to enter fields that I previously did not think were available for me. For example, building an AI startup together with another incredibly talented and hardworking female co-founder.
How would you describe your ideal client?
Our ideal customer would be a tech company that has a large indoor-sales team between 5 to 100 sales reps that is using a CRM such as Hubspot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. They have a big pipeline that has 20 or more deals per sales rep with rather quick sales cycles of less than 6 months. These deals need to move quickly through the pipeline.
We would do well for companies that are in Travel tech (such as GetYourGuide, Klook, Viator or Booking.com) HR Tech (such as HiBob, Personio, Bamboo HR, Rippling) or F&B Marketplaces (such as UberEats, Wolt, Doordash)
These companies typically have big sales teams and a high volume of small deals that usually get closed within 6 months or less.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.aimars.io
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aimars/
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cassieyusofi/
Image Credits
Kate Petruchik
Reinaldo Coddou
Arrtist Circus event photographers
Female Founders Lead Today Shape Tomorrow 2024 event photographer
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
