Navigating Continued Uncertainty as a CEO with Puja Agrawal

Intro: Welcome to the Daily Bolster. Each day we welcome transformational executives to share their real world experiences and practical advice about scaling yourself, your team, and your business.

Matt Blumberg: Welcome to the Daily Bolster. I'm Matt Blumberg, co- founder and CEO of Bolster, and I'm here today with Puja Agrawal. Puja is a SaaS and fintech executive. She's an independent board member. She's an advisor in the enterprise software industry, and she's very well regarded for driving transformational growth in the businesses that she's worked in over the years. Puja, it's great to have you here.

Puja Agrawal: Thanks for having me, Matt. Great to see you.

Matt Blumberg: Yes, you as well. So one of the things that strikes me about your background is you have tremendous breadth of experience, right? You've led P& Ls, you've been a head of sales, a chief operating officer of product. Now you do board work and advisory work. And I think there is kind of a theme to a lot of the work that you've done over the years around transformation and even turnaround. And my question to you is we are living in uncertain times and we just continue to live in uncertain times. It's been two years of it now, and the end of it is not anywhere in sight as far as I can tell. So as you're advising CEOs and spending time in market now, what are the top few pieces of advice that you're giving CEOs about how to navigate this prolonged period of uncertainty?

Puja Agrawal: Well, that's a great question, Matt. First, I believe that turbulent times are the best times to differentiate yourself from the herd and build a business. Because during turbulent times, customers are prioritizing critical only projects. And if you can partner with them to solve those critical problems better than anyone else, you can really have massive success in your business. So that being said, my three pieces of nuggets would be, the first one is bring differentiated value by asking the tough questions. What I mean by that is oftentimes sales teams or founders are afraid of losing the deal. And because they're afraid of losing the deal, they shy away from asking challenging questions, putting real issues on the table, or offering a contrarian view. And in reality, because they don't want to upset their customers or prospects. But in reality, you have a far bigger risk of losing a deal when real issues are not put in the table and discussed. So instead of worrying about losing the deal, channel that energy into adding value, thinking about how you can solve those critical problems for the customers in the most unique way, and how can you earn their trust in the process as someone they want to learn from? Because let's face it, customers go to external providers for their expertise. So if you can get on the same side of the table with them, build a plan to solve the problem together, you are really coming from a position of strength. And that kind of customer service ethos can really bring a difference between winning or losing or being stalled for months, which will eventually turn into a loss anyway.

Matt Blumberg: And the worst kind of loss because it's gone on forever before you get there.

Puja Agrawal: That's right.

Matt Blumberg: So that's a great number one. What's number two?

Puja Agrawal: Number two I would say is making big bets or making bold decisions. Double down on the one or two things that you must get right for the success of your business. And depending on the size and scale of the company, it may be one, two, or three. Definitely not 10. And then it's really important to double click on it. But what I mean by that is it's not enough to say we need to hit a certain revenue target in the next year. Let's peel back the onion and understand how will that happen? Where will it come from? What are the headwinds or tailwinds that we are facing? Are there competing priorities? Are there super difficult trade- offs that we need to make? And if you do make those difficult trade- offs, because at the end of the day, these are your must get right most important things for your business. And then needing to make sure that everyone is super aligned on those, right? Can't have your sales teams prioritizing one set of goals, marketing prioritizing others, product in a different direction. And sometimes that does happen. So aligning everyone on those big bets, measuring them, reviewing them, and understanding what do you need to adapt to make sure you can continue to march with full force really can help make a big difference. And at the end, what gets measured gets stuck. We all know that, right?

Matt Blumberg: That's right. Okay. So we're adding value to clients by asking tough questions. We're making big bets with alignment across the team. And what's number three?

Puja Agrawal: Number three for me is about mindset. I'm a huge believer that the difference between winning and losing comes down to our mindset. Because when we have the right mindset, it really fosters creativity, agility, a lot of tenacity. I mean, the list can go on and on. It makes me think of a quote that I'm a huge fan of, which says, " It's not wanting to win that makes us a winner. It is refusing to fail." So if we can operate as leaders with that kind of mindset, and if we can foster the same mindset in our teams, there's no task that is too big for anyone to achieve, right? And again, don't be afraid to make changes if there are weaknesses or gaps. Hire some change agents in key areas with the right attitude, the passion, the drive, and that's super contagious, and it can really be uplifting for everybody else in the team as well.

Matt Blumberg: All right. And those are good words to end on, refusal to fail in uncertain times. Puja Agrawal, thank you so much for being here today.

Puja Agrawal: Thanks for having me, Matt.