Baziyan Safari is one of Inter.link’s Sales Managers and in this article he explains his perspective on sales within the network/tech sector, what he enjoys about his role, and what has changed in the industry.
What is your favourite part of your role?
My favourite part is helping customers solve problems they didn’t necessarily realize they had.
Most customers don’t wake up in the morning thinking about transit providers, routing policies, or network architecture. They care about performance, reliability, growth, and keeping their customers happy. In the end of the day, keeping customers happy is what we all do. Just in different ways.
What I enjoy is helping bridge the gap between a customers needs today vs tomorrow. Sometimes the solution is technical, sometimes commercial, and often it’s a combination of both.
The best conversations are usually the ones that start with a business challenge rather than a product och technical discussion.
What advice would you give to someone entering network/tech sales?
Learn enough technology to have meaningful conversations, but try avoiding the trap of thinking every discussion is about technology.
Most buying decisions are ultimately made by people, not routers and servers.
The best salespeople I’ve worked with understand both the technical and human side of the business. They know how networks work, but they also know how organizations make decisions and what their business outcome would be of the decision. This is what builds trust over time.
If you stay curious and focus on helping rather than selling, you’ll usually do well.
What is one thing that has changed since you started working in connectivity?
The biggest change I’ve seen is how much connectivity has become a strategic business decision rather than a pure infrastructure purchase.
Years ago, network connectivity was often viewed as a commodity. Today, performance, resilience, security, and reachability have a direct impact on customer experience and revenue.
As a result, customers are asking much deeper questions about network quality, routing, DDoS protection, and how providers operate their infrastructure.
The conversations have become far more strategic than they were when I started.
What is one thing most people don’t know about working in network/tech sales?
Most people think network sales is about convincing someone to buy bandwidth.
In reality, a large part of the job is listening.
The better you understand a customer’s business, challenges, and future plans, the easier it becomes to identify where you can add value.
One thing people don’t always realize is that the job doesn’t necessarily stop when the meeting ends. Every now and then, you’ll wake up in the middle of the night with an idea for how to solve a customer’s problem or structure a deal in a better way. Some of the best ideas I’ve had came nowhere near a meeting room or a desk.
And some of the most successful deals I’ve worked on started with a conversation that had nothing to do with connectivity at all.
