whynotroman

Experience and cases. Where I built sales and what came out of it

I have been in sales for more than 15 years, and 11 of them in the car business. Most of that time I did one job again and again. I come to a place where there are no sales yet, or where sales happen by luck, and I build a system there. I hire people, I write the process, I set the numbers and I stay until the result is there. For the last two years I do it with AI.

The short version.

  • Today I build sales on AI. The agents do the routine, and people close the deals
  • More than 15 years in sales, and 11 of them in the car business
  • For five and a half years I was the head of direct sales at Yandex
  • I connected more than 4,000 dealers, and one contract with LADA brought 450 of them at once
  • I received the Hero of the Year award at Yandex
  • In one year I opened eight markets for Salesteq in Central Asia and MENA
  • I built sales in Russia, Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia
  • I teach at HSE University and at Auto.ru Academy

Below is the full story. I start from today and go back to the beginning.

Today all my work is AI in sales

I have two projects, and in both of them sales run on AI agents.

  • Salesteq. My main job. I set up AI sales departments for dealers in Central Asia and MENA
  • A closed project with Russian Post. A part of my time. I roll out a sales department from zero, where the agents do the routine

At the same time I consult mycar.kz in Kazakhstan on the contact center and the car buyout.

I do not sell AI. I build sales on AI.

Salesteq. AI sales departments for car dealers

Since 2025 I am an AI Sales Engineer at Salesteq, and this is my main job. Salesteq is a Swiss company. It builds AI sales departments for car dealers. I lead Central Asia and the MENA region.

In one year I opened eight markets. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

My work goes like this. First comes the diagnosis, where I look for the place where the dealer loses customers. After that I build the system. The agent answers in seconds at any hour, and the salesperson steps in where a human is needed.

AI Sales Engineering. A profession that is not in the textbooks yet

This profession is not in the textbooks yet, and it has no rules so far. I learn it in public. I show agent tests, failures and findings. I draw diagrams.

This is how I divide the work. The agent gives the first answer, qualifies the customer, remembers each one, follows up and books the visit. The human keeps the trust, the negotiation and the decision.

Here is one number that we measured ourselves at dealers in different countries. 40% of the people who want to buy a car write to the dealer when the showroom is closed. At that hour only an agent can answer them.

A closed project with Russian Post. A sales department built on AI

Since 2026 I am also the sales director of a closed project. Russian Post and Russian Railways run it together with the Roscongress Foundation. I spend a part of my time there, and Salesteq stays my main job. The project helps Russian companies buy goods in China. We find the product and the factory, buy it, prepare the papers and bring it to Russia.

From the first day I roll out the sales department and all the processes there with AI. This covers the search for customers, the requests, the work with the trading house in China, the knowledge base and the rules. The agents do the routine. I make the decisions and I do the negotiations.

The project is closed, so I do not give numbers or client names here.

mycar.kz. A contact center and car buyout in Kazakhstan

Since 2025 I work with mycar.kz in Astana as an outside consultant and business trainer.

Here is what I did there.

  • I built a contact center. It brings more than 100 cars a month for commission sale
  • I wrote the standards for how we accept these cars and how we work with the owners, and I put them into practice
  • I set up the processes of the contact center and the buyout team. How the flow of customers is handled and how a lead moves between the teams
  • I brought the staff to the norm. From 40 visits and from 15 deals a month for each specialist

Before AI I built sales departments by hand for ten years

Here it is year by year. The details for each place are below.

  • 2025. MyNaghi, Saudi Arabia. Online sales of a stock of 4,000 cars
  • 2024–2025. The Neimark IT campus. Sales director
  • 2023–2024. Fresh Auto. Sales director, three teams from zero
  • 2022–2023. Borauto. Sales director of the digital showroom
  • 2015–2022. Yandex and Auto.ru. From regional manager to head of direct sales
  • 2014. Julianna. My first sales

MyNaghi. Online car sales in Saudi Arabia

In 2025 I worked with MyNaghi in Saudi Arabia, also as an outside consultant. The task was to build online car sales. There were 4,000 cars in stock.

Here is what I did there.

  • I hired and trained a team of 14 people who work remotely
  • I organized the sale of the stock fully online
  • I set up the CRM and the rules and wrote the scripts. I gave tasks to marketing and IT about the tools
  • I developed extra sales. Finance products, trade-in and insurance
  • I built partnerships with banks, dealers and service companies
  • I trained the head of sales and advised him on management

With cold outreach we brought in more than 500 customers.

The Neimark IT campus. Selling education

In 2024 and 2025 I was the sales director of the Neimark IT campus in Nizhny Novgorod. This is not the car business. I sold higher education and extra courses, and the whole funnel was mine, from the first contact to the payment.

Here is what came out of it.

  • We filled the first paid group of the program on artificial and augmented intelligence
  • We started 3 groups of extra courses with positive unit economics
  • I gave more than 50 master classes for high school students. A few thousand people came to them
  • We met the plans for the bachelor's and master's programs

This job showed me that a sales system moves from one industry to another.

The product changes. The funnel, the numbers and the discipline stay.

Fresh Auto. Three remote teams from zero

In 2023 and 2024 I was the sales director of the Fresh Auto marketplace. I built two sales departments from zero, one for private buyers and one for companies. I brought in amoCRM, moved the papers to electronic documents and started extra sales of warranties, service packages and leasing. I hired and trained 15 people. The business line reached break-even in month three.

I had three teams, and each team had its own numbers.

The concierge service. Any person could ask a question on the site or in the app about how to buy, sell, service or repair a car. Six people handled about 10,000 requests a month. The first answer came in less than 50 seconds, and 80% of the questions were closed in 10 minutes. Customer satisfaction was 88%.

Remote sales of cars to order. Six salespeople sold cars to order from other countries. It was 18 to 20 cars a month, and sales grew by about 30% month over month.

The test drive team. Eight people turned leads into visits and test drives. We had about 330 test drives a month. I raised the conversion from lead to test drive from 8% to 18%.

Borauto. A digital showroom for eight dealerships

In 2022 and 2023 I was the sales director of the digital showroom of Borauto in Voronezh. It is a group of eight dealerships. I ran three business lines and hired 14 managers.

Remote sales of used cars. It is harder to sell a used car remotely than a new one. Every used car is its own story, with its own condition and history.

The team had eight salespeople, and on average one person sold about 20 cars a month. The record of the department was 133 cars in one month, and we set it when the department was about three months old. Half of the deals went with a loan and 40% with a trade-in.

Car buyout. About eight people on cold calls. Around 150 cars bought a month.

Service booking. A contact center of six people that met its plan at 100%.

Apart from sales, I connected the front office and the back office. I set response time norms and rules, wrote the scripts for calls and chats and started a training system.

Yandex. Five and a half years as head of direct sales

From 2016 to 2022 I was the head of direct sales at Yandex. This means Auto.ru and other verticals. We sold paid services to businesses. Car dealers, car makers, parts stores, car services, housing developers and real estate agencies.

For every industry I had to build the team from zero. The process, the hiring, the training, the plan and the result. I had three teams, three team leads and about 24 salespeople. Most of the time I grew the team leads from my own salespeople.

Here is what came out of it.

  • We connected more than 4,000 dealers
  • One contract with LADA connected 450 dealers at once
  • In 4 months we connected 70% of the parts stores of Moscow and Saint Petersburg to the paid Parts product
  • We started Yandex Classifieds. In 3 months it got 12 million more listings and 400 sellers
  • I received the Hero of the Year award for my part in the revenue and in the partnerships

Auto.ru. A regional manager and the first record

I came to Yandex in 2015 as a regional sales manager of Auto.ru in Nizhny Novgorod. I sold to dealers myself. Cold calls, meetings and talks with the top people of dealer holdings.

My record of that time is 55 new paying clients in one month. It was the record of the whole commercial team. The scripts and presentations that I wrote then were later used by the whole commercial team.

Julianna. Where I started

In 2014 I worked as a key account manager at Julianna, a company in Nizhny Novgorod. I sold medical and orthopedic goods to distributors and to state buyers.

I signed a one-year contract to supply orthopedic shoes for children with disabilities to two Russian regions. I also agreed on the work with Orteka, a federal retail chain.

I teach and speak

  • HSE University in Nizhny Novgorod. I teach a B2B marketing course in the master's program and a team building course in the bachelor's program
  • Auto.ru Academy. I am a trainer there and I teach salespeople and dealership managers
  • I also taught at the Neimark IT campus, at Product Star and in the Autoboss business community

If you need a speaker or a lecturer, the details are on the speaking page.

How I work. A sales system with AI in every step

Over these years I came to one order of work. It is the same for a dealer in Voronezh and for a holding in Saudi Arabia. Today AI is in every step of it, and for me this is the main change in sales in all my years in the profession.

  1. AI where it is stronger than a human. The agent answers in seconds, remembers every customer and never forgets to follow up. Everything that repeats goes to the agents
  2. A human where a human is needed. The trust, the negotiation and the decision stay with the salesperson
  3. Plan. I count the market, the number of customers we can get, and the people and money we need for it
  4. Organization. I write a simple and clear process for every employee and for every agent
  5. People. I hire, I train and I bring people to the result. I grow the leaders inside the team
  6. Control. I look at the key numbers every day. When something does not work, I look for the reason and I change the process

Agents do the work. People close the deals.

I studied management and I keep learning

I graduated from Minin University in Nizhny Novgorod with a degree in management.

After that I studied more. I trained as a business trainer and course designer, I took the Yandex program for managers, and I trained as a business tracker.

Outside work I run ultramarathons

I come from an ordinary family. I served in the army as a junior sergeant. I worked as a cook in the USA, two jobs at the same time. I hitchhiked across Southeast Asia for a year.

I run ultramarathons, from 100 to 160 km. I ran around Mount Elbrus in 34 hours. My run starts at six in the morning.