By age of twenty four, Jafar Orujov had closed more than five million dollars in annual recurring revenue across global enterprise accounts, an achievement that set him apart in the EMEA SaaS landscape. Recognised as one of the region’s top enterprise sellers, Orujov has built a reputation for combining disciplined execution with systems driven innovation, treating sales not as a numbers game but as a repeatable craft.
As the creator of CognismGPT, an AI powered sales assistant designed to streamline prospecting, discovery, and deal execution, his work sits at the intersection of revenue performance and applied artificial intelligence. In this interview with SiteProNews, Orujov reflects on the habits, operating principles, and strategic choices that shaped his rapid rise, and shares how he sees enterprise sales evolving as AI reshapes the role of the modern seller.
1. You closed more than $5M in ARR by the age of 24. Looking back, what key decisions or habits most accelerated your career trajectory so quickly in enterprise sales?
Reflecting on some of the journal entries I’ve written since 2018, a significant contributor was picking challenging rooms early and treating sales like a craft. I built a boring, reliable cadence that compounded: prep first thing, same-day follow-up, a short written debrief after every meeting, and a Friday review where I asked one question: what actually moved pipeline this week, and what was noise? I took on unglamorous work that gave me leverage: deal memos, pricing models, MAPs, exec briefs. That made me useful to people senior to me and got me into bigger conversations sooner. The other unlock was building a lightweight operating system around my deals so admin melted away, notes wrote themselves, next steps were clear, stakeholders were mapped, freeing my head for the parts only a human can do: discovery, multi-threading, and high-stakes conversations. I also set a rule I still follow: don’t try to be impressive; try to be precise. Speak in numbers, admit uncertainty, and keep promises small and fast. Do that consistently, and your age stops being the topic.
2. Many young professionals start with internships or entry-level sales roles. What advice would you give to those who want to leap into enterprise sales faster than the traditional career path allows?
Don’t wait for a title; borrow responsibility. Attach yourself to real deals and volunteer for the jobs that get you into the room, research packs, executive briefs, the first draft of a mutual action plan. Publish your thinking internally so leaders start to associate your name with progress. Pick one persona and learn it so well you can brief a VP in five minutes and be directionally right. Use AI to collapse prep time from hours to minutes so you can double your number of high-quality conversations without sounding synthetic. Get one “lighthouse” win, document it like a case study – problem, plan, proof – and use it as your calling card. Then ask for a bigger at-bat. If you can reduce cycle time and de-risk meetings for the people above you, you will get pulled into the enterprise, whether your email signature says it or not.
3. You’ve been recognised as one of the top SaaS sellers in EMEA. What unique challenges come with selling into large, global enterprise accounts at such a young age, and how did you overcome them?
The credibility tax is real. You meet people who’ve run P&Ls longer than you’ve been alive. I stopped trying to act older and focused on being more useful. That meant preparation so tight the meeting felt lighter for the buyer: a clear hypothesis of value, a point of view on their world, and numbers that survived a CFO’s pushback. I learned to sit in silence when I didn’t know something, write it down, and come back fast with an answer. I also learned the global part, procurement differences, local data/privacy norms, buying committees that span regions. You earn trust by anticipating those realities and removing friction: “Here’s the MAP, here’s how InfoSec usually goes, here’s what breaks deals like this and how we avoid it.” Consistency beats theatrics. When you show up that way a few times in a row, the age conversation dies on its own.
4. You created CognismGPT, an AI sales assistant that’s redefined prospecting, discovery, and deal execution. What gap did you see in enterprise sales that prompted you to build this tool?
Enterprise selling was drowning in fragmentation. Research lived in tabs, notes lived in people’s heads, follow-ups drifted, messaging changed tone across channels, and the CRM rarely reflected reality. I wanted a single brain that held the context of my deals, challenged my thinking, and produced assets on demand in my voice, briefs before calls, question paths during discovery, mutual action plans after, exec summaries for sponsors. The gap wasn’t “we need more AI.” The gap was “we need a working system that turns context into action, fast, and does it the same way every time.” That’s what CognismGPT became: an operating layer that removed drag so I could spend my energy where it actually moves revenue.
5. Enterprise sales is often as much about strategy as it is about execution. How do you balance quota-crushing performance with building innovative go-to-market systems?
I treat systems work as revenue work only if it shortens time-to-insight, speeds follow-up, widens multi-threading, or clarifies forecast. If it doesn’t touch one of those, I don’t build it. I ship tiny fixes inside the week, in the gaps between calls, and kill anything that doesn’t move a metric I care about. The rhythm is simple: build the smallest thing that removes the current bottleneck, run it on real deals, tune it on Friday, and delete ruthlessly. I never let “building” become a way to avoid hard conversations. The number is the judge. If a shiny workflow doesn’t help me run a better meeting or close a risk faster, it goes.
6. With your expertise in AI-driven workflows, how do you see AI shaping the future of enterprise sales roles, and what skills should the next generation of sellers prioritize?
AI is stripping the admin layer and expanding coverage. The job tilts toward judgment, facilitation, and change management. You’ll still need to prospect and negotiate, but the edge shifts to running the moments that matter with more clarity and speed. The skills look like this in practice: think in systems so you can design repeatable workflows; write like a synthesist so you can compress complexity into something an executive can act on; be dangerous with data, read signals, question sources, sanity-check outputs; learn operational prompting so you can turn a messy goal into precise instructions for tools; keep real commercial acumen, unit economics, value mapping, ROI, and pair it with EQ so you can multi-thread, build consensus, and handle heat without losing trust. Do those well, and AI becomes an exoskeleton, not a crutch.
7. You’re increasingly moving into advisory and thought leadership roles. What lessons from your own career do you think apply most to leaders trying to scale SaaS organisations today?
Design for speed-to-insight and protect credibility. Standardise the critical moments, quality discovery, MAP adoption, and executive follow-ups, then let teams automate the rest however they like. Keep a human-in-command model with clear review gates so you don’t sacrifice trust for tempo. Reduce tool bloat; it looks productive, but creates automation debt and fragile stacks. Invest in enablement people actually use: short, living playbooks tied to pipeline stages, not 80-page PDFs nobody opens. Measure coverage, stage velocity, and forecast accuracy over raw activity. And teach writing. Clear writing forces clear thinking, and clear thinking shortens deals.
8. Finally, for ambitious sales professionals aiming to replicate your blueprint, what practical steps can they take in their first few years to position themselves for million-dollar quotas before 25?
Pick an ICP and go deep until their language feels native. Build a tiny, repeatable day: prep early, same-day follow-up, short debriefs, weekly retro. Record your best calls and turn them into internal playbooks so you’re not reinventing the wheel. Use AI to handle research and hygiene so you can spend your time on discovery and multi-threading. Ask for bigger ownership early, one deal end-to-end, not ten tasks, and get a senior mentor who will tell you uncomfortable truths. Document one lighthouse win properly and let it travel. Keep your promises small and fast. Eighteen to twenty-four months of that, and you won’t need to argue for enterprise; your pipeline will make the case for you.
