CRO TripActions, Carlos Delatorre: The Science of Sales

In this episode of Go to Market Grit, TripActions CRO and Silicon Valley sales legend Carlos Delatorre opens up about what it takes to build powerful and effective sales teams and strategies. Joubin and Carlos discuss two key topics, including the value of relationship building, and making your go-to-market strategy a competitive differentiator.

In this episode of Go to Market Grit, we cover:

• Carlos’s criteria when vetting new opportunities including the size of the market, whether the solution has genuine differentiation that delivers real value to customers, and the quality of the team.
• How a healthy market and great sales execution can make up for a mediocre product.
• Why people and execution are the most important aspects in sales, even more than product and market size.
• The importance of relying on trusted experts when qualifying new technologies.
• Analyzing differentiation at the architectural level versus the feature level.
• An inside scoop on how TripActions has been dealing with the lack of travel during the pandemic, and why Carlos views the travel freeze as both a challenge and an opportunity.
• Why Carlos places limited value on relationships when selling differentiated products — and why skilled and curious salespeople tend to be much more successful than people who rely on relationships. Carlos also discusses the value of internal relationships, and why working from home can be a challenge for productivity.
• The impact that an optimized go-to-market strategy can have on sales, and the magic that can happen when a sales team is given a differentiated product that delivers real value, are expert at demand creation, and can convert demand into revenue.
• Viewing the sales process as a science, as opposed to an art, and ensuring that the science is applied consistently — and why ideas should flow up and down between management and sales teams.
• Carlos’s key go-to-market differentiators: Being able to recruit star talent, having a solid enablement program, and having a solid execution strategy.

Links:

• Connect with Carlos on LinkedIn:
  • LinkedIn
• TripActions
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: gtmg@kleinerperkins.com
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins