Carlos Delatorre, Chief Revenue Officer: From the Horse Ring to the C-Suite

It may seem a far cry from horse rings to the executive suite, but Carlos Delatorre found a way to bridge the two. As a teen, he developed a passion for horses through his father. Carlos acquired enough skill to compete and give riding lessons. He applies lessons learned then to his role as a sales executive now.“When you understand a horse’s DNA, you can let them do what they do best. The same holds true with your sales team. When you hire the right DNA and get out of the individual’s way to let them do their thing, they’re probably going to do it really well.”He lives that belief every day. In fact, it came shining through at his first major sales job working for Beckman Coulter.

My expertise is sales leadership and I think that translates pretty well across segments.

After learning that a major customer was returning a Beckman Coulter machine, Carlos convinced the decision maker to meet with him for an hour. The only problem? She had already bought a replacement from a competitor and it was being set up the next day. “I offered to give her the competitor’s $15,000 machine for free — I had taken one in on trade — and drove all night to show my demo. I had nothing to lose and won the deal, and it paved the way for me to build a successful territory in northern California.”Next Carlos landed at PTC, where he learned an invaluable lesson about pipeline generation from Jim Drill, SVP of Major Accounts. “Jim told a story about a runner who doesn’t stop to take the rock out of his shoe early in the marathon. His foot problem gets worse the longer he runs. It’s the equivalent of sales reps not investing in creating new pipeline. By the time they realize they’re in trouble, it’s too late.”Since then, Carlos has worked in sales across a range of industries: IT Service Management, databases and travel. Moreover, he’s led sales at companies acquired by Oracle, Symantec, BMC, and VMware. These days, he’s leading the charge as Chief Revenue Officer at TripActions, where he’s helping the company further scale to serve new markets, industries and companies around the world. “My expertise is sales leadership and I think that translates pretty well across segments.”Carlos’s other keys to success include:

• Recruiting top talent. Carlos believes recruiting is the most important thing a sales leader does since it paves the way for exceptional results.
• Investing in sales enablement. By preparing both sales reps and their managers to succeed, Carlosminimizes unpredictability.
• Charging AEs with pipeline generation. In Carlos’s experience, you create a healthier sales and marketing environment — and boost pipeline — by tasking AEs with generating opportunities.