Revenue Interview: Derrick Thomas at Gravy

The Interview

Kluster's Take

Tom spoke with Derrick Thomas, Vice President of Revenue at Gravy. He shares his thoughts on using data to drive success in sales.

He explains running a sales team is a balance between autonomy and data driven decisions. If we hire good people, we need to trust them but a lot of startups don’t realise how crucial capturing the right data is. 

At Gravy they started out with the attitude of allowing reps to be very creative. The problem is that when everyone is running in different directions, there isn't any way to coach. Derrick tells us that if you hit your numbers but don’t know how you got there, then you got lucky. What he is really interested in, is creating repeatable success. He still allows for freedom and flexibility but in a templatised fashion. 

For Derrick, the holy grail of scaling is flexibility whilst ensuring repeatable success. This allows reps to use their own unique skill sets, whilst also getting the data needed. 

Data drives predictability, accountability and scalability. Many companies wait too long to even capture data, it’s important to prove it will make reps more successful. Derrick gives us a tip for keeping on top of data. The key is establishing what the business priorities are and understanding the metrics you need to track.