The Interview

Kluster's Take

Josephine spoke with Pete Blackhurst, VP Sales, EMEA at Trackforce Valiant. He shares his thoughts from 19 years in different sales environments, including SaaS.

Pete’s sales philosophy has 5 pillars:

• Trust

• Authenticity

• Accountability

• Transparency with Vision

• Adding Value as a Leader

Pete explains that building trust across the team, as well as treating people as you’d like to be treated is critical. He believes in authenticity, you shouldn’t be someone that you’re not. Accountability is important in a coaching methodology. Transparency with vision enables the team to have a voice, their ideas can build a winning sales team. Pete sees his role to help make people successful, which is how he adds value as a leader.

Pete doesn't believe in micromanagement, he doesn’t tell people what to do. Instead, he instills in the culture that they can do it themselves. His focus is to enable and to coach. When thinking about A Players it’s not all about revenue, the drive and determination to succeed are critical parts. He believes that everyone has weaknesses. Building an individual skills matrix helps, but it’s down to the individual if they want to learn. Pete is all about collaboration, he believes whilst it’s important to sell as an individual, you’ll always sell better as a team.