How to Build a Winning Sales Team, with Kelly Wright

Founder Real Talk

Kelly Wright tells the story of how selling books door-to-door shaped her approach to start-up sales and how she went from the first sales person at Tableau to becoming the EVP and scaled the company to nearly $1B in revenue.

Kelly brings 20 years of experience in leadership and sales roles, including ten years at Tableau selling the company’s award-winning applications. She has previously held positions at a number of high profile companies, including VP positions at At Hoc, a major venture-backed software company in Silicon Valley, and sales and management positions at Southwestern, Inc., Dale Carnegie and Bank of America. With an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an undergraduate degree from Stanford University, Kelly has also spent time at strategic consulting firms Bain & Company and McKinsey & Company, helping executives solve strategic questions about organizational structures, channel conflict, operations, pricing and international expansion.

Highlights: 3:47 Why did you choose a sales role? What attracts you to sales? 4:16 What was it like to be the first sales person at Tableau and scale it to close to $1B in revenue and become EVP? 9:14 How do you decide between working with advisors vs. hiring experts? 10:23 What advice were you given on how to scale? 12:50 How do you build and maintain positive culture? 16:06 As the company scaled, how did it change how you managed the team? 20:20 How did you coach the sales team? 26:51 How did you manage your time as a sales leader? 29:58 What were some of the best life lessons you’ve learned? 33:19 Hot Seat Questions