How CARTO Capitalized On The Remote Work Shift To Build A Successful Outbound Sales Program

CARTO, the world’s leading location intelligence platform, has historically generated the majority of its new business through inbound sales campaigns and event marketing. However, with in-person events brought to a standstill by the COVID-19 pandemic, the company decided to invest in developing its outbound sales capacity.

CARTO’s VP Marketing, Florence Broderick, explains, “Traditionally, we’ve done pretty well on the inbound side of things. But with this new normal, we saw an opportunity to focus on outbound prospecting, because we’d have more time for it, versus being at events the way we used to be.”

From 10% outbound sales to a fully developed program

SDR team hit quota for the first time in Q4

Higher average deal size due to opportunities created with higher value prospects

Challenging CARTO’s Inbound Paradigm

According to Broderick, “Our SDRs used to spend about 90% of their time on inbound sales and 10% of their time on outbound. We wanted to change that to be more like a 60/40 or 70/30 split.” 

Making this transition wouldn’t be easy. Because CARTO’s product is used by clients across multiple industries, understanding how to appropriately personalize B2B sales messaging for such a diverse customer base emerged as an early challenge. Broderick explains, “Because we sell to a lot of different verticals, it’s tricky to understand what messaging is going to be relevant to all of these different buyer personas. 

Given these and other challenges, CARTO made the decision to engage Growth Genie. “We don’t currently have an SDR lead in place,” notes Broderick, “so I saw the value in bringing in expertise on outbound prospecting in this modern age. It’s not just a case of picking up the phone anymore, although that’s a big part of it still – and it’s not about hiding behind email either. I wanted our team to become better educated on outbound prospecting across different channels.”

Organization-Wide Growth Through Hands-On Coaching

In addition to assisting CARTO with the creation of its outbound sales messaging, Growth Genie played a hands-on role in training and coaching CARTO’s SDRs. “If you want to effectively coach people, you need to put time into it,” shares Broderick. “You need to listen back to calls, you need to practice role plays, and you need to review messaging. But we have a big team to manage, and we’ve got other things going on. Having somebody to lean on who can put that time into listening back to SDRs calls and giving them advice has been really helpful.”

For CARTO, the results have spoken for themselves. According to Broderick, “in terms of tangible numbers, we have seen a lift in SDR performance versus their targets. Until this quarter, we were working on a ‘number of opportunities created’ basis, where SDRs had to create 30 opportunities per quarter. Several of the team actually overperformed in Q4 in terms of opp creation, which is brilliant. I’m really excited about that.”

Renee Millington, a Location Intelligence Consultant at CARTO

Greater Outbound Confidence Supports Future Performance

Broderick shares that internal feedback from SDRs indicates that working with Growth Genie has helped them feel more confident and better equipped to do their jobs. Renee Millington, a Location Intelligence Consultant at CARTO confirms this positive sentiment, explaining:

“Not only are my numbers up, but the value of the prospects is up as well. Time management is one of the biggest issues with being a sales rep. Not only am I more organized, but I’m having more quality conversations. I’m really only focusing on high-quality prospects, and as a result, I’ve got a higher value of opportunities that I’ve created.”

Even Broderick has seen a personal impact from Growth Genie’s work. “I didn’t realize how much I would learn as well,” she notes. “When you bring somebody external into the team, it’s important that they share your values and have the same kind of work ethic and friendly nature. Growth Genie has been a great fit in that respect, but I had underestimated how much I would personally learn. I’m learning on the job, as so many people in SaaS are, so it’s been really great for my learning and personal development.”