YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF SOMEWHERE TO REACH ELSEWHERE

Christopher Cabrera is the founder of Xactly, a tech company. The company was founded in the year 2005. It is a cloud-based sales performance management Software Company that helps in calculating payments for commission earned by employees. It provides solutions to optimize incentive compensation to the employees.

EARLY EXPERIENCE IN HIS LIFE-

Cabrera belonged from a dairy farm in Massachusetts. His early life taught him various lessons in life that proved very useful in his career. He was one of the five siblings in the house. That meant that he was often a part of heated debates during the day, and everything turned normal right after the debate was over. This taught him great communication skills. 

Cabrera had no problem being open about his thoughts and ideas when having a discussion with his executive teams. He was also open while listening to his employees when they were sharing ideas or giving feedback. This made communication flow very smoothly in the company. 

Christopher Cabrera always had a goal in his life, be it a long-term or a short-term goal. When he was in his senior year of college, Christopher along with his father started a Security Guard Company. During that time, he had little to no experience in the field of business. Starting the Security Guard Company helped him learn a lot of things about management. 

HOW DID CABRERA START HIS OWN COMPANY?

During the early 2000s, Christopher Cabrera was just like any other person. He was working in a company called CallidusCloud in the Sales Department there. 

Technology and software were emerging during that time. Technology companies were trying very hard to make the software available to any person having an internet connection. But the main question was ‘How to attract the customers?’ Christopher realized this to be a very good opportunity for all the future companies.

He then created a very unique and easy-to-access On-premise software that would be very helpful in the Sales Compensation field. He knew that cloud-based solutions for software would be a great deal in the near future. So, he approached his bosses quite a number of times to move to cloud-based solutions. But the company did not agree. 

He was eventually fired and that was when he started his own company and named it Xactly.

HIS BIGGEST INSPIRATION IN LIFE-

In many of his interviews, Christopher Cabrera has mentioned that his father was his biggest inspiration. Christopher’s father was a serial entrepreneur. Every year during the summer, Christopher would go back to help his father and work in his company.

His father was the owner of his own business. Despite being a president, he treated everybody the same way. This was one of the most important things Cabrera learned from his father. Cabrera’s father treated every one of his employees with respect and kindness. He would take out time to personally know each one of his employees. 

Christopher Cabrera during the early stages in his company would often visit his employees to know a little more about them. He also admitted that if there were some internal disputes between some of his employees; he would personally try to clear the misunderstandings. 

CABRERA’S LIFE MANTRA-

Christopher Cabrera also aims at improving himself. One of his main mantras in life is to keep trying to get better and better. He says that he constantly tries to reinvent himself, not just as a person but also as an employee and a leader. He sees obstacles as an opportunity to improvise himself and strive to make himself better. 

He wants to send a message to the youth that even though they will face setbacks in the path of their careers if they change their way of looking towards problems they will be successful.

LEARNING-

Coming from the Sales Department himself, Christopher Cabrera has a lot to teach and guide about. But the most important thing is, if you want to reach somewhere you have to get out from the current place. 

When Cabrera looks back at his past, he agrees that he was disappointed when he was let off from his Sales Department job, but it is also true that if he hadn’t let that job go, Xactly would have been founded. Motivation can be found even in disappointing situations like getting fired. So, instead of dwelling on the things that went wrong, people should focus more on what they should do next?