There's people killing your deals. Here's how you find them

Learning how to find the decision maker in a deal is the difference between a close and a no-decision - and most reps never see the person who killed it.Rachit Kataria, co-founder of Centralize, has just raised $15,000,000 led by NEA. In this episode he explains why the people ending your deals are almost never the people you're talking to, and how to find them before they decide without you.The pattern he found building Centralize: it isn't what was said on the call or in the email that predicts a close — it's the from-field. Are you talking to a CRO, a manager, or an IC? You can have ten names on the account, call yourself multi-threaded, and have nobody on the map who can sign anything.Rachit's fix is an AI org chart that shows who's missing rather than who you already know - less a map than a routing engine, closer to Waze than to a CRM.Then Rich turns it around and asks him how he buys. Rachit doesn't answer cold calls, doesn't see cold emails, and doesn't read your case study. What does work: his own reps. If someone he trusts brings him a tool, the conversation happens. That's the whole route in - and it's the same route your buyers are using on you.They also discuss handing off founder-led sales without losing the founder effect, going from AE to exec sponsor overnight, why relationships become the moat once AI commoditises everything else, and the strat seller who rolled Centralize out wall-to-wall at his old company before joining the team.If you've got a deal sitting at 90% and a champion who's gone quiet, this is the episode for you.⏱️ CHAPTERS0:00 The People You Never Met Are Deciding1:59 Inside the $15,000,000 Series A2:25 Why AI Cannot Commoditise Relationships5:48 The Pivot That Created Centralize7:15 The From-Field Insight That Predicts Deals9:26 The AI Org Chart, Explained Simply12:12 Why Relationships Become the Moat14:41 Building a Sales Team After the Raise18:48 The Champion Who Became an Employee24:40 How This Buyer Decides What to Buy25:48 Why He Will Not Answer Your Cold Call30:47 Bottoms-Up Beats Every Exec Email33:07 The Redundancy Test Before He Signs40:22 Where to Find Rachit and CentralizeConnect with Rachit:Try Centralize free: https://www.usecentralize.com/Follow Rachit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachitkataria/Connect with Rich Website: https://www.buyercoding.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richhitsgoals/Sponsor the show: [email protected]