Life and Death of a Salesman

[Buzzrock 14902]

So we’ve had a lot of leadership turnover and earlier this year we were told that the entire sales team needed to put more deals into expect. The sales team said “ok, but what if we don’t really expect it and it slips?” We were told it’s ok, leadership will understand.

Anyone want to guess how understanding leadership is being with slipped deals?

[AUS-97HORN 11756]

1 minute ago, Buzzrock said:

So we’ve had a lot of leadership turnover and earlier this year we were told that the entire sales team needed to put more deals into expect. The sales team said “ok, but what if we don’t really expect it and it slips?” We were told it’s ok, leadership will understand.

Anyone want to guess how understanding leadership is being with slipped deals?

thats when I purposely put in 20 deals that all show perfect confidence booking whenever their imaginary date is, and then  every day starting either tomorrow or monday, I start losing the deals going ... opps it slipped, oops customer didnt have authority, opps customers budget not available till April, etc.

 

and when I get called out on it, I basically say, yeah, ive only been doing this job for 15 years, and I guess in the last week I just completely and totally forgot how to do my job. Oh well. maybe next time.

 

and either they fire me (which would be awesome) or the just make up some bullshit to the higher ups, or they finally take sales' side and tell upper management that telling us to commit more isnt going to get me to close faster than the customer can (LOL at the 3rd, never happened in my 25 years)

 

The one advantage to be the old grumpy veteran sales curmudgeon, is they blow off your grumpiness as a quirk. 

[Buzzrock 14902]

thats when I purposely put in 20 deals that all show perfect confidence booking whenever their imaginary date is, and then  every day starting either tomorrow or monday, I start losing the deals going ... opps it slipped, oops customer didnt have authority, opps customers budget not available till April, etc.
 
and when I get called out on it, I basically say, yeah, ive only been doing this job for 15 years, and I guess in the last week I just completely and totally forgot how to do my job. Oh well. maybe next time.
 
and either they fire me (which would be awesome) or the just make up some bullshit to the higher ups, or they finally take sales' side and tell upper management that telling us to commit more isnt going to get me to close faster than the customer can (LOL at the 3rd, never happened in my 25 years)
 
The one advantage to be the old grumpy veteran sales curmudgeon, is they blow off your grumpiness as a quirk. 

That’s a tempting approach

[Reagan1k 3024]

2 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

So we’ve had a lot of leadership turnover and earlier this year we were told that the entire sales team needed to put more deals into expect. The sales team said “ok, but what if we don’t really expect it and it slips?” We were told it’s ok, leadership will understand.

Anyone want to guess how understanding leadership is being with slipped deals?

About as understanding as they are when they get you to load up Q4 (via discounts) at the expense of the following Q1?

Q1 isn't going to count against you....until it does.

[Pescado_Rojo 19413]

21 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

So we’ve had a lot of leadership turnover and earlier this year we were told that the entire sales team needed to put more deals into expect. The sales team said “ok, but what if we don’t really expect it and it slips?” We were told it’s ok, leadership will understand.

Anyone want to guess how understanding leadership is being with slipped deals?

I went to work for a small software company that got acquired by a larger company about 6 months after I started. 6 months later, THAT company got acquired by a PE firm that owned some other software companies and planned to roll them up into one company. It was a shit show. Several of the companies competed in the same space, so there were all sorts of turf wars and pissing matches. Finally the PE board paid a bunch of people to go away and brought in their own management team, including VP of sales. We had a big QBR and he stands up and tells all of us we have a "Get out of jail free card" to clean up SFDC. Get all the trash out of there by next Friday so we can get a legit idea of pipeline. Two weeks later, we're on an all hands call where he tells us all pipeline is shit and every rep needs to add 5 deals to SFDC by the end of the week. Then he quit two weeks after that. 

[texasdago 7567]

Those of y'all in sales (like me)... don't you sometimes wish you could stop chasing a number and just get rid of 3/4 of the crap that you own and go work a lift on a ski mountain?

Asking for a friend, of course.

[Pescado_Rojo 19413]

3 minutes ago, texasdago said:

Those of y'all in sales (like me)... don't you sometimes wish you could stop chasing a number and just get rid of 3/4 of the crap that you own and go work a lift on a ski mountain?

Asking for a friend, of course.

Every. Fucking. Day. 

Usually followed by "Why do I like nice things so much?!. Sigh..."

[texasdago 7567]

6 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

Every. Fucking. Day. 

Usually followed by "Why do I like nice things so much?!. Sigh..."

Yeah, I'm getting to the F nice things stage

[MinerProphet 71]

On 5/20/2024 at 11:43 PM, Larry T. Spider said:

Been in a new role for 3.5 months with the first month being onboarding. I sell to school districts so it’s get something across the finish line this month or wait until next year. 

Have a proposal out that would get me to my fake onboarding quota. Totally fine if it doesn’t happen in terms of job security because nobody really expected me to get this far this quickly. I also have a good base so I will be fine financially. 

Usually takes 6-12 months to get a deal done. However it’s still nerve wracking to either hit a home run or strike out with no in between. I’ve teed this one up about as well as possible so now it’s just a waiting game.

Did you end up hitting your ramp and closing that deal!?!

[MinerProphet 71]

Just got back from Dreamforce; definitely the best and most well attended and energetic since before covid. Am curious to see about Saphire and Reinvent and if anyone went to Rising had the same feedback.

[texasdago 7567]

1 hour ago, MinerProphet said:

Just got back from Dreamforce; definitely the best and most well attended and energetic since before covid. Am curious to see about Saphire and Reinvent and if anyone went to Rising had the same feedback.

Yeah but who were the bands?

 

[MinerProphet 71]

54 minutes ago, texasdago said:

Yeah but who were the bands?

 

Pink and Imagine Dragons (Elton John backed out), and Flava Flav / Flo Rida and The Frays (sp?) and random EDM dj's you guys have probably heard of which I am igorant of for various SI parties.

[texasdago 7567]

15 minutes ago, MinerProphet said:

Pink and Imagine Dragons (Elton John backed out), and Flava Flav / Flo Rida and The Frays (sp?) and random EDM dj's you guys have probably heard of which I am igorant of for various SI parties.

That's cool... yeah I know Elton is a legend and all but I would rather see some kind of arena rock like Imagine Dragons.   My first DF was Stevie Wonder and, yes, legend but *yawn* 

[Buzzrock 14902]

5 hours ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

Every. Fucking. Day. 

Usually followed by "Why do I like nice things so much?!. Sigh..."

If I could find someone to take my wife and two kids off my hands I could probably retire (but I’m keeping the dog dammit). 

[AUS-97HORN 11756]

8 hours ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

I went to work for a small software company that got acquired by a larger company about 6 months after I started. 6 months later, THAT company got acquired by a PE firm that owned some other software companies and planned to roll them up into one company. It was a shit show. Several of the companies competed in the same space, so there were all sorts of turf wars and pissing matches. Finally the PE board paid a bunch of people to go away and brought in their own management team, including VP of sales. We had a big QBR and he stands up and tells all of us we have a "Get out of jail free card" to clean up SFDC. Get all the trash out of there by next Friday so we can get a legit idea of pipeline. Two weeks later, we're on an all hands call where he tells us all pipeline is shit and every rep needs to add 5 deals to SFDC by the end of the week. Then he quit two weeks after that. 

we had something very similar about 8 years ago.  new fiscal year, finished the prior fiscal year having dropped like 2 basis points (that's 0.02) to the rest of the world and they acted like the fucking world had just ended. 

said that we had billions and billions of deals in the pipeline and that either we hadnt tried hard enough or the deals werent real.   this was a Monday afternoon. 

we were told to kill all the placeholders, wish-deals, wood, everything that week. 

so yeah, all the bullshit started getting killed.  on wednesday morning at 8am we had an EMERGENCY all hands meeting. 

 

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE PIPELINE!!!!! we lost ... insert abnormally large percentage number here......  in ONE FUCKING DAY.

I CANT EXPLAIN THAT TO CEO!!!!!!

 

I NEED US TO HAVE A POWERWEEK GETTING NEW BUSINESS FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK>>>> THIS TAKES PRIORITY OVER EVERYTHING ELSE INCLUDING SALES.

 

me, 10 year vet with the company, having just gone on the Chairmans Club trip 2 years in a row and both not giving a fuck and feeling oddly safe and cocky, jumped on the 800 person sales call and asked....

just so we are clear... because we all followed your instructions to get rid of the fake deals.... you are now telling us to rebook fake deals so you dont have to explain to the ceo that a large portion of the pipeline is vaperware?

 

I DID NOT TELL YOU TO CREATE FAKE OPPS, I TOLD YOU TO GO OUT AND FIND NEW OPS THIS WEEK.

Gotcha... the famous million $$ blue bird sales ops that suddenly appear after a mandatory pipeline week are totally real and legit for sure..

 

i got a bit of a scolding for that one.    

[texasdago 7567]

3 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

If I could find someone to take my wife and two kids off my hands I could probably retire (but I’m keeping the dog dammit). 

Laughs nervously 

[Pescado_Rojo 19413]

4 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

If I could find someone to take my wife and two kids off my hands without giving her half my shit I could probably retire (but I’m keeping the dog dammit). 

Fixed it for me

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

On 9/20/2024 at 11:19 AM, MinerProphet said:

Did you end up hitting your ramp and closing that deal!?!

Nope. The district was not able to get their facility that will house the program ready by start of school this year. We are still on track to open in fall 2025. I have another program starting in the next couple of months that is smaller, but if they both happen, I’ll be over quota without any other deals.

Our fiscal year starts/ends September 1st so plenty of time to add some backup possibilities. My gut feeling is pretty good but it doesn’t take much for these deals to fall apart. So many moving pieces and usually a 6-18 month sales cycle.

[Buzzrock 14902]

Companies who put engineers in leadership positions can diaf.

[texasdago 7567]

4 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

Companies who put engineers in leadership positions can diaf.

or those people in sales who scream, "I AM NOT IN SALES!?"

[BrazilHorn 6586]

6 minutes ago, texasdago said:

or those people in sales who scream, "I AM NOT IN SALES!?"

You mean they are really a “trusted advisor”???