Half vent half question - for context, I do conference sales where my company runs a number of industry-specific tech conferences. SDRs are divided by conference section and each SDR is responsible for only one vertical of tech.
Situation is, I set up a SVP of Marketing at a good company that looked like it would turn into a deal a few months back. Don't really want to get into much specifics on the company, but it does a bunch of things that fit really well into my industry vertical. A Senior AE took the call and wrote in our CRM that the SVP needed to talk to her CMO and that the AE would reach back out in a month. Needless to say, nothing really happened and the deal blew out. Thought it was an issue of decision making but I couldn't for the life of me find the CMO whether it be on the company's website, Zoominfo, or on LinkedIN.
Flash forward to a week ago, a fellow SDR in the same vertical as my own sets up a call with the same exact prospect. I was confused - asked the SDR if they read the CRM. They responded that they did, but once they showed the conference to the prospect over email, the prospect was intrigued and wanted to set up a time to talk. Was really befuddled by the whole situation as the prospect should have remembered the conference from her last conversation with my AE and also thought that the CMO was the decision maker.
So, the AE takes the pitch, the prospect loves the event and the contract just got sent out yesterday. He marked it down in the CRM as the SVP being the decision maker as the marketing budget is "the SVP's own budget".
Talked to the AE about the situation and he was being kind of shady when answering my questions. He wouldn't really reveal what happened to me, even though I asked why it had blew out in the first place as the SVP was the correct decision maker. So, talked to my fellow SDR and it turns out the AE revealed to my coworker that he had fucked up the pitch and pitched the wrong event to the prospect on my setup pitch. The company does not have a CMO - unsure whether the AE felt awkward to mark down his mistake in the CRM or the SVP lied to coverup the fact that she was not interested - so the prospect actually was the correct decision maker.
Pretty annoyed at the whole situation - ofc, the SDR did nothing wrong but I'm upset at the AE for multiple reasons - as I have been busting my balls and hitting the phones constantly only to have a senior AE (not even a regular AE but someone who had a bunch of experience at the company) fuck up a deal. Deal would've netted me over 1K. What to do? Assume this is just tough luck but it's frustrating the fuck out of me...
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