Currently working a $10M+ deal. Night before our biggest meeting yet (took 2 months to get buy in from everyone needed and organize the trip) I have dinner with the entire group from my prospects side and manager won’t be in town in time. we have an AMAZING night. talk shop. get some next steps set and a plan in place. They can't wait to work together and discuss ways to do that further tomorrow. Towards the end of the night, they tell me how much they dislike my new manager. How much easier it was to work with the guy I worked for before. (I don't disagree but I don't tell them this. I reassure them etc etc).
I’ve told my new manager for the last 5 weeks before every meeting his approach is too aggressive and I can feel the energy in the room shift. To please let me continue running the deal. I know what I’m doing. This deal is about to enter month 4. My manager is new to the company (2 months or so) and has only been out of new hire training and part of my existing deal since the last week of June. He has never worked in this industry before. (Neither have I but I've got 2x tenure on him having started in the spring and I feel confident at this point and had our solutions lead join us for where technical questions may arise).
We get to the on-site meeting last week the day after the awesome dinner - 7 ppl on their end and 3 on ours. Me. Him. And the guy who runs ALL of solutions design with more experienced than me and my manager combined by a decade and a half. next steps come up as a topic of discussion. My champion from the prospect had coached me ahead of time on potential blockers. I communicate this multiple times before the big day to my manager. I go for the key next step ask at the exact right moment. My manager goes “sshhhhh!!! ******* can you just - gosh. LET ME - ugh - can I finish?” Every face in the room goes 😳. He seems unaware of the open jaw drops and all these men looking at me to gauge my reaction. I just looked down into my lap for a moment to catch my breath before pretending everything was kosher for the betterment of our deal. He takes over the meeting. Completely. Doesnt even mention my involvement again. He proceeds to set next steps that dont involve me. With the executives. With procurement. All just him and them. But not me - the actual rep. Who owns the deal. Since day 1. afterwards he told me my question was "so bad he had no choice" (I've spoken to 4 external mentors since on the VP of Sales and C-Suite buyers side to get both perspectives and none felt my question was bad, inappropriate, or poorly thought out.).
Within 10 min of this happening they officially end the meeting early - by over 2 hours. After flying 5 executives into town.
The 3 of us from my company got lunch after. He immediately began to berate me and asked if I “understood what him and the solutions lead were talking about”. I reminded him I brought the issue/potential road blocker up currently being discussed at lunch in a prep call initially ahead of the meeting. He then says I don't seem capable of behaving professionally right now. (I assure you, I was.) "Can you try and behave like an adult? are you going to behave like a professional right now?" I say I'm just listening to what they're discussing. I haven't even spoken. He repeats himself. I say "okay well. - " and I then let him know shushing me in the meeting was unacceptable and disrespectful towards me, our client, and our company as a whole. He ignores this and begins to quiz me on the knowledge of my account. And what our company does.
I have 10 years of complex enterprise selling experience. I’ve been the #1 rep at every single company I have ever worked for. I've got over 40 pages and spreadsheets of handmade notes and analysis on the prospect I made without support or being expected to. we go back and forth and I'm able to uncover that he didn't recall who we needed buy in regarding what on during the meeting - something I knew by memory and had received coaching on how to overcome from their own team. He didn't "realize" let's call him Rob, actually is championing our competitor. I've told him this muiltiple times. My champion has told him this directly as well.
I correctly pass his impromptu technical quiz. with flying colors. once he exhausts his efforts in proving why he had to hijack my meeting and shame me in front of the client he goes into "we're trying to accomplish the same thing how do we get the next steps on set?". they had already been set: the night before. just like I told him. he says "I KNOW YOU SAID THAT - but I needed to hear it for MYSELF AND IM ASKING YOU HOW YOURE GOING TO GO GET THEM SCHEDULED."
Worst experience of my professional life to date. I was also the only woman in the room and I was the youngest in the room. I feel super discouraged. I joined expecting to work for an awesome manager and 1 month in I was told they'd hired a new guy and by month 3 I'd work for him. and this is what has now become my experience. month 4 on the job.
On a serious note the meeting just happened Friday. So I have to address this now this week. Any advice? HR? VP? help! 😫🤯🤬
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