The judge ruled that my former employer owed me nothing after 2 years of legal procedure yesterday.
Here is how I could have avoided that. And I hope it helps some of you avoid it too.
So, I slide the contract back across the table like in the movies.
"There is no way I'm signing this sh**"
The Director of Sales had just presented me with a paper stating I would forfeit all my commissions except for 1K USD.
It was one ugly ambush where the CEO showed up to accept my resignation and then left the room to pretend he had nothing to do with it.
It was my first mistake. I should have kept the document.
I left their office, lawyered up, and took them to court.
They wanted to pay 10K at first "to see this go away but we owe him nothing".
But here is the problem: I had closed 1.8M in new business for them in less than 10 months.
My quota was 150K. We had agreed I would be paid 10% of every deal. You do the math.
I even brought them a 1M deal and paid all cash within 30 days of signature.
They were doing 800K in revenue before I joined them. A small startup with big ambitions but shitty management.
And they were not invoicing on time and not collecting the money.
The CEO had already "negotiated" twice my commissions because "they did significant work" before I took over the deal to drive it home and "other people helped a lot". So we negotiated down some of those and confirmed it by email.
In hindsight? A serious red flag that they don't like paying reps.
My new biz dev director was actually a Product Director his whole career and it showed. He wanted to push me out, I got harassed, so I left for another gig.
The guy would yell at me for "communicating with other people at the company without letting him know first". He took accounts away from me. Called me an overpaid junior on week 2. And proceeded to cut me out of contract negotiations just to f up half of them.
His idea of negotiating price was "offering payment plans".
I reported him to HR but it went nowhere. They erased the proofs as fast as they could and called a mediation meeting (lol).
When I left, they deactivated everything.
The problem is I did not think about taking contracts, screenshots of dashboards, or forward myself emails.
For data protection and cyber pespective, I thought it would be illegal.
My lawyer told me that if I use it for the lawsuit it was fine (not legal advice, ask your own lawyer).
They argued to the judge that contracts signed meant nothing and that I left before they received payments from clients.
They argued they did not have to produce those contracts because I had to bring proof, not them.
They argued I did not work on those deals - a straight-out lie.
So here is what I would do differently:
- Get the commission contract reviewed by a lawyer on day 1 to limit downside
- Take proof of all unpaid deals
- Take proof of all client communications that led to the deal
- Take all the contracts signed
- Take all the internal emails linked to deals
- Watch out for red flags early on - late commission payments, negotiations of commissions for BS arguments
- Keep the proofs of bad faith provided by the company instead of sliding them across desks in a dramatic way
What happened next
I moved to another gig with a company that paid this time. Closed another 1.2M last year.
They even paid 2 months after I had left once they collected from clients.
So in a way, I'm grateful for the experience so I make sure I don't lose bigger down the road.
Even though I'm still surprised that judge just kinda authorized all employers in my country to fire reps prior to collecting invoices and owing them nothing.
I still leverage my accomplishments and experience to this day.
In conclusion
I hope it helps someone out there who can avoid making the same mistakes I did.
Sh** happens, management can look honest and still pull that stuff.
There are reps who lost much bigger than I did.
Stay safe fellow salespeople.
Cheers,
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