WendysBiggieBag

Account Executive

Most Ridiculous Firing Stories

Being in sales, we're probably the most volatile group of savages in the company in terms of coming and going. Anyone have any juicy stories (first person or 3rd person) of leaving, fired, getting let go?

I just came across one that was almost too dumb to believe if it wasn't coming from a very close friend. TL;DR, small startup, Saas, sub 100 employees, young CEO/founder: engineer, 30 under 30 and all that bs. Puts time on head of sales and AE( my friend's) calendar for the near future. Near future happens, fires head of sales earlier in that day. My friend sees that the head of sales Slack account is deactivated. Goes into meeting knowing what's going to happen. So he gets fired and immediately asks why. CEO says "I'm not sure, I'll have to think about it."

No PIP. No warning. No nothing. What in the actual fuck. What kind of answer is that.

Lesson: Always be extremely wary of smaller companies, or startups touting this that and the other. They may have a great product but if leadership is young/inexperienced or a just a dweeb, and there's no veteran sales leader presence at the top to set the right tone, I'd think double hard about working there.

😂 Sales Humor

🧢 Sales Management

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StrictlyBusiness

Praised Answer

10

Director of Enterprise Sales

Oh, I've got a good one. Grateful for an anonymous platform to finally share.

AE at my last spot was on a demo with a prospect. Meeting goes well, both parties agree on next steps, one of which includes the rep sending over the meeting recording from Bravado's favorite conversation intelligence solution. Apparently the AE forgot that before closing out the meeting, he made an off-color remark to his SE about how hot the prospect was. She played it back when reviewing the demo with her team and promptly sent a note to our leadership. The next morning, he was called into the CRO's office where THEY PLAYED BACK THE RECORDING FOR HR. Fired on the spot and forever a legend/scumbag.

Kirby

Politicker

4

Sales Representative

lol that's amazing. But for real, I've had some gorgeous prospects.

WendysBiggieBag

Fire Starter

1

Account Executive

hahaha holy shit!

Do.it.for.the.checks

Politicker

1

Account Executive

Ouch

ChumpChange

Politicker

1

Channel Manager

Careful everyone... the mic can still be hot!

Do.it.for.the.checks

Politicker

8

Account Executive

Soo first job in WealthTech. Setting the stage I was multiple time president's club and always over quota. I had been tasked with winning a whale.

The company had a strong book of business but hadn't acquired any new head turning logos in a decade. I'm talking tier 1 banks and insurance companies.

So I started strategically attacking a few big names secured some meetings but couldn't get traction. Finally at JP I got a phone call that turned into a beer at a conference which turned into a slow nurture campaign which allowed me to ask for an audience with their boss (she was a speaker at a conference we last minute decided to sponsor). Secured the meeting a week after my son was born, but got there with my COO and VP of Product. We wowed her.

Again back to a nurture campaign incorporating all her direct reports. Finally got a group meeting to present against their internal plan and how we’d fast track a massively large new income stream through Gamification and intelligent wprkflows.

We showed up and dominated the meeting. I snuck out the product manager and agreed on a Mutual Action Plan to use a PoC to close the deal. And floated a 15 million annual number (projected to generate 100+ of million in up sales) to the VP of Product. He said the numbers didn't matter of we could deliver the PoC.

Leave the meeting celebrating with my C-Suite in the airport. We were going to win this whale.

Next day we have a SLT and ELT meeting. To align resources and make sure we could do this. All in attendance agreed this was doable and we had our marching orders.

That meeting was 9 am. At noon, my COO brought me into his office and said the company just didn't think I was "making progress as a sales rep and they needed to move on without me" BTW 4 weeks prior, I had my annual review (above quota) and it was all praise for the work I was doing.

Yup lost out on a commission north of 500k and btw the deal fell apart without someone handling the sale... they decided they could just do it without us

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

3

Rolling 20's all day

There's a special place in hell for leadership that does this to their reps

1nbatopshotfan

Politicker

1

Sales

Wow. F*ck em

WendysBiggieBag

Fire Starter

1

Account Executive

Sometimes I wonder what goes on in people's heads when they make decisions like this.

Do.it.for.the.checks

Politicker

0

Account Executive

Its just so disrespectful for how fucking difficult sales is.

Non sales people think if you can show up and talk that's all it takes. Like that's a prerequisite, not a differentiator

ChumpChange

Politicker

0

Channel Manager

Stunned by this one! Hope you landed on your feet.

1nbatopshotfan

Politicker

7

Sales

I had a friend who was going to be put on a PIP at the start of a month, with no chance of succeeding and instead of releasing the PIP paperwork the HR person who was learning the new HR Software sent them their termination papers, 1 month early. Awkward for him to receive a bunch of termination emails about not meeting his PIP requirements before he was put on a PIP

UserNotFound

Politicker

4

Account Executive

I’m getting Secondhand embarrassment from this one!

1nbatopshotfan

Politicker

2

Sales

He called me for advice and I was like “update your resume?”

CuriousFox

WR Officer

2

🦊

Yikes.

GetOutYourCheckbook

Opinionated

3

Sr. Account executive

Our whole sales team (about 10 people) got let go the same day. They had a third party come in to do the firing (startup obv). 1 by 1 we walked in and got a pink slip and a severance check. We look around and one of the reps is missing; he had gone to the gym. By the time he got back the agency was gone and as a result they kept him on board for another 3 months but gave him APAC hours so we would quit. Good for you Fancy Brian. Good for you.

yer_blues

Opinionated

1

Sales Director

Wow were the internal people just scared to fire? Probably dodged a bullet with that soft ass leadership anyway

GetOutYourCheckbook

Opinionated

0

Sr. Account executive

I think it was some kind of legal thing. But yeah they were a bunch of dorks

saaskicker

Celebrated Contributor

2

Enterprise AE

Happened to me once. The CEO of the start-up took me out to lunch on a Friday and told me I had a future within the business and he appreciated my work ethic 4-weeks in. Proceeded to ask me for dirt on the 4 other people who started with me, I didn't have anything to say/answer to that. We all got fired on Monday morning. They hadn't even assigned us a quota yet, told us our roles had been eliminated.

WendysBiggieBag

Fire Starter

2

Account Executive

Fuckin Brutal. Silver lining - you didn't have to waste any time there hah.

saaskicker

Celebrated Contributor

0

Enterprise AE

Never looked back, was excited to get let go, started a new gig 2 weeks later.

LordBusiness

Politicker

2

Chief Revenue Officer

These stories are brutal. I got the vague 4pm on a Friday meeting request to “chat” from my last company because I refused to be “more personable” with a colleague who liked to bred about cheating on his wife. I was a top performer as an IC and leader, and crushed every record the company had. New VP took over (who funny enough also cheated on his wife) and I was ceremoniously shot putted. Luckily i saw it coming and had just accepted a new role.

IYNFYL

Politicker

2

Enterprise SaaS AE

On another random job note, I worked at a Wendy’s during high school and a coworker got yelled at for not cleaning the Frostie machine right, which led to an argument and getting fired. No joke the guy walked around the counter, and took a shit in the middle of the restaurant then proceeded to walk out the door. It was back before smart phones but the memories never go away!

WendysBiggieBag

Fire Starter

2

Account Executive

Wendys! I love Wendys if you couldn't tell.

Diablo

Politicker

1

Sr. AE

This is so ruthless man

WendysBiggieBag

Fire Starter

2

Account Executive

ikr. I chalk it up to a CEO/founder who just doesn't have an ounce of knowledge on how to deal w/ other teams outside of engineering and product.

MCP

Valued Contributor

1

Sales Director

I was hired as a sales leader, hiring manager told me after 1 interview that he loved me and the job was mine. He said he thought about having me interview with the sales team but decided against it because he really didn’t care about their thoughts, I was his guy. I found out why when I started. The sales team was made up of back office customer service people who either took an order or let the lead walk. One had been there a VERY long time and was still in a paper process, no CRM and not interested in changing anything. Another was just out of college and totally uncoachable and insubordinate. The others had varying degrees of uselessness and they all said they wouldn’t want the job which totally makes sense now. The hiring manager loved what I had to say about process and selling, that’s how I got the job, and about a month in he said I was doing great and heading in the right direction, he even wanted me to create a playbook because everything aligned with what he had been seeing. Meanwhile, the customer service team I inherited not only wasn’t getting what I was laying down, they flat out weren’t interested in doing actual sales. Basically, I was going to have to clean house to get results. It was an uphill battle for 3 more months, pulling donkeys through the mud. During this time the hiring manager disappeared, so no feedback other than from the team. Long story short, the hiring manager suddenly pops up and fires me, without so much as a prior conversation citing what I was doing, that he asked me to do wasn’t working. Seems like a CYA act to me as he said some things that were frankly inaccurate. Oh well, I’m better off without that headache, but I’m sure things won’t get better for them unless he cleans house, which he won’t do.

WendysBiggieBag

Fire Starter

1

Account Executive

You know something's goofy when you get the job after only interviewing one time and with one person. But to your point, not your headache anymore! TG.

ThePiedPIPr

Valued Contributor

0

Enterprise Sales Executive

I was fired over email once. A gutless and very unprofessional move and I immediately called the manager on the phone to talk about it, but it was a total lack of respect. I have not been fired a lot, but I have never been put on a PIP the few times it has happened.

IYNFYL

Politicker

0

Enterprise SaaS AE

I got let go for not being a “fit culturally” and when I challenged the reason they couldn’t do anything. I was the newest hire and they were at 10% of their quarter goal two months into it, so pretty sure the new guy doing onboarding wasn’t the issue.

sellingsellssold

Politicker

0

SDR

Some worker kept eating all the snacks and food in the office. I think he ate more than he called. He was fired after 2 and a half weeks. Somehow he was not even that fat.

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