Jaytea

N/A

The most rude rep ever :(

As an intern, our team didn't like Seamless.AI, and it was my job to try and book demos to find better data scraping tools. I have the most knowledge as I've been scrapping numbers (1500 plus) on Seamless the entire summer. I decided to reach out to SDRs on LinkedIn to help us out. I booked three other demos, and none had a problem with me being an intern and booking a meeting with an AM. Jake here came off smooth and calm and suddenly told me I wasn't a "decision maker." Anyway, I'll just put the texts down here to make my claim. Please don't be that guy.

🧠 Advice

😟 bitch

📢 Communication

55 comments

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poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

I mean. I support the rep. You’re not a decision maker, hell, you’re not even a full time employee.

Put yourself in an AE’s shoes. Would you want to sell something to someone who doesn’t have authority?

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

I think there's some serious naïveté at play here that's the result of a lot of inexperience.

@poweredbycaffeine is 100% correct.
Intern/part-time 'DM' isn't really a thing. He's got a boss too, he has processes. He's not being a dick about it.

Jaytea

Catalyst

-2

N/A

Dawg, I'm asking for a demo not a contract? Me and an AM. We will get to the contract later on

Jaytea

Catalyst

-1

N/A

Also ur right I should have just gone thru the inbound process of going on their website and asking. I thought I would help someone fill up their quota if I asked them via LinkedIn

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

And that rep and his AE need to guard their time. Ever heard of a tire kicker?

Your boss told you to look into this. His boss probably says qualify before a demo.

Jaytea

Catalyst

N/A

True I blame the whole organization but I don’t care he didn’t get a demo and I’m happy.

FinanceEngineer

Politicker

Sr Director, sales and partnerships

Makes sense, but isn’t the saying “no good deed goes unpunished.” I do the exact same thing as you, so it should be on the rep to put you to the right people if he couldn’t handle.

Edit - it’s deed, not intention

BingoBangoBongo

Good Citizen

Dawg, your not the decision maker and not even a full time employee. To anyone with experience, you come off as a tire kicker and time waster.

You communicate like you're in the drivers seat and a fulltime employee, who internally has to live with his decisions and how they effect his reputation past the summer, should acquiesce to an intern who is already haggling on budget and leading with the carrot of "it'll be bigger in December, scouts honor!" Fun fact, he doesn't care if you handle all the prospecting and most would interpret an org only using an intern for this as a giant red flag.

You have a complete misunderstanding of power dynamics and generally come across as entitled and petty.

Develop a softer touch or you're in for a very bumpy ride.

Jaytea

Catalyst

N/A

I do 90% of the prospecting for our company. They literally don't touch seamless at all. What makes them qualified to go thru a demo? Our contracts ends soon and we need a good solution. I was given this task from my VP so I know a thing or 2. It's rude for him to even think about talking to someone else on our team when I set up the meetings.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

No, it’s not rude. It’s their process and you lack signature authority. You could allow them to send the email to the manager and then have them convey authority to you for the exploration part of the process.

Working with people is 90% of sales. Find the middle ground that gets them over the hurdle in their process and then work out the engagement strategy afterward.

You’re too new to assume that someone is rude. The fact that other vendors are allowing you to book demos is not cause for your to assume another company is wrong for following their own process.

Last thing: if you have sales or revenue operations, bring them to your demos. They’re responsible for implementation and integration of the tool into your existing stack. It’s rude to bring them in post-decision.

Jaytea

Catalyst

-1

N/A

1. It is rude to do that. Let me ask u do u think once that the VP Of sales for our company has touched a data scrapping tool. The answer is No! Maybe they should take my word. I came to them not the VP treat me the same way.

2. Maybe it's nice to ask for my email to setup a meeting. What makes u think an AM wants to do that. They completely disregarded me in the whole process even though I've been working 40 hr a week with seamless for the past 4 months.

3. I would but our sales op is in France and that a pain in the butt. The French team don't even use seamless they use zoom info 💀.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

How long are you going to be working there. If you are an intern I assume and so did the rep you are leaving in 3 weeks for school. At best you switch to part time during the school. There is no way I can get a SE to do a demo at that point

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

You cannot sign the contract, so it’s not wrong for the rep to ask the person that can to be present or at least aware of the conversation. Also, just buy Apollo and be done. I hate the rest.

Jaytea

Catalyst

-5

N/A

Ur right tbh. The best one we had was with Apollo there data is clean and easy as to use. My manager just wants me to test a bunch of tools b4 we make a decision. Lusha is alright but not as good, cognizant is alright with lusha. Screw the salesintel rep respectfully. His isn't getting our business.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

Unfortunately there is no way I am going to get SE resources to do a demo solely with an intern. Its August and you aren’t going to be working there in 3 weeks when you go to school, so what happens to the deal.

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

No no you don't understand, he is a CSI: Chief Sales Intern

Jaytea

Catalyst

N/A

I work part time during school. Alot of interns these days have part time jobs with companies during school. Hiring is competitive ngl so having that definitely helps out.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

Very smart move to work part time during school, way better than working at a dinning hall plus helps the resume a ton

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

As a general rule folks don't like their time to be wasted.

saaskicker

Celebrated Contributor

Enterprise AE

general rule, 1 in every 4 interns wants a MFn demo!!!

thesearentleads

Member

Account Executive

Asking for a meeting with “the best AE” is an absurd request from an intern

Phillip_J_Fry

Opinionated

Director of Revenue

hwhat in tarnation is Jacob thinking?

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Motherfucker following some stupid ass rules that prohibit interns from being the only person on the demo. Shit man.

oldcloser

Arsonist

💀

Holy shit I hate this thread.

saaskicker

Celebrated Contributor

Enterprise AE

I'm team Jacob on this one.

BTQ

Politicker

Account Manager

if i told my AE our only point of contact was an intern he'd do the same thing. He's not being rude he's protecting his time.

Justatitle

Big Shot

Account Executive

The rep isn't being a dick and I respect him calling things out, he doesn't want to waste his AEs time and all that jazz. There are countless times when someone says they have power, you put in the work and then you get ghosted/told no.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

Just a tip my man - make your blurring more opaque.
It's not hard to see what you're trying to redact.

Fenderbaum

Politicker

Retired Choirboy🪕

Yes John, redact better.

SaaSguy

Tycoon

Account Executive

The intern will be back in school before the purchase is finalized, I dont see anything wrong here.

Jaytea

Catalyst

-3

N/A

The intern got a return offer for part time! So ur wrong :)

sketchysales

Politicker

Sales Manager

Doesnt change the fact that the intern still doesnt make the decision. And as a sales person, what if my competitor got an ear with the DM your end and im being held back only speaking to an Intern? Waste of time for me, you and everyone else. If you dont understand that then you got a lot to learn.

I do agree though the SP could have handled this situation better and honestly if i were the DM, i probably wouldnt be interested in working with that company based on his messaging.

saaskicker

Celebrated Contributor

Enterprise AE

during your part time sales position, are you going to use this tool to prospect interns? or someone with authority to sign a contract?

HVACexpert

Politicker

sales engineer

I’d have to side with the rep as well. In most cases an intern is not going to be given the responsibility you were given and he has no idea what you’re going to do with the information. His boss probably pulled him back a little to and had him ask the questions. As a sales individual you always want to get in front of the decision makers so from his standpoint , I don’t know if I would do it differently.
Also a phone call could have solved this and gotten this scheduled in 5 mins instead of back and forth on LinkedIn which I do fault him for, you could have given him a quick explanation and then maybe he would have been more willing to set up the demo. Pick up the phone people!

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

Lots of controversy around this type of interaction. Pros and Cons to both sides.

As an Intern, we all know you aren't the DM here. The rep is doing his job to dig. But in the digging he's obviously trying to go around you which is a major problem. He's not respecting the fact that YOU were tasked with this.

What you should have done:You should have reached out to the organizations VP of Sales. You tell him that you have been tasked by your VP to gather info, get a quote, etc. That way you aren't messing around with some SDR who doesn't respect your role.

Jaytea

Catalyst

N/A

Thing is I’ve done it with 3 other companies idk why he had to make this one so complicated. There is no need to for a demo

saaskicker

Celebrated Contributor

Enterprise AE

you ever given a demo?

SoccerandSales

Big Shot

Account Executive

I am team Jake here, not that you aren't worthwhile or that it isn't important to have you in evaluation, but the AE will have to justify an intern being the main POC and the SDR won't get qualification with a bad POC typically

TheOverTaker

Politicker

Senior Account Executive

Also, I would be so annoyed if my SDR set a meeting for me with an intern. Especially if they didn't have at least this much back and forth

Cordray

Opinionated

Account Executive

No offense, but this isn’t exactly a whale of a deal. Maybe 20k ACV with implementation costs given budget?

If this were ENT, I’d get it more. But it’s SMB and really small SMB. I’d imagine this team may be handling larger deals and not look at this as a priority. If they do handle deals this size regularly, they need to look at it more transactionally and drop the ego/sales barriers.

I’m not saying be an order taker, but to send an invite to the manager and let them decide if you can be there represents some seriously poor communication skills.

Director of Sales & Marketing

Looks like most most people are siding with Jake on this one. I’ll add in, I would have entertained the meeting if a DM was present too. I totally get you have majority knowledge so you would need to guide the conversation. That’s called an “influencer”. Meeting with you solo? Doubt any experienced sales rep is going to take you seriously. Sales professionals have to protect their time too.

TheOverTaker

Politicker

Senior Account Executive

I mean....dm or bust.

CRAG112

Valued Contributor

Account Executive

Damn. Somebody coming to me with that much information I would love!!!!

gopats

Fire Starter

Enterprise Account Executive

Jesus. I work in this exact space and it frustrates me when reps do this

Senior Strategic Account Executive

Maybe I’m a crazy AE, but I 100% would have taken the meeting. The intern knew exactly what the issue was and came directly to Jake. <br><br>Asking for the best AE is an unusual request, but not crazy.<br><br>Further, this would have been a phenomenal opportunity to do a “give/get”. Ex: “hey I’ll set the appointment with the AE and if it works for you, the next appointment would be with your VP on the call, fair?”

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

Broooo. This brought about 5 different emotions to the surface as I read through it.
I agree with the AE but he should have gone about this differently.

Most of the time when I have someone who is interested in a demo and they are just a lower level person, I'm not going to waste my own time to try to sell them when their boss will probably care about something very different.

CRAG112

Valued Contributor

Account Executive

Could see it either way.

AE just wants to make sure he isn’t giving a demo for the hell of it.

At the same time though, you are clearly knowledgeable and talk speak to a lot of things.

If this happens again, just flat out state what the process is. Talk to me, then it goes to X, and x, and x. If the AE doesn’t like that process, they can kick rocks.

CRAG112

Valued Contributor

Account Executive

You also flat out told him what’s what. Seems like he is being a jerk v anything else.

KingFlavor

Executive

Account Exectutive

Way late to the party here but I think this guy is totally in the wrong. Sure, as an AE you want to speak to the ultimate DM, but since when does that automatically happen in Sales? Why does he already deserve to speak with him, especially after building such poor rapport with someone at the company?
Stakeholder mapping is key, even if it's an intern who wants to set up a call.
Massive L by our boy Jake in my very humble opinion

cashincheckssnappinnecks

Fire Starter

-1

Enterprise Account Executive

Never give an intern a demo. Put a BDR on it to gather information and feed more info to. Let the BDR get their feet wet

goldenlazard

Politicker

-1

Senior SDR

This is straight up disrespectful, rude, and unprofessional. Its salesintel ffs its not exactly salesforce hahaha. OP you should reach out to the CEO of salesintel and tell him this, and then find a better data provider.

mikehoncho

Good Citizen

-1

Account Executive

My two cents is you should've gone through the inbound channel and just taken intern off your title in the submission.
That said, I disagree with most of the comments here. Seamless and those type tools are not really complicated and you probably don't need an SE for this request.
You have the budget and some details already. Spend the 30 minutes on a light demo with the intern, do your proper discovery and then make the ask to meet with other stakeholders.
Qualification is obviously critical but sometimes a deal can come from anywhere and let's not act like we are above taking 30 minutes to find out.

Jaytea

Catalyst

N/A

Fair enough

LambyCorn

Arsonist

-8

A mfkn E

i stay clear from people with pronouns in their bio tbh - so do recruiters

Jaytea

Catalyst

N/A

Uh oh I don't have pronouns my guy

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Jaytea

The most rude rep ever :(

55 comments

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