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sahil

Deepak Chopra of Sales

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What's the worst mistake you've made... that turned out to be a huge blessing / turning point?

I'll go first.


6 years ago, I trusted the wrong boss. He was the CEO of a company that hired me as COO / VP Sales. Offered me a lot of money to leave my previous company and build him a world class sales team. Said he would handle the product + financial responsibility... and I would run sales / marketing / operations for the biz.


We grew from 5 to 100 employees, revenue grew from $100K MRR - $2M MRR, all in 18 months.


Then all of a sudden, I realized he had been lying to me about the product. Told our team that we were running ads on Tier 1 publications... but turns out we were running on gaming sites and lying to customers.


Then I found out he had been lying about the finances too. Had been borrowing money by forging contracts and lying to lendors. Going into SFDC to Mark deals as closed won that weren't actually closed. Goosing the numbers.


Ended up getting fired when I confronted him. Soon thereafter the entire company imploded. I felt terrible; I had recruited many of my friends who trusted me with their careers.


But... it convinced me to never work for someone else again. I always thought I'd make for a good CEO, but never truly believed in myself to take the leap. Fast forward 6 years, and it was the best decision I've made. If I hadn't felt the agony of broken trust and lies, I may never have dared to venture out on my own.


Whats your story?

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salesnerd
WR Officer
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Head of Growth
My biggest "mistake" was getting into sales in the first place. I say it was a mistake because I hated it for the first 1.5 years. I was fresh out of college, living with my friends who were still in college having to get up at 6:30 to commute an hour+ to a job I hated at a company I didn't believe in. I powered through it for about a year before there was a light at the tunnel: my company announced we were being acquired by a big, publicly-traded company. 

I thought that would be my 'out' of sales. I could finally transfer to the marketing or product team and get out of sales forever. I didn't. I started making more money. I started enjoying sales. I made even more money.

Then I used my industry experience and my excellent track record to score my dream sales gig, an early-stage employee at an exciting startup building a sales team. 

If I hadn't started working in sales, I'd probably be working in marketing making less money, being miserable. 

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