I spent over a year at BuildFire on the sales team. During my time, they fired over 15 people from the sales team. Including the LAST SEVEN Account Executives. 7 in a row. Why is there so much turnover on the sales team?
-The leadership is extremely toxic, sales meetings consist of reps being yelled at, being put on the spot with ‘gotcha’ questions, and being told they aren’t as good as other members on the team. They play extreme favorites with the lead distribution and tell you to your face that we all get the same leads. Within 3 months every rep gets to the point where they are afraid to ask questions to leadership, I know this because they would come to me or other reps instead, this happened literally every time.
-Quota is unattainable. During the over 12 months I was at this company, only 2 reps ever hit the number they have set for quota. Not only that, but during this time they fired the ENTIRE Account Management team, the ENTIRE Sales Development team, removed a product line from our offerings (gave it solely to their favorite rep) all while KEEPING QUOTA THE SAME. Watching them fire rep after rep for 'not hitting quota' is remarkable. It has not changed in over 2 years.
-MICROMANAGEMENT, I put this one in all caps for a reason. The managers will give you step by step, word for word instructions on how to handle leads they have never spoken to. If you try to protest they will try to turn it on you with statements like ‘maybe sales isn’t for you.’ But do not worry, despite doing exactly what they tell you to, any opportunities that do not close are still 100% your fault. Your sales confidence will be ruined by these managers. (even though one of them admitted to me that the product is a 9/10 difficulty to sell).
Lack of passion. This company has no one leading it that cares about it. At least it does not feel that way.
In summary, not one single new Account Executive or SDR (hired within last 1.5 years) is still at the company, none of them have ever hit quota or anywhere close, all have wasted a considerable amount of time while having their sales abilities tainted and their confidence demolished.
Not sure what else you need to know! I could also go on for paragraphs about the disorganization throughout the rest of the company. Simply put, the product is not competitive with any other SaaS solutions. You will feel terrible once you sell your first custom app and see what our development team considers a finished product. Watching the marketing team use facebook and instagram like we are selling a D2C product will drive you crazy as you waste incredible amounts of time speaking with 'entrepreneurs' who aren’t really entrepreneurs.