Feb 18, 2015
StormWind Studios Response
11yI'm very sorry to hear about his experience here at StormWind. As one of the leaders here, it's always a disappointment to hear when a fellow team member is not happy nor achieves the goals they set out to accomplish when they started with us. Every new relationship and new team member we invite to join on our StormWind mission begins with endless promise and potential...on both sides. Sadly, when you don't achieve even basic entry level productivity standards week in and week out, I would think it's understandable when an organization asks you to leave. When that same organization goes out of its way to support an employee who requests extraordinary time-off, gas money, special equipment, and even accommodates him with an opportunity to take a step down out of sales and into a less stressful qualifying role and yet he still feels the need to write this bitter review after leaving, it certainly is disappointing.
Let me say that this his negative description and reckless comments are just silly. I sadly think this is a reflection of his own true impression of himself vs the reality of how we value and treat our team here at StormWind.
I think most intelligent folks understand that it is a two way street; There is an understood quid pro quo in what we both expect as employer and team member. At StormWind, we make no secret we want a 1+1 = 3 type of relationship. That only happens with high expectations and a high degree of performance from both parties. We have an extensive interview and assessment process. When we sit across from a candidate, that candidate is committing to excellence. So are we. We are committing to support and guide them. We are "sold" on them by their experience, their attitude, and their goals. Like the unfortunate comments above, we too don't want to be disappointed especially when a candidate's sales potential instead turns into a bust and a financial loss as it clearly did here.
Regarding the other unfortunate and disparaging comments about our team, let me say this starting with our senior leadership: Our team started 4 companies from scratch. One went public and was sold for $225MM, another started from scratch and was sold for $105MM, another was started from scratch and sold for $323MM, and currently StormWind started from scratch and now shares the same world class investors and board guidance such as Insight, Twitter, Lyft, and Spotify, among others.
In other words, I think we know what we are doing.
At the sales leadership level, every single one of our leaders started on the phones... just like all of our new team members who join the family. Because of that, we know the duties. We know the challenges. We know the ups and downs of sales. We know the grind and grit and tedium of dialing. All of our sales leaders succeeded over time with not just great numbers, but great attitudes, great camaraderie, great humility, great vision, and most importantly, big, hairy, and audacious goals...regardless of whose family and friends they are. These libelous remarks on nepotism insults the performance and hard work of all the top folks who've achieved greatness here.
Tactically, we make no bones about the fact that you, as a sales professional, are entrusting your career, your livelihood, your family, your dreams to us. We do not take that trust lightly. We often claim that it's our job to care and "own" your income when you don't feel like it. Many folks can not or do not want that fierce level of accountability. They would rather drift aimlessly in the calm and lukewarm waters of mediocrity with no accountability in anything they do in life. I would humbly then say that StormWind is not for you.
We do not create mere $60K/year telesales reps at our organization. Rather, we try to create and foster $150-300K/year top tier Sales Professionals and that takes time, tenacity, communication, patience, an unbridled love of your craft, and most of all humility. You simply can not expect to come into any sales organization and reach the mountaintop in mere months. You also can not claim you have one year of experience with us when really all you have is "1 month 12 times." We are unequivocally blunt and candid about what it takes to succeed here and what the career ladder looks like. We even require all of our candidates to do their own due diligence on StormWind and its leaders after the interview process ends so they have a "cooling off period" from the initial "honeymoon" of an interview cycle. We think that's important in order to think carefully about whether we are a cultural, compensation, and leadership fit. If not, we will simply shake hands and part as friends. We are not the home for everyone nor do we desire to be.
Do we work hard? Of course. Do we know that B2B sales is difficult? Of course we do. You'll always know where you stand and where we stand as a driven organization. You'll also always know that we are in your corner to help.