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... but managed to shut my mouth and just leave with an excuse.
We've used this one sales guy for a while - mostly because he works for free, I mean provision based salary. We'd never hire a guy who is unable to close deals with the rate he does, second of all he is not knowledgable enough of the field we're in and thirdly, he does not speak english. So sufficient to say, we don't want the guy, but if he sells something on his own time for us, we'll give him a percentage of it.
Now we know even that was too much and that we made a mistake. Remember when I say he is not knowledgable of our field? I mean that he does not know a single thing about it until we taught him the pitch. Just the pitch, and little bit behind the scenes, as in if they ask this, these are the customer benefits. Kind of like motivation speech, bullet points for why this is important, and why we do what we do and why we are good at it; most importantly, we want to get to know you and help you, and you will benefit in such and such ways.
Now, he made few slides according to what I told him. I even inspected the slides many times and said he is not allowed to show them to anyone yet. I made changes, sent him revised versions, because he does not know about the field (or the product), so he has to have it in terms understood by everyone. He then got caught using the same slides and presenting them as his own ideas. Yes, he had taken the slides we'd work together, that had COMPANY NAME - CONFIDENTIAL written all over it. This sales man actually changed the company name to something else and tried to sell stuff.
I was, naturally, pissed off. I told him he can't do that. Today I met him. He told me that if I think he did something wrong (not even admitting that it is wrong to do that kind of a thing!!!) then we have to be more clear about the rules. Dealing with idiots like this is difficult. I don't think we need to make extra rules for not breaking the law, or confidential material of my company.
But then the best part came after that.... he expressed his will to set up his own company, that would do few things... few services. The best part is, it's something WE ALREADY DO!!!!! He used the words "in my experience, this and this is the biggest problem..." as in hey, you just got here, we have collective experience of decades presented, we are published in academic journals, conferences, we hold meetings that are attended by officials from ministries, we design products and new solutions, collectively, we are well established as entities as well as individuals by now. And this sales guy, who barely knows how to use Skype but cannot even configure an e-mail client confidently says to my face how these, based on his own experience, issues, are going to be his services.
The guy basically just stole our ideas and calls them his own. This is not a problem per se. He won't be getting any action. Because there's no one to DO these things he wants to sell. Good luck shopping outside our backyard. The problem is, while we keep doing what we do, this sales guy will probably think we stole his idea and sue us for it. Of course we can prove that we've been doing this for a long time already. My problem is, I don't want to deal with it anymore. I don't want to see the guy, hear from him, I don't want to know anything about him.
Jeesh... I've never had anyone saying to my face about a business plan solely based on things I've taught them personally. And them saying it was their idea, even when they still don't know what the **** it is that they're talking about.
Word to the wise: never ever think a free deal is free. There are weird folks out there who will do the weirdest things, and even though you are right about it, it might still bite you in the ass.
We've used this one sales guy for a while - mostly because he works for free, I mean provision based salary. We'd never hire a guy who is unable to close deals with the rate he does, second of all he is not knowledgable enough of the field we're in and thirdly, he does not speak english. So sufficient to say, we don't want the guy, but if he sells something on his own time for us, we'll give him a percentage of it.
Now we know even that was too much and that we made a mistake. Remember when I say he is not knowledgable of our field? I mean that he does not know a single thing about it until we taught him the pitch. Just the pitch, and little bit behind the scenes, as in if they ask this, these are the customer benefits. Kind of like motivation speech, bullet points for why this is important, and why we do what we do and why we are good at it; most importantly, we want to get to know you and help you, and you will benefit in such and such ways.
Now, he made few slides according to what I told him. I even inspected the slides many times and said he is not allowed to show them to anyone yet. I made changes, sent him revised versions, because he does not know about the field (or the product), so he has to have it in terms understood by everyone. He then got caught using the same slides and presenting them as his own ideas. Yes, he had taken the slides we'd work together, that had COMPANY NAME - CONFIDENTIAL written all over it. This sales man actually changed the company name to something else and tried to sell stuff.
I was, naturally, pissed off. I told him he can't do that. Today I met him. He told me that if I think he did something wrong (not even admitting that it is wrong to do that kind of a thing!!!) then we have to be more clear about the rules. Dealing with idiots like this is difficult. I don't think we need to make extra rules for not breaking the law, or confidential material of my company.
But then the best part came after that.... he expressed his will to set up his own company, that would do few things... few services. The best part is, it's something WE ALREADY DO!!!!! He used the words "in my experience, this and this is the biggest problem..." as in hey, you just got here, we have collective experience of decades presented, we are published in academic journals, conferences, we hold meetings that are attended by officials from ministries, we design products and new solutions, collectively, we are well established as entities as well as individuals by now. And this sales guy, who barely knows how to use Skype but cannot even configure an e-mail client confidently says to my face how these, based on his own experience, issues, are going to be his services.
The guy basically just stole our ideas and calls them his own. This is not a problem per se. He won't be getting any action. Because there's no one to DO these things he wants to sell. Good luck shopping outside our backyard. The problem is, while we keep doing what we do, this sales guy will probably think we stole his idea and sue us for it. Of course we can prove that we've been doing this for a long time already. My problem is, I don't want to deal with it anymore. I don't want to see the guy, hear from him, I don't want to know anything about him.
Jeesh... I've never had anyone saying to my face about a business plan solely based on things I've taught them personally. And them saying it was their idea, even when they still don't know what the **** it is that they're talking about.
Word to the wise: never ever think a free deal is free. There are weird folks out there who will do the weirdest things, and even though you are right about it, it might still bite you in the ass.
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