Red Ditto

Mistake # 74: Don’t hire sales savvy people

July 4, 2009 · Leave a Comment

The news of the day (yesterday, July 3) was that Sarah Palin is resigning as governor of Alaska. The news of the week for me was that I had hired and just brought on board two incredible sophisticated sales people for my team.

Unfortunately, I had to fly to a particular metropolitan area to fire an individual a week ago and could not announce one of these new hires until I had let the other go.

Letting people go is always painful.  I did the best I could knowing that this individual has a family with family needs, and, let’s face it: who wants to be let go? It’s never a good thing.

However, I was totally convinced that this person was working another business on the side. I just wasn’t getting the production and results we needed. Plus, he was always arguing with me.  Being Italian, I love to banter when things just go right. But there was a difference: he was fighting me every step of the way.  He said he knew the industry and he said he had contacts. I saw no results of either. Plus, he couldn’t put a proposal together to save his life. He had an MBA. Go figure.

So now I have two knowledgeable, driven, and motivated people who know the industry, brought in a bank of contacts with them, and jumped in with only an inch of learning curve needed to run out there and bring it in.

Maybe I have hired one of Fast Company’s top 100 creative people in business!

Already my stress level is down 150%.

Categories: Layoffs · Personnel

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