The CEO had hired an outside consultant to help him grow his business. Ofni has never had a sales person before and I was interviewing for the position of VP of Sales to put in place sales processes, KPIs and structure (along with selling the company's product) as the company grew.
My first interview was with the consultant so he could determine if I should move on to interview with the CEO. I passed the first interview and had my 2nd interview with the consultant and the CEO the next day.One of the CEO's only concerns was over my ability to sell his product remotely. I have worked out of my home for the past 10 years selling software. The CEO was the only person who had ever given a demo of their product and had some heartache about trusting someone else doing it who wasn't physically in the office each day. The consultant told the CEO that there should be no reason someone couldn't to sell their product remotely after the CEO had trained them and got comfortable with the sales person doing it. The CEO asked if I would be willing to come into the office for 3-6 months while he got comfortable with me doing it and I said I would.
After the 2nd interview, the consultant emailed me a spreadsheet showing a monthly sales commission plan with the base salary declining each month with the assumption that i would be more than making up for the declining base with commissions on new sales. I adjusted some of the numbers and counter offered. At this point the consultant was no longer involved and I was dealing directly with the CEO.
After well over a week and multiple promises that a formal offer letter was coming in the next couple days, I finally received an offer letter. The CEO had written "draft" on the offer letter. He said that was because "legal hadn't reviewed it yet and he wanted to get it to me quicker" and also that he wanted to discuss the details with me before finalizing it. We had a phone call the next day and came to an agreement on ever point of the offer. On the following day while I was waiting for a final offer letter the CEO called me and said "I have decided to go with the other guy". I was totally shocked by this. The CEO had put out offers to two different people at the same time. When I asked him why he had done this he said that he was hoping one of us would fall out of the race on our own. The reason he gave for accepting the other applicant over me was because the other candidate lived closer and was willing to come into the office every day and not want to work remotely.
I feel I have dodged a bullet with this company and glad that I didn't have to find out too late that I was working for someone who, in my opinion, was so unprofessional and unethical.
