A huge tech company is cancelling deals (seriously)

Published: Wed, 09/21/22

September 21, 2022

TOGETHER WITH

The first official day of fall is tomorrow, and you know what that means: pumpkin spice lattes, hoodies and flannel shirts, and management reminding you that “this quarter is the most important in company history,” every fifteen minutes. In this week’s issue, we’ll tell you about how the Broadcom-VMware acquisition is crushing the sales teams’ dreams, find out whether reps believe that B players can become top performers, and give some advice to a rep who doesn’t like getting calls after-hours. Enjoy!

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

30%

The average cold email has an open rate below 30 percent.

Source: Hunter.io

SALES ROUNDUP

Here’s what’s happening in the sales world this week:

According to a report in Axios, Warner Bros. Discovery is conducting significant layoffs, with a focus on their sales department, a result of the companies’ recent merger and a weak macroeconomic climate. About 30% of the combined ad sales teams across WarnerMedia and Discovery are expected to be cut over the next few weeks. You can read the report here.
Does a VP of sales need to be great at selling, or do they simply need exceptional managerial skills? An article from Jason Lemkin, founder of SaaStr (and the most prolific Quora responder in history), makes the case that your VP of sales must absolutely be a great salesperson themselves, and explains why. You can read the article here.

FEATURE

Credit: “possohh/Shutterstock.com”

As Broadcom gets ready to acquire VMware, management is stalling and vetoing deals, making sales reps (and clients) very unhappy

In May of this year, Broadcom, Inc., the semiconductor and infrastructure software giant, announced that it would acquire enterprise software innovator VMware Inc. to the tune of $61 billion.

Now, that merger is nearing completion, and much of the resulting stress is falling squarely on the shoulders of VMware’s sales team, who are trying to close more deals than ever but have more red tape to deal with. Customers want to lock in deals with VMware before Broadcom hikes up prices, but while salespeople are working hard to make that happen, VMware has implemented a new deal review process that sometimes means it takes days, weeks, or even months to get a contract approved.

An internal company message viewed by Business Insider reads: "VMware has made commitments to preserve the value of VMware until the acquisition is closed. Therefore, we have reinforced our deal reviews."

Not only are customers nervous about the impending merger, salespeople are frustrated that deals are getting canceled outright, costing them their hard-earned commissions. Deals with licensing terms longer than five years are being rejected outright, according to employees. And many salespeople are having to go back to their customers to say they can’t accept their order.

Insider spoke with several VMware salespeople who spoke on the condition of anonymity, as they were not permitted to discuss internal affairs.

"Quotes that would take hours now take weeks to sometimes months — and I am not kidding," one senior sales executive said. "From a sales perspective, we can't make any money."

One former VMware employee said that it was unlikely Broadcom would keep on all of VMware’s salespeople after the merger; after all, Broadcom has earned a reputation for buying companies and then subsequently slashing costs to boost profits. In anticipation of that eventuality, VMware employees are scrambling to close deals (perhaps with a big discount as an incentive) and score big commissions before they are forced out. But VMware’s sometimes-months-long review process is putting a kink in those plans.

The added red tape, micromanaging, and whispers of cost-cutting don’t bode well for the new corporate culture under Broadcom, some say.

"All of a sudden, we went from 'this isn't in the customer's best interest' to 'this isn't in our best interests,'" a senior salesperson told Insider. "VMware was never this sales machine. It feels like a betrayal of our technological roots."

VMware and Broadcom did not respond to Insider’s requests for comment.

TOGETHER WITH #SAMSALES

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MEME OF THE WEEK

Source: Instagram -- Sales Humor

QUIZ

What year was LinkedIn launched?

A. 2003
B. 1972
C. 2001
D. 2006

SALES FAILS

Each week, we bring you the most cringe-worthy sales moments from across the web. To submit your sales fail story for consideration, click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

“This actually happened to me last month, and I still can’t really make sense of it. I sell software, and our target customers are engineers and CTOs. Without going into too much detail, our software is a nice add-on for people who already use a very specific tech stack.

So I got this lead, and connected with the prospect. We did a one-on-one discovery/demo video call, then he said he would get back to me. He was friendly on the call, and didn’t do or say anything weird, and even when we ended the call, he was polite and acting totally normal.

After the call, I followed up and asked if he was ready to proceed. No response. I followed up a few days later, then again a day after that. Then, I got a response in the form of an email.

He said that he doesn’t do business with “dishonest liars,” and that he wouldn’t use our software if it was free. I had absolutely no clue what he was talking about so I reached back out and politely said that perhaps there was a miscommunication and asked what it was that he felt I was being dishonest about.

He responded with “You know EXACTLY what you did.”

I have re-read our communication over and over again, and have absolutely no clue what this guy is talking about. What could I possibly have even lied to him about? It’s the most bizarre thing that’s ever happened to me in sales, so I had to share.”

Anonymous Northeast

GRAPH OF THE WEEK

Source: LinkedIn Poll -- September 2022

WORTH A PEEK

Are you pro sandbagging, or anti-sandbagging? Do you even know what sandbagging means? It’s one of the great debates in sales, but you can find good arguments on both sides. Here’s the argument for sandbagging, and here’s the argument against it. You decide.

ASK THE QUOTA

Want to submit a question and be featured in our advice column? Click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

Dear Quota Team,

I have a (mostly) great job as an Account Executive + New Business hybrid role with a non-profit. Overall I am happy at my job, I have a large degree of autonomy, and I am performing well.

One of my only complaints is that my employer does not provide a dedicated work cell phone. There is an option to get an employer-specific line, but it involves a hefty, unreimbursed personal expense up-front that I am not willing to incur (gotta love that non-profit life). When I first started pre-pandemic this wasn't much of an issue, but with COVID and the proliferation of remote work most of my clients now have my personal cell phone. Most days this isn't a problem, however I'll admit I don't love it when they call my personal cell phone before they call my office line. For what it's worth, I do forward my office line to my cell on days I'm working remotely. Where this does become a problem is when I have clients and coworkers calling my personal phone outside business hours, on the weekends, or when I am on vacation. This happens with such frequency it has now also become an issue with my spouse.

I am a staunch believer in separating your work life from your personal life. I grew up with a family member that was a legit workaholic, and I vowed to never become that. I also grew up with two extremely successful family members that have both drawn a firm boundary between work and personal life that has been kept for the most part. One of them is responsible for 300+ people as the owner + President of the business. If they can draw that line, I should be able to also draw a similar boundary.

My question is - is there a tactful and respectful way to ask my clients & customers to please refrain from calling my cell phone? And is there a tactful and respectful way to inform my boss and colleagues that I should not be contacted on my personal phone unless it's a true emergency?

Frustrated in Utah

Dear Frustrated,

After-hours phone calls can be annoying, unless it’s a prospect calling to say they’re ready to move forward, in which case it’s a great way to end (or start) your day.

Nevertheless, this is something that’s clearly not working for you, and (perhaps more importantly) not working for your spouse. One thing you could do is try setting up an account on Google Voice, which is a very cost-effective way to get a separate dedicated phone number and voicemail for future business calls.

But to answer your question, the most tactful way to ask people to stop calling your cell phone is to be (mostly) honest, without being too direct. You should also reframe your statement so that it’s for your customer’s benefit, not just your own.

Try something like: “I just wanted to give you a heads-up that I’m going to be moving all of my professional conversations to my office line. This will help me stay organized and ensure you get everything you need from me.”

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that it’s a bit of a stretch to expect people not to call you back on a number that you gave them, or on a number that you called them from. You can ask, but conversations move quickly these days, and most of us are used to hitting the green button on whatever phone number we have. So our honest suggestion is that if you want to keep things separate, then actually keep them separate. Good luck!

Quiz Answer: A

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Today's email was written by Ken Kupchik, Erica Furgiuele, Steve Rado, and Emily Hill.

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