What to do when the CEO lies to the sales team

Published: Wed, 07/13/22

July 13, 2022

TOGETHER WITH

Good morning. We’re in the summer months, so you can expect more automated out-of-office messages as prospects finally have a real reason to ignore you. In this week’s edition of The Quota, we’ll take a look at the uphill battle facing Facebook’s new head of ad sales, find out which Hollywood actor is selling timeshares, and help a sales rep decide whether a dishonest CEO is reason enough for quitting his job. Here we go.

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

36 and 50

The best response rates for emails were seen when the email had a subject line with a character length between 36 and 50.

Source: Backlinko

SALES ROUNDUP

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

According to a hard-to-believe report from gossip site TMZ, disgraced actor Armie Hammer, who, among other roles, played the Winklevoss twins in the movie The Social Network, has become a timeshare salesman in the Cayman Islands. Hammer was previously spotted at a resort’s office wearing what looked like a work-shirt, but this time he was allegedly caught on camera pitching the benefits of a 10-year timeshare. Hammer’s lawyer has since disputed the reports. You can read the article here.
In a purported effort to stomp out unethical car sales tactics, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is proposing a rule that would prohibit dealers from doing things like creating certain fees or false advertising. The FTC is proposing eliminating bait and switch tactics, banning fraudulent and surprise junk fees, and requiring dealers to be clear and upfront about costs and conditions. You can read about the proposed rules here.

FEATURE

"DLD16 Conference Day 2" by Hubert Burda Media is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.”

Meta (Formerly Facebook’s) head of ad sales faces stiff headwinds

Meta (formerly Facebook) CEO Mark Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg, and Chief Business Officer Marne Levine, who is in charge of ad sales, are attending the Sun Valley conference this week in an attempt to sway advertisers. When Sandberg leaves Meta this fall, however, Levine will be under immense pressure to keep growth strong without Sandberg’s industry connections, according to a recent article in The Information.

With Meta facing stiff competition from TikTok and privacy restrictions from Apple that limit targeted marketing capabilities, Levine’s job of leading the ad sales department has become more difficult than ever. Meta predicts flat second-quarter revenue, a striking decline after years of record-setting growth.

Sandberg has been at Meta for 14 years and has brought in spades of business at both Meta and Google, but she will take her industry relationships with her when she leaves. Levine is not a career advertising exec, but has worked in ads as Meta’s head of partnerships and helped with monetization efforts at Instagram.

However, many advertisers are now wary of Meta, and with good reason. “A combination of badly handled measurement errors alongside issues as important as social harms and political weaponization have made advertisers increasingly cautious about Meta,” Rob Norman, a long-time advertising executive, told The Information.

Changing Norms

In 2010, Levine joined Meta as vice president of global public policy, and in 2015 she became COO of Instagram. Other employees say Levine is a skilled exec who brought efficiency and growth to the app. She took over Meta’s partnerships team in 2018, managing mutually beneficial marketing agreements.

According to a former colleague, Levine quickly built relationships with companies in news, gaming, and nonprofits while educating herself about the business issues related to those industries. This colleague also noted that Levine effectively encouraged her teams to set and meet goals at a rigorous pace.

Levine was named Meta’s chief business officer last June. A newly created role, it oversees ad sales, partnerships, and other departments like business engineering. The intention in creating the role was to present the ad sales and partnerships departments as a united front to company advertisers.
Some people expected Carolyn Everson, leader of the ad sales team under David Fischer, to get the position. She was instead offered the role of chief revenue officer, but quit less than a week later, according to someone familiar with the matter.

In her first few months on the job, Levine concerned herself with learning everything she could about the ad business, including the resulting challenges from Apple’s privacy restrictions, according to someone familiar with the matter. Levine led a reorganization of the ad sales and partnerships teams, in addition to overseeing an effort led by Nick Grudin, one of her deputies, attempting to focus partnership teams around creators rather than apps. This was part of Meta’s effort to position itself as one cohesive company, and not simply a collection of apps. According to two people familiar with the issue, the project went much longer than expected and caused confusion among employees about roles and direct reports.

There was still internal confusion over the division of labor between the ads and partnerships teams last August when Levine announced an ads and partnerships leadership group. According to someone familiar with the process, Levine’s answers to team members’ questions were vague. They say the two teams still operate separately despite the original vision of a unified front. According to a Meta spokesperson, the company merged teams in some areas but didn’t propose the change as a one-size-fits-all situation for every department.

Fierce Headwinds

The changes continued when Sandberg publicly announced her resignation in June. At the same time, Zuckerberg announced that roughly 500 team members working in media and creator partnerships would now report to the vice president of content and global operations rather than Levine.

Employees were told the decision came out of a desire to better align partnerships with product. The change effectively limited Levine’s role while also negating the original plan to unite ad sales and partnerships through a CBO role. According to a spokesperson for Meta, Levine was part of the decision-making process that led to these changes.

Recent economic conditions and failed e-commerce efforts on Meta’s part have brought even more pressure on Levine since she became CBO. Reuters recently reported on an internal memo in which Chis Cox, Meta’s product chief, said: “We are in serious times here and the headwinds are fierce.” It remains to be seen whether Levine will be able to guide the ad sales team through troubled waters. But by all accounts, she has her work cut out for her.

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MEME OF THE WEEK

Source: Instagram -- Sales Humor

QUIZ

Approximately how many salespeople work for software giant Oracle?

A. 18,198
B. 30,637
C. 27,442
D. 42,070

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).

“My biggest sales fail cost me a $400k deal and a commission check that would have made my entire year. To this day, whenever I think about this deal, I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. This happened just a few years ago, when I was working for a SaaS company that was trying to go from SMB (small and mid-sized businesses) to enterprise. They were willing to invest in order to do that. I had never sold to any Fortune 500 companies before, so I felt a bit like a fish out of water.

I ended up getting this qualified lead from a contact at a pretty big regional firm that was in the same state as us. The guy and I went back and forth about our software a bit, then my sales manager, who was also new to enterprise, told me to take the guy out to dinner and spend a few bucks (for which I’d be reimbursed), and try to make him feel important.

I was kind of excited because I was going to have an expensive dinner on the company’s dime. The dinner went well, and the guy said he was looping his supervisor in on the deal, and that they would have an answer for us within a few weeks.

A few weeks went by, and I had stayed in touch with the guy, but it felt like he was kind of stringing me along. Finally, I asked him to tell me if they couldn’t do the deal, that it was fine, and that I just wanted to know. He responded that he would be in my area later that week and asked if I wanted to meet him at a (different this time) restaurant. I said yes, got permission from my manager to cover it, and went to meet him after work that week.

Dinner was good, he seemed upbeat, and when we got to talking about business, he said, “I have great news… we got the approval and should be able to sign next week.” At that point, I was on cloud nine. I ordered another round of drinks and he and I talked about everything except business for another hour or so. That night, I went home in super high spirits.

The next day I emailed him additional details and paperwork to get things rolling. He didn’t respond. Then he didn’t respond to my emails or calls for the next few days. Early the following week, I called him again, then emailed him (obviously I was worried by this point). Almost immediately I got an automatic response from his email address saying he was no longer with the company and instructions for getting in touch with somebody else. I had to start from scratch with the new point of contact, who talked to me for three weeks before politely declining to move forward.”

Anonymous California

GRAPH OF THE WEEK

Source: Instagram Poll -- July 2022

WORTH A PEEK

Our friends at Postal are putting on a virtual roast (yeah, you read that right) for sales, marketing, and revenue folks on August 11th. You can invite your marketing frenemy, your sales nemesis, or your coworker who finally figured out how to use Giphy shortcuts in Slack – the more the merrier! They’ll have live B2B improv with The Second City Comedy Group, raffles where they’ll give away summer must-haves, and a sneak peek of upcoming releases from Postal that make corporate gifting more seamless than ever. You can learn more here.

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 feel like I’m in a bit of a pickle. Here’s the deal: about a month and a half ago, our company CEO sent out an email saying that despite the market turbulence, they weren’t going to cut any jobs, and that they were committed to the long-haul.

Literally four weeks later, they laid off about 75 people. I was not laid off as part of this process, probably because I am consistently in the top 25% of performers. Still, the whole situation left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. If they had been honest about it up front, I don’t think I would have cared, but it just seemed so obviously hypocritical.

One of my good friends who worked here, who DID get laid off, has since found a job with another company, and he is lobbying me to come work there with him. The pay would be comparable, though they’re a bit more established than the company I’m at now. Honestly, I’d probably make more overall by staying where I am.

Do you think I should take the new job or stay with my current employer? If they hadn’t pulled that crap with the announcement, I probably wouldn’t even be considering it, but I feel like I can’t trust a word they say anymore. What are your thoughts?

Confused in New England

Dear Confused,

Your CEO seems pretty shameless, that much is true. But we can’t tell you which direction to go in, we can only suggest the following:

Take some time to think about what really matters to you. What do you value in an employer? Is it all about the money, full stop? There’s nothing wrong with that, and if that’s the case, then you might want to stay where you are. Is it honesty? If so, you should move on. Is it stability? If so, switching to a more stable employer might make sense. Is it an opportunity for advancement? If so, the smaller, newer company might be the better play.

Different people value different things. One rep might view autonomy as the most important part of a sales role, while another might want as many stock options as humanly possible. Only you can decide what’s most important to you. But no one would fault you for leaving a place where the CEO can say one thing one day, and do the opposite the next. Good luck!