very very very weird. I already had a high-paying, successful VP position at a competitor when a recruiter reached out. Keeping my options open, I reluctantly entertained the LinkedIn dm because it was for a "Head of Sales" position. The recruiter seemingly had no knowledge of the industry or their business based on the vetting questions they asked. Easy, whatever. My first call was with the CEO- good guy, we hit it off given our expertise on AI. Transparently, it seemed like their "AI approach" was poached off other major players in the space, but sure, claim it as your own. Then I met with the COO- he was late to the call and super awkward. He came from a SAAS company and right away didn't seem to understand fundamental sales, particularly for a full-service, campaign-based company. Sir, SAAS is very different from campaigns. Yet, rather than probing further about how I successfully sold multi-million dollar AOR partnerships, he wanted to get into a standoff about AI. Mainly because I discovered they don't have proprietary AI- it's all white-labeled SAAS tools from competitors. He didn't like that I discovered that information so he was trying one-up me on "his knowledge of AI." He was clearly an amateur when it came to sales systems and processes, yet wanted to be the person who dictated it. That was the biggest red flag because I knew I wouldn't have the autonomy to implement successful best practices. I've been at companies where non-sales leadership try to dictate sales processes and it doesn't work. Nonetheless I took a second call simply to see what their offer would be. The second call was bizarre- he made grandiose conclusions about my processes and experience based off of little information from the previous call because we talked more about AI than actually implementing proper sales techniques and strategies. I told him his analysis was incorrect, then re-explained my experience. He still seemed stuck in his opinion, which was odd. I got the vibe we wouldn't gel and that they were amateurs attempting to be data-scientists, although their tech is white-labeled. I wouldn't have accepted an offer, and I'm glad I didn't because I heard it's a mess and people are jumping ship. Their financials are shaky and I don't know any brands that actually spend with them long-term. The COO has got to go if you want to change culture and scale efficiently.
