Anonymous wrote:A Coudflare employee recorded herself being laid off (remotely, apparently by a pair of consultants (not named Bob)) and it’s garnering a lot of views.

I can understand her frustration at having to endure the droning, corporate-speak of these two people she’s never met who are tasked with delivering the bad new, but at the end of the day, she’s a whining zoomer who didn’t make any sales.

Nah, I love this generation. They are calling out my generation and older on bullsheet practices that wreck peoples lives. Good for her and I hope she finds an employer that values her and her work ethic. Not everyone wants to be crotchety and old like you, OP, standing by the water cooler, eating your stale homemade sandwich with mayonnaise oozing out of the creases of your mouth, telling boring stories about what you did on the weekend and then watching the clock so you can take an unnecessary two hour commute home and then do it all over again the next day. It's a new day and I'm here for it!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sales is luck. When I walk into a car dealership or an appliance store, or some other commission based business, and I’m not looking to buy, no salesperson, no matter how savvy and experienced, will change my mind. When I am looking to buy, the first salesperson to approach me will most likely get the sale, but that’s because he or she was lucky, not because they were a good salesperson.

This is moronic. The salesperson plays a huge role in whether a customer leaves with a product or visits another retailer, especially in car sales. Skilled salespeople also get customers to purchase add-ons with enormous margin such as extended warranties.

Also this person was in B2B sales, which is very different.

Spoken like a true salesman.

You know what’s moronic? Impulse buying a Dodge Charger and being talked into a bunch of upcharges. Granted, there are people around who fall for this, but I’m not one of them.

Anonymous wrote:Sales is luck. When I walk into a car dealership or an appliance store, or some other commission based business, and I’m not looking to buy, no salesperson, no matter how savvy and experienced, will change my mind. When I am looking to buy, the first salesperson to approach me will most likely get the sale, but that’s because he or she was lucky, not because they were a good salesperson.

This is moronic. The salesperson plays a huge role in whether a customer leaves with a product or visits another retailer, especially in car sales. Skilled salespeople also get customers to purchase add-ons with enormous margin such as extended warranties.

Also this person was in B2B sales, which is very different.

Sales is luck. When I walk into a car dealership or an appliance store, or some other commission based business, and I’m not looking to buy, no salesperson, no matter how savvy and experienced, will change my mind. When I am looking to buy, the first salesperson to approach me will most likely get the sale, but that’s because he or she was lucky, not because they were a good salesperson.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course the company can fire her but at least they could admit it's because they over-hired not because she was deficient. There's no suggestion that anyone ever gave her any negative feedback and it's pretty wasteful from the company's perspective to hire someone for four months.

Agree with this and the poster above who mentioned the deranged speaking and pitiful training for the RIF "consultants". Offensive all around. Terrible look for this company and not Brittany. Good for her- I do hope she gets a bit of fame.

I honestly don't se what was so bad about how they fired her - it would be better to have more info but they couldn't have given it to her anyway. Rosie repeats herself a couple times butWhat were they supposed to say ?

Anonymous wrote:Before starting my own company, I was a consistently top ranked sales person. I out performed established people with 0 ramp time. That's a ringer. This girl? Not a ringer. If this was her first sales job that's too bad, not a company to learn from.

Also, I was let go in multiple lay offs even at the very top. No one is immune. I have no idea why she would feel targeted. #1 and #100 are all let go.

Before starting my own company, I was a consistently top ranked sales person. I out performed established people with 0 ramp time. That's a ringer. This girl? Not a ringer. If this was her first sales job that's too bad, not a company to learn from.

Transparency is good. Entitlement is not. She will be fine especially if she grows out of the entitlement but hopefully not out of a fearlessness in calling out corporate hypocrisy. Good for her.

Cloudflare made news about a year ago for being very public in trashing poor performers on its sales team during an earnings call:

Although we've won a third of the Fortune 500 customers, if we're honest with ourselves, we saw a lot of our success with our enterprise customers because our products were so good and solved real problems that every big company faces. That allowed many on our sales team to succeed largely by just taking orders. When the fish are jumping right in the boat, you don't need to be a very good fisherman. But at the risk of mixing watering metaphors, as the tide goes out, you get a clear view who's not wearing shorts.

The macroeconomic environment has gotten harder, and we're seeing that some on our team aren't dressed for work. Digging in with Marc, we've identified more than 100 people on our sales team who have consistently missed expectations. Simply put, a significant percentage of our sales force has been repeatedly underperforming based on measurable performance targets and critical KPIs. That's obviously a problem.

But it's one in this environment with a particularly available and actionable solution. We are now in the process of quickly rotating out those members of our team who have been underperforming and bringing in new talent with salespeople who have a proven track record of success, grit, and a strong cultural fit. To give you some sense, these 100-plus people contributed approximately 4% of annualized new business sold over the last year. So, we're optimistic we can make this team upgrade without significantly impacting sales capacity.

Zero sales really kills the quest for fame. It would be nice if she could actually point to an accomplishment to justify keeping her. This is a $27 billion cybersecurity company so it’s not as though it’s an obscure product.

Anonymous wrote:Of course the company can fire her but at least they could admit it's because they over-hired not because she was deficient. There's no suggestion that anyone ever gave her any negative feedback and it's pretty wasteful from the company's perspective to hire someone for four months.

Agree with this and the poster above who mentioned the deranged speaking and pitiful training for the RIF "consultants". Offensive all around. Terrible look for this company and not Brittany. Good for her- I do hope she gets a bit of fame.

Anonymous wrote:I know these tech companies like to fire 10% of their workforce every year but I think that sucks and would never want to work someplace like that

Most corporate companies are back to rank and yank. It has built in reduction without too much drama, help suppress, wages, and get rid of low performers every year. Until managers get wise and higher to fire to protect their buddies but we don’t talk about that.

I know these tech companies like to fire 10% of their workforce every year but I think that sucks and would never want to work someplace like that

Of course the company can fire her but at least they could admit it's because they over-hired not because she was deficient. There's no suggestion that anyone ever gave her any negative feedback and it's pretty wasteful from the company's perspective to hire someone for four months.

Anonymous wrote:She had zero sales. The company probably has data showing that someone with zero sales in six months won’t be productive going forward. Maybe the company could have handled the process better, but the fact that she was willing to record it shows they were right to get rid of her.

Honestly it’s 100% clear they hired her to fire her — non tech company had any reason to be hiring sales team in August 2023. Amazon still has a hiring freeze for over a year. Google is laying people off. Etc.

She was setup, that’s partly why the timing was so bad — tech sales in the holidays? Many company shutdown for a week around Xmas, they just aren’t ramping up a cloud purchase in November when no one is there to use it.