Dear SaaStr: Have You, As a CEO, Ever Stood Up for Your Employee Against a Customer?
A CEO shares a regretful experience where standing up for an employee led to the loss of their most important deal, offering a hard-learned lesson on balancing loyalty with business pragmatism.
Dear SaaStr: Have You, As a CEO, Ever Stood Up for Your Employee Against a Customer?
Yes — and to be honest, I do regret it.
Yeah ago, the largest software company in the world agreed to be our largest customer. It was a huge victory. But then our top sales rep the next day … the next day! … spammed their senior executives.
The tep called me before he did and I approved it, but I didn’t actually understand what I approved. I did tell him it was OK, it’s just I didn’t really understand what he was planning.
And it created huge drama. Huge drama, this outbound emal to all their C-level execs. They never calmed down per se, but they told me they’d still sign — if I fired that sales exec.
I’d approved it (at least sort of), so I had to back him. And I wouldn’t have fired him anyway. So I said I’d do whatever it takes, but I had to back my teammate.
And … they cancelled. And we lost the most important deal ever. The downstream effects were bad, and lasted years.
I shouldn’t have fired him, of course. Never. But … I should have pretended to the customer that I did.
The customer often isn’t right. But their concerns almost always are.
Source: SaaStr
