Perceived glory days

Watch out for sales people that talk too much about their old company and its products. We've had two that would bring up old company's products in comparison to our products or as part of a solution sale.

If a sales person tries to include products from their old company as part of a solution sale, fire them on the spot. If a sales person compares their old company's products to your products and makes statements like "our product did it this way", fire them on the spot.

A sales person should be entirely focused on the products they are currently selling, not living in some perceived glory days of the past. There is a reason why they are not still at the old company.

And sales people are not good product managers. Even though they know it all, they are generally only interested in the features required for the current sale and not the entire market. Sales people are good for providing customer feedback but not product strategy. So don't listen when they tell you to make your products like their old products. Instead, fire them on the spot.

Both of the sales people that had this behavior were tremendous underperformers and of course it took us too long to fire them.