A Karen tries to get me fired by forging documents, but I had the real copies all along and I ruined

her business for life. And in the process, I got a settlement check for $50,000 because of it.

Here's how it happened. Sometime back, I was hired to a company by a CEO I had previously

worked for someplace else. He was a good friend so when his newest company wasn't achieving sales,

he had hunted me to join the new one. The company had made a sale in two years.

Year one, the software product was in beta so it wasn't ready to be sold.

Year two, they realized using the tech staff to make high-end sales to sea-level executives

was the worst sales model that one could conceptualize. In general, there are exceptions, of course.

These two personality styles don't speak the same language. Tech people talk tech,

buyers talk benefits, and how the potential product feels needs. I bridged the gap,

well, by translating the tech speak into natural conversational language so the buyers understand

how their needs will be filled. The job was an hour and a half drive one way from my home so the

CEO said I could work from home as long as I kept the sales management tool current. It's where

you keep notes of each prospect status, also that I came to important meetings and made sure

the executive team had daily sales reports. The first month I made the daily three hour commute

because I needed to have solid constant interaction with all departments to rapidly form my sales

strategy and develop a two-way confidence level with the section heads. Once I had a handle on

things I was ready to launch my sales plan. In the meantime, the CEO hired a vice president of

sales, we'll call them BB, who started four days before I hit the ground running to get in front

of buyers. She was a VP coming from the banking industry and had a long career in sales and

marketing and finance products. I hated her from the moment she arrived. She knew nothing about tech

and I spent a huge time trying to orient her which wasn't ideal because I needed to work on my

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