[bopf]

Yes, I had it happen that people are great on paper and in the interview and did not work out. In each case it was a sales hire. The people in question were excellent sales reps. They knew how to sell themselves as well. However, one of the reasons I hired them for (a big and super relevant rolodex of C-Level contacts in our industry) turned out to be the main reason they totally failed. These guys valued their contacts overall. They would never hard sell any of their contact if they had even the slightest doubt that the product would work 100% as expected. Well, we all know how startup products get build and how they often fail before they excel. So these top notch sales guys would keep on setting up all these great meetings with big names but never close. First they tell you that closing a deal with a blue chip company takes forever (true, they often do take forever). So they could ride along for quite some time without getting caught. Then when pushed, they would make up fair excuses, why their contact would not buy our stuff. This happened to me in my early days as a GM and it took me about a year and a half to see through this.

Now I never hire a sales person based on his rolodex anymore. I find out if the sales person is truly passionate about the product.

Also, on that note, stay away from the sales guy who tells you that he will sell anything to anyone. My best sales hires in the past years have always been people who think that they are not sales people at all :)