I work for a midsize company selling regtech products to financial institutions around the world. I was recently annoyed with an incident with one of our sales exec and wanted to see how common/uncommon it is around the industry. As a product manager, I work closely with sales team and middle of a contract negotiation with a bank trying to close a licensing deal before this quarter end. From a product perspective, the sales exec is close to selling a product from a different product line even before its Generally available. GA date is Jan 2019 but lied to customer that particular product is GA as of June 2018 primarily to recognize revenue with internal finance team before end of this quarter. From a implementation per se the professional services team is completely unaware of the product architecture and they are already working with client on other implementation activities. There is no product documentation whatsoever except for marketing material that has nothing to do with technical teams. Is this kind of sales malpractice common in software Industry? Keep in mind almost all the sales and product leadership is aware of this fact that deal has to close and recognize revenue this quarter and no action being taken. Thoughts?
Don’t bother. Sales is different from product (done both). If you make a fuss about it, they will drive your product to the ground and you won’t see a dime. Sales is a big gang, take what they give you and stay away.