That One Time I Hired A Homeless Guy – But I Needed A Good Telemarketer

You want to hear about equal opportunity employer?

My business was just starting up and I was in the process of removing myself from working IN the business and working ON the business.  So, I had this bright idea to hire a telemarketer because I was too busy (scared) to do it myself.  I put out an ad on Craiglist and had some interest.  Mind you, this was 2010 so the economy was still waking up.

Here comes a guy who sends me a fancy worded email then traces my email response and calls me.  He closes me on the phone for the interview.  I’m impressed and also scared.

Guy shows up to interview – wearing a suede blazer and black pants with collared shirt – no tie.  Mind you – this was middle of summer in Bay Area – Northern CA.  Still – no red flags for me.  Talk to him and I start getting a whiff of some BO – serious BO.  I’m talking, the odor was left in my chair after he left.

Anyway, I proceed to the next part of the interview.  I give him  list of 10 names to call and give him a script.  He closes a meeting with the 1st person he calls.  BOOM!  He’s hired.

Now, granted a few days later I was informed he doesn’t use CRMs, or computers but only Index Cards to write information on who he called and the outcome.  So, I found myself manually entering this data into the computer and one night I realized – what the fuck am I doing?

After some terse words – I had to let him go.  I realized that all of the other headaches just was not worth the fact he is a human being and can talk to people on the phone.  I also realized in that situation that salespeople could hold a small business hostage in case they choose to leave and that prompted me to tap into my sales side and start learning.