There are few things that frustrate me more than working with a rep who continues to promise the world, talks a really good game and then consistently flops in the execution of a campaign. Although I've become much better at sniffing out these people over the years, I'll still get caught now and then. Typically, I'll work with these types of people once or even twice if I'm able to clearly spell out everything I need in the contract, but after that I'm done.

Now, with almost every large campaign (and even some of the smaller ones), I'll ask for a client list. If unavailable, I'll reach out to my network and ask if anyone has done business with the company and individual rep. Without fail, I get numerous responses back within two hours. This word-of-mouth aspect is a key factor that can either lift your reputation and career to new heights or cause your reputation to sink faster than a mob informant in Lake Michigan.

When making big money decisions with a large campaign or technology vendor, the recommendation of the people in my network on whom I place a high degree of credibility, plays a critical role in my decision-making process. For example, we just went through a selection process for an email solution vendor. We spent hours going through the demos of several different companies. After the demos were complete, I reached out to my peers who are superstars when it comes to email marketing. After phone discussions regarding companies and reps, two of the reps (and therefore the companies they work for) were immediately dropped from consideration. The reason these companies fell out of consideration was because of the nightmare stories I heard from multiple peers regarding how the world was promised by the rep, but the delivery flopped.

These are the types of reps that I seek to avoid at all costs. These individuals will be able to have a short burst of sales success but will ultimately churn and burn clients that will never return. In addition, many of these clients will shout from the mountaintop to everyone listening to avoid these reps at all costs. The short sales bursts then quickly turn into a major flame-out for both the individual rep as well as the company they work for.