Hiring Sales: The Veteran Trap & My Move to Singapore
S2, #32: Why I struggled to hire senior salespeople, and why Odoo can’t fix bad hiring.
Hi,
Welcome to issue #32 of Odoo Trailblazer, our journey to become the #1 Odoo partner.
I am finally back to sharing my newsletter!
Many of you asked me about it when we met in person at Odoo Experience last September. It warmed my heart to see that people actually read this, and it gave me the motivation to restart.
Where have I been? Well, I moved to Singapore in April 2025.
In many ways, it reminds me of Tokyo. It is clean, safe, and efficient. I admit, I miss the Japanese culture and that unique level of care they put into everything.
But I must say... I enjoy the effectiveness (and the taxes) of Singapore.
(”Ohh, the capitalist!” I hear you say. Yes, I am. I stand for efficiency in businesses and in governments.)
But today, I want to talk about something less efficient: hiring salespeople.
I touched on this in my LinkedIn post yesterday, but I want to go deeper here into the “Veteran Trap” and why I failed to manage experienced hires.
Agenda
The “Veteran” Trap (It’s not what you think)
My failure: The fear of giving feedback
The 70% Filter
How Odoo can (and can’t) help
Conclusion
1. The “Veteran” Trap (It’s not what you think)
I won’t share specific horror stories today, but looking back at my 10 years as an entrepreneur, I realize a pattern.
I have made many bad hiring decisions. But the most painful ones weren’t the “bad” candidates. They were very good, experienced people who joined our firm and ended the wrong way.
Why?
In the Odoo ecosystem (and complex B2B sales in general), success comes from being hands-on. You need to open the database, understand the product, and configure the demo.
The problem I found with some “veteran” hires is that they tend to be less hands-on. They are used to having a pre-sales engineer do the technical work.
They are slower to learn the product because they rely on their “sales instinct” rather than product expertise.
In Odoo, if you don’t know the product, you can’t sell the solution.
2. My failure: The fear of giving feedback
This is the hard truth I have to admit: The failure was often mine.
When you hire someone with 15 years of experience, someone who has sold millions in software before, you get “impressed.” You assume they know what they are doing.
So when they start underperforming, or when they refuse to log activities in the CRM, you hesitate.
I was scared to give them brutal feedback. I thought, “Who am I to tell this veteran how to sell?”
So I let things slide. I didn’t enforce our standards. And by the time I realized they weren’t learning the product or delivering results, it was too late. The cost—in salary and lost opportunity—was massive.
3. The 70% Filter
“But Gaspard,” you ask, “don’t you do case studies?”
Yes, we do. We give candidates a case study to test their skills. But I’ve learned that it only filters out about 70% of the bad fits.
A veteran salesperson can often “hack” a case study with charisma and presentation skills. They can sell the idea of the solution without actually understanding the mechanics of Odoo.
We are still looking for that perfect test that reveals if someone is truly willing to get their hands dirty.
(Note: I must add that we do have a few “older” and experienced people performing very well in our team today. You will recognize yourselves! This is just a reminder that there is no strict playbook in entrepreneurship. Generalities are useful for learning, but exceptions build the business.)
4. How Odoo can (and can’t) help
Usually, in this section, I tell you how we use Odoo to solve a problem.
We use Odoo Recruitment to manage our pipeline of candidates. It helps to cut overheads but not to hire better candidates.
Odoo doesn’t solve all business challenges, unfortunately.
Odoo (or any software) cannot fix a bad hiring decision. It cannot give feedback to an underperforming senior manager for you. It cannot replace the intuition you need to develop as a leader.
Software makes us efficient, but it doesn’t make great entrepreneurs (yet!). That part is up to us.
5. Conclusion
I am still learning how to balance “respect for experience” with the “demand for hands-on results.”
If you are a founder, don’t be dazzled by a resume. If they don’t learn the product, they can’t help you. And don’t be afraid to give feedback, even to people older or more experienced than you.
It feels good to be writing again. I’ll see you next week (from Singapore!).
Did I miss anything? How do you manage senior hires who underperform? Let me know in the comments.
Follow us on LinkedIn for more updates: Gaspard (Founder & CEO), or Port Cities (our company page).
To know more about Port Cities and how we help companies use Odoo (business software), visit our website.
The hesitation to give direct feedback to experienced hires is such a real trap. What clicked for me reading this is that the "70% filter" problem isn't about the case study itslef but about what gets tested, charisma vs actual willingness to iterate on product details. I've seen similar dynamics with technical hires who could architecturally diagram anything but wouldn't actually debug code. The hands-on gap becomes visible way too late when everyones already invested.