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Learn to sell

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Re: Learn to sell

#61

Post by pc86 »

busterarm wrote: post #32
a13n wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boohoo, you're one of the most highly taxed people... aka you make a lot of money? You know how lucky we are to get to do what we love and get paid heaps for it? Honestly there are plenty of software engineering jobs (in the Bay Area and out) that pay you six figures to work 9-5. Your experience isn't the norm. Go join a big company if you want comfortable. Then your equity will actually be worth something too, one l…

Nobody is "lucky" to be working long hours. No matter how much they love what they're doing. An engineer making $150k working 60 hour weeks is making $5/hr less than an engineer earning $100k working 36 hour weeks. The latter is literally earning more _for their time_ working half as much for 2/3 the salary. The hourly rate of an engineer earning $250k for 60 hour weeks is the same as an engineer earning $150k for 36…

I'm not a founder but agree with a13n. Working long hours is not the norm for software development. I live in a city 99% of the people here have never heard of, working 40.0 hours a week (not 36, which seems like an odd number to pick), and I'd need to make $330k in San Francisco to have the same standard of living.

There are plenty of very well compensated 40-hour-a-week software development jobs available.

Re: Learn to sell

#62

Post by aaavl2821 »

madamelic wrote: post #8

Does anyone have any book suggestions for an engineer who wants to learn sales / convincing people? Do you recommend doing trial by fire and getting a sales job? I've realized that I am good at the technicals but terrible at selling why people should do what I say.

You can focus on improving your sales skills within your own job; all jobs require some degree of "sales skills", as it really boils down to communication.

Maybe observe how effective you are in convincing your colleagues of the merits of your ideas, or getting to be involved in projects youre interested in, etc. Observe when a conversation doesnt go as youd hoped, and think about why. Find a colleague you think does a good job of this and learn from her / him. Make it a goal to focus on listening as much as possible. Read books, then identify tactics youd like to try, and try them out at work in a comfortable setting

If you have time, you can create a side project and try selling that. Doesnt even have to be a real business or something youd want to pursue, just make something you think people could want, find the ppl who might want it, ask about their needs, and see if you can position your product to meet their needs

Re: Learn to sell

#63

Post by pc86 »

joshwcomeau wrote: post #49

> It doesn’t matter how brilliant your software engineering is if no one buys it. Right, because so many people buy Facebook products, or Twitter, or Google... Many, if not most, software products don't sell anything. While there are tons of problems with getting 100% of your revenue from ads, the fact remains that many companies don't have anything to sell to their consumers. Of course, you have to make a good, stic…

We spend several hundreds of dollars a day on Facebook ads and know of many companies spending thousands or tens of thousands a day. that's what FB is selling, isn't it?

Re: Learn to sell

#64

Post by pitt1980 »

madamelic wrote: post #8

Does anyone have any book suggestions for an engineer who wants to learn sales / convincing people? Do you recommend doing trial by fire and getting a sales job? I've realized that I am good at the technicals but terrible at selling why people should do what I say.

Spin Selling by Neil Rackham presents a useful theoretical framework for selling

https://www.amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil-Rackham/dp/00705111...

There are many sales books that present scripts, in general I think they are useful to read for generating ideas, I would suggest never using a script that doesn't feel comfortable for you to say, I would suggest also thinking about fitting any script you use back into the larger theoretical framework from the above book

personally, I like the scripts presented in Stephen Schiffman's books, https://www.amazon.com/Stephan-Schiffman/e/B001H9PRO2/ref=sr...

mainly on the ground that none of them make me cringe to say (specifically the '250 sales questions' and the 'Cold Calling' books), what makes you cringe is likely to be a little different from what makes me cringe, so your mileage will probably vary

there are a lot of books in this general genre, check out https://www.amazon.com/Brian-Tracy/e/B001H6OMRI/ref=sr_ntt_s... and https://www.amazon.com/Zig-Ziglar/e/B000AP7VIY/ref=sr_ntt_sr...

I do think these books present lots of good material for brainstorming, but some percentage of both these books I couldn't say to someone without cringing (I would suggest listening to that voice in your head, if it'd make you cringe, it's likely to make whoever you're saying it to cringe as well)

-----

fwiw, these books tend to be exceptionally easy reads, so I suggest checking them out, taking what you find useful, and leaving what you don't

Re: Learn to sell

#65

Post by 20years »

madamelic wrote: post #8

Does anyone have any book suggestions for an engineer who wants to learn sales / convincing people? Do you recommend doing trial by fire and getting a sales job? I've realized that I am good at the technicals but terrible at selling why people should do what I say.

I really liked Pitch Anything. Good actionable advice in it but I also found a lot of the neuroeconomics discussed in the book very interesting. Helped me in other areas too.

Re: Learn to sell

#66

Post by pc86 »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #16

tl;dr - Most of the article tries to justify why it's important to Learn to sell. Actionable guidance: "cold calling, sending tons of emails, doing prospect/company research and developing cold leads into warm ones" and get a job in sales ("role", "experience", "career"). My personal project is a Chinese learning page. https://pingtype.github.io I tried sending hundreds of emails, researching all the Chinese language…

Speaking only of the Facebook point, I'd bet quite a bit of money no more than 100-200 of your friends have any idea you posted that or ever saw it. It's been 5 years or more since you could be guaranteed your friends would see something you posted on FB.

Re: Learn to sell

#67

Post by abhiyerra »

pitt1980 wrote: post #40
abhiyerra wrote: post #26

As an engineer coming into sales I found the thing I love about sales is that it is problem solving. If you can get in the door the main thing is you are solving a problem for your prospective client. That is no different from engineering you are interfacing with people instead of computers. There are some great books on sales and why sales gets a bad rap is most sales people don’t seem to have read those books. I no…

Love to hear which sales books you consider great

- The challenger sale - Snap selling - Little red book of selling - Spin selling - thinking fast and slow

All of these are of the mindset of help your customer first and foremost, the sale is a secondary effect of the helping. And given my nature that has made sales a lot easier since I’m not an extroverted manipulator, I’m an introverted problem solver.

Re: Learn to sell

#68

Post by pitt1980 »

abhiyerra wrote: post #67
pitt1980 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love to hear which sales books you consider great

- The challenger sale - Snap selling - Little red book of selling - Spin selling - thinking fast and slow All of these are of the mindset of help your customer first and foremost, the sale is a secondary effect of the helping. And given my nature that has made sales a lot easier since I’m not an extroverted manipulator, I’m an introverted problem solver.

thanks

Re: Learn to sell

#69

Post by mlevental »

pc86 wrote: post #61
busterarm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is "lucky" to be working long hours. No matter how much they love what they're doing. An engineer making $150k working 60 hour weeks is making $5/hr less than an engineer earning $100k working 36 hour weeks. The latter is literally earning more _for their time_ working half as much for 2/3 the salary. The hourly rate of an engineer earning $250k for 60 hour weeks is the same as an engineer earning $150k for 36…

I'm not a founder but agree with a13n. Working long hours is not the norm for software development. I live in a city 99% of the people here have never heard of, working 40.0 hours a week (not 36, which seems like an odd number to pick), and I'd need to make $330k in San Francisco to have the same standard of living. There are plenty of very well compensated 40-hour-a-week software development jobs available.

i'd like to hear about this city

Re: Learn to sell

#70

Post by pipio21 »

shams93 wrote: post #4

The life of an engineer is a life if sacrifice and 7 days a week work for five days pay. Often you never have a partner so you're the most highly taxed people in the country especially in California. While you often work triple time you're rarely if ever paid for overtime it's taken for granted that you're not ever compensated for 3/4 of the hours you work. Nothing can happen without you but sales people get a piece…

Take a week off and go travel to India or Africa(Ethiopia, Sahara Morocco, Congo are good candidates) or Tibet. Join some NGO or missionary for helping them.

You need perspective in your live to understand how really lucky you are. It is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Your life is miserable and the faster you change your track the better for your life.

For me it is just obscene hearing you. You are a passive aggressive coward. If you think sales is so good, do it for a month! It is a very useful skill and most places will let you do sales if you do engineering.

I do it with the engineers in my company. Clients love to hear engineers and trust them more than just sales rep, and engineers learn about people skills and good product design.

Most of them will go back being able to create products more useful to clients as they know their problems and being grateful about the existence of people doing the sales for them.

People in sales learn to respect the knowledge of engineers. They also believe the greener is on the other side if they live isolated from engineers.

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