I was looking to sign up and see if it could work for our sales team but it looks like that is not possible without an invite code?
Yes, please use the code "minutes_alpha," and you'll receive 60 free transcription minutes to play with the service.
Show HN: Minutes – Save up to 20% of salespeople's time
31–40 of 42 posts
Re: Show HN: Minutes – Save up to 20% of salespeople's time
#32Seems like a super-useful service. Do you have any kind of private/gdpr-compliant hosting options? I know that will be important for some folks before they put any kind of business-confidential matters into such a service.
That's a good point, the one I am working on right now. As is today - no, but will be in several weeks.
Re: Show HN: Minutes – Save up to 20% of salespeople's time
#33Seems like a super-useful service. Do you have any kind of private/gdpr-compliant hosting options? I know that will be important for some folks before they put any kind of business-confidential matters into such a service.
That's a good point, the one I am working on right now. As is today - no, but will be in several weeks.
Cool. To set expectations, I'm not in the market (although your thing looks cool), but it's a request we have made to analogous services in the past so I wanted you to know that there will be enterprise customers who will ask for such a thing.
Re: Show HN: Minutes – Save up to 20% of salespeople's time
#34I have a great method for keeping sales calls short, and pretty much 90% of my meetings are 30 minutes or less. * Agendas: I do not take a meeting request without an agenda. 50% of the time this eliminates the meeting because either it's a few questions than can be an email, or they cancel the request because doing that is too much work. This is ideal when people are using meetings to transfer cognitive loads to othe…
> I skip all the prelim questions where they "learn about your business" which is just looking for other opportunities to pitch me things. I know my business, I know my need, let's talk about how your product fits that. The only way for the sales folks to tailor a demo or presentation for you is to learn about your business. Your method here comes across as very transactional and impersonal, you need a relationship w…
No we don’t need a relationship. It is transactional, and the fact that they think they need a relationship wastes time and aggravates me.
Yes it’s better for them if they “build a relationship” because it better enables them to upsell, but it’s not at all necessary or advantageous for the person buying the product.
I don’t need them to “tailor their experience” to me. I need them to be transparent about their functionality and the technical details so I can scope value and integration efforts. The sales people never want this because it easily exposes that they’re trying to sell me a lemon.
If you are a salesperson and trying to build a relationship with me then you need to stop. You are being a sociopathic douchebag, flat out. You are not actually interested in me or my problems beyond making the sale so stop pretending.
Re: Show HN: Minutes – Save up to 20% of salespeople's time
#35Another way to save sales people time is to wear a t shirt that says “No, I don’t want it.”
Yeah, maybe instead of salespeople saving their time they could work to save our time instead.
Re: Show HN: Minutes – Save up to 20% of salespeople's time
#36I have a great method for keeping sales calls short, and pretty much 90% of my meetings are 30 minutes or less. * Agendas: I do not take a meeting request without an agenda. 50% of the time this eliminates the meeting because either it's a few questions than can be an email, or they cancel the request because doing that is too much work. This is ideal when people are using meetings to transfer cognitive loads to othe…
> I skip all the prelim questions where they "learn about your business" which is just looking for other opportunities to pitch me things. I know my business, I know my need, let's talk about how your product fits that. The only way for the sales folks to tailor a demo or presentation for you is to learn about your business. Your method here comes across as very transactional and impersonal, you need a relationship w…
> The only way for the sales folks to tailor a demo or presentation for you is to learn about your business.
I know my business better than they ever will, and I care about it more too.
> Your method here comes across as very transactional and impersonal,
This is exactly as it should be and precisely what I desire from my vendors. We can become friendly along the way and over time, but at the start I only care about what you can do for me and what it costs.
> you need a relationship with your sales rep as much as they need one with you so they will have your back or give you discounts. It's how the game is played.
It's one way the game is played. I don't play it that way and after a very short time salespeople that work with me LIKE how I do it. It's fast, efficient, and their commissions are the easiest they have because I neither need nor want lots of handholding. Imagine I send you an email asking for $40k of equipment, and to make your $2k all you have to do is enter the order. Even better, imagine you have a 60 minute presentation, and I cut in after 5, ask a handful of very specific questions, and after 20 minutes I'm ready to buy because I got the info I needed. You've made a sale, and saved over half of your hour.
Don't play the game, run it.
Re: Show HN: Minutes – Save up to 20% of salespeople's time
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I skip all the prelim questions where they "learn about your business" which is just looking for other opportunities to pitch me things. I know my business, I know my need, let's talk about how your product fits that. The only way for the sales folks to tailor a demo or presentation for you is to learn about your business. Your method here comes across as very transactional and impersonal, you need a relationship w…
> The only way for the sales folks to tailor a demo or presentation for you is to learn about your business. Yes and it's their job to do that, not waste the buying decisionmaker's time doing their homework for them.
Yeah, I work at a company that has a VERY clear website showing exactly what we do and what it's limited to. If you ask me what we do, that tells me you literally didn't even look at our website.
Re: Show HN: Minutes – Save up to 20% of salespeople's time
#38I have a great method for keeping sales calls short, and pretty much 90% of my meetings are 30 minutes or less. * Agendas: I do not take a meeting request without an agenda. 50% of the time this eliminates the meeting because either it's a few questions than can be an email, or they cancel the request because doing that is too much work. This is ideal when people are using meetings to transfer cognitive loads to othe…
In general, MOST calls should be 30 minutes. There are valid exceptions but with the increasing default to video calls one of the trends I favor is a general shift to 30 minute calls for most purposes. Long pre-pandemic, as an analyst, I found that most topics could be covered in 30 minutes. If you were a client I'd cut some slack but otherwise 30 minutes.
Yeah, since I hit upper management in healthcare IT about a decade ago, I've been pretty firm about 30 minute limits and only RARELY do we go over. It's actually really great. After the initial shock they tend to like it a lot.
Re: Show HN: Minutes – Save up to 20% of salespeople's time
#39I have a great method for keeping sales calls short, and pretty much 90% of my meetings are 30 minutes or less. * Agendas: I do not take a meeting request without an agenda. 50% of the time this eliminates the meeting because either it's a few questions than can be an email, or they cancel the request because doing that is too much work. This is ideal when people are using meetings to transfer cognitive loads to othe…
> I skip all the prelim questions where they "learn about your business" which is just looking for other opportunities to pitch me things. I know my business, I know my need, let's talk about how your product fits that. The only way for the sales folks to tailor a demo or presentation for you is to learn about your business. Your method here comes across as very transactional and impersonal, you need a relationship w…
Just as I do not need a relationship with a grocery clerk or used car dealer, I do not need a relationship with any salesperson. Interaction is formal and transactional.
Re: Show HN: Minutes – Save up to 20% of salespeople's time
#40I have a great method for keeping sales calls short, and pretty much 90% of my meetings are 30 minutes or less. * Agendas: I do not take a meeting request without an agenda. 50% of the time this eliminates the meeting because either it's a few questions than can be an email, or they cancel the request because doing that is too much work. This is ideal when people are using meetings to transfer cognitive loads to othe…
> I skip all the prelim questions where they "learn about your business" which is just looking for other opportunities to pitch me things. I know my business, My two cents...But do you know all the best practices? Let's say the product you are evaluating is used by your peers. It would be good to know what they use the product for or customizations they have gone through. For that the sales guys will need to learn ho…
Yes, I do know. I talk to my peers. Why would any salesperson think they are more trusted than a peer?