61–70 of 305 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a summary of the title, but not of the article.
What more substance is there?
Oh neat, how?
> Unlike many of my less successful colleagues, I quickly learned to take yes for an answer; though we were legally required to read a long list of mandatory disclosures to all our sales, I noticed that this often broke the spell and gave people an opening to back out or “wait and ask the wife about it.” As soon as I heard a yes, I said, “Great choice!” and transferred them to confirmation. My manager occasionally came by and reminded me that it was technically illegal to skip my disclosures, but he made commission off my commission, and his tone made it clear that I could do as I pleased as long as I kept putting up numbers.
[…]
> I was one of the first to go, technically for not making my required disclosures—about cancellation fees, international rates, all that fine print nobody ever bothered to recite—on a sale.
So, he and his boss did crime together for a while and then eventually their scam stopped working and he got fired.
#1: An inmate who preaches "criminal wisdom" of questionable quality, like " want to know how to disable a burglar alarm with aluminum foil? " #2: A telemarketing old lady with a "warm voice and metronomic cadence". #3: An NYC beggar who "walks up to a table, falls to his knees, interlaces his hands as if in prayer, and begs, at the top of his lungs, Please please please, money, please I need a dollar! "
I’ve sold SaaS for three different companies.
B2B accounting, Procurement SaaS, and Senior living SaaS (niche, I know).
My only rule:
1. Have a good product.
Yup.
Things have to fall in place - even in the example of Nebraska lightning rod scam, people had to move out of sod houses to framed ones for the demand to be there. You are just a cog in the wheel. The economy, regulations, market fad or flavour of the month, competitor missteps, timing all these make "great salesmen".
> I know a good salesman when I see one. I was, briefly, the No. 1 telemarketer in the United States. Oh neat, how? > Unlike many of my less successful colleagues, I quickly learned to take yes for an answer; though we were legally required to read a long list of mandatory disclosures to all our sales, I noticed that this often broke the spell and gave people an opening to back out or “wait and ask the wife about it.…
I'm getting the strangest feeling that maybe this guy isn't done peddling bullshit?
There is an absolute flood of internet articles that tell basically the same anecdote "the best salesman I ever met is not a salesman", or simple variations. Most of them have this talkative, knowledgeable salesman character. Can someone from the industry tell me if this is some kind of ritual of passage? Maybe a prank on new authors? It doesn't make any sense to me. All these articles are the same trick repeated ove…
This is utterly shocking to anyone who knew me back then, as it was a complete 180° from my socially-petrified personality. I believed in the cause, but when I showed up at the local campaign office, they didn't need the printers fixed or any data entered (several folks in wheelchairs had that covered), and they explained that the best place I could be was on someone's porch. I couldn't bring myself to walk away, so I forced myself out of my comfort zone, picked up a clipboard, and rang a doorbell.
The world did not end.
I figured out some hacks pretty quickly.
First, like all canvassers, I prominently displayed several campaign buttons AND a badge that identified me, so verbally reiterating THAT was a really dull way to open. Door closed in face, politely if I was lucky.
It was much better to size up the house as I walked up to it, and pick something to open with. If they grew plants I recognized, I'd point that out, and talk about the environment. If they had a flag out, I'd thank them and talk about civic pride. If they had a compact fluorescent bulb in their porch light, I'd point to it and say "And I'm pretty sure we agree on a lot of things beyond that!". I dared not elaborate on that one, lest I interrupt their ear-to-ear grin, that someone had picked up on their little spiral sign.
All of these were things that THEY had done. They planted the flowers. They hung the flag. They chose the lightbulb. And I sussed out the little decisions embodied in those things, things that they were quietly proud of, and complimented them for their good taste, and explained that I, too, found these things important. So important that I forced myself out of my comfort zone, and found myself on a stranger's porch asking if they also felt strongly enough to join me in taking action. Of course, they already HAD taken action, and we both knew it.
Who's going to say no to that?
Second, there was the noncommittal "I'm still doing my research / just don't know enough about the candidate yet". Technically noncommittal, but it was pretty late in the game, and this was actually a polite "no". I suspected that many of them were a thin façade for racism, as gutting as that felt, and feels to this day.
But I thanked them profusely for "still doing their research". I was SO GLAD that they wouldn't vote for someone they didn't know enough about yet! Because of course all voters have a duty to be informed, and it was really gratifying that they took it so seriously. And besides, I confided: I was quite comfortable that when they actually DID do a satisfactory amount of research, when they DID get to know the candidate better (as I had, obsessively, read everything I could get my hands on over the prior weeks), that I could count on their vote. I thanked them again for their diligence, and left that to linger as I trotted back to the sidewalk.
Followups showed that of these "3" (on a scale of 1 to 5) contacts were incredibly likely to swing to a 4 or a 5 after my visit. Vastly more so than other canvassers' 3's. And later, they actually did get out and vote, at abnormally high rates.
Because I'd structured it such that supporting the candidate was the obvious and inevitable outcome of learning more about him. And who wants to remain ignorant? (Okay, note for 2025: A decade or two ago, this question was much more rhetorical.)
Third, and I hinted at it above, I was very open and self-deprecating about how uncomfortable I was with canvassing in general. But I was really glad that, if I had to be on a stranger's porch, at least it was their porch. They'd been very nice, despite my interrupting their dinner! I was asking them for the favor of their vote, and they'd already done me a favor in answering the door. They clearly were kind, thoughtful people, and that's exactly the theme of hope and pride and support that I knew I could count on.
There's a well-worn anecdote about Benjamin Franklin asking to borrow a rare book from someone who disliked him. In asking for it, Franklin showed his good taste in books, a thing that the two men now shared. And refusing the loan would've been uncouth, so the man loaned it, but now he'd done Franklin a favor, and who would do a favor for someone they disliked? So logically, goes the story, he must like Franklin.
I had people leave their plates mid-dinner, to walk back to the campaign office with me and sign up for tomorrow's canvassing shift. If I could handle it, so could they, and gosh darn it, they were going to.
I was so proud that I was good at this, until one day:
I'd been doing a lot of it (being between jobs, as I was), and I had a pretty good track record, so they started sending new canvassers out with me to show them the ropes. We'd knock the first street or two together, then split up and do opposite sides of the same street until we finished our turf, then they'd get their own and go out solo. One such newbie, as I shared the tips described above, said those were great, then casually asked "so how long have you been in sales?"
That's when the world ended.
The best sales people I've worked with were incredible strategic thinkers and not really sales people at all. They built an intimate knowledge of their customer and their industry, built strong connections with the top brass of their client by delivering exceptional work that got those people promoted, and were really good at building autonomous teams that could get the (exceptional) work done with their guidance on…
How does a salesperson deliver exceptional work? In every place I’ve worked, outside of independent contracting, the sales person didn’t do the trench work.
Have you ever worked at a place where the sales people promised features that didn't exist? A bad sales person can ensure you're in the trenches doing work that is urgent but not important. A good sales person anticipates requirements, identifies when they're not currently available, and proactively works with the right people to get the important features prioritized strategically.
The sales people talk to the customers, so from a certain perspective they're the ones in the trenches and talking to customers while you're in the back office plugging away at a keyboard.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What more substance is there?
The message seems to be: sales is a soul-sucking job, a demoralizing exercise on psychopathic exploitation in which making people feel something (be it good or not) is the way into their wallets.