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In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work

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Re: In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work

#121

Post by sangnoir »

myself248 wrote: post #59
reaperman wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

By meticulously, accurately, and skeptically gathering ALL the requirements from the customer and bringing them to the engineers. It sounds inane, but it's appalling how often that doesn't happen, and how it irretrievably dooms a project before it starts.

This is software sales, which has long cycles, ongoing relationships and is a tiny sliver of the "hires salesmen" industry. For commoditized markets like phone plans, cable TV / ISPs, paper, or roof repairs after a hurricane, the ones who get the most sales are the ones without scruples.

Re: In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work

#122

Post by juliusdavies »

kqr wrote: post #111
bee_rider wrote: post #62

> 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.…

This is not... good sales. This is making the numbers. The customers acquired with this method are not good customers. To future salespeople in here: please work on selecting customers carefully, and pitch only to great two-way fits. That way, both customer and your organisation will thrive. I get that the salesperson is judged by volume closed, but this gives the rest of the organisation churn problems to deal with.

I can’t remember if it’s against HN rules to implore people to read the actual article.

The reason he became good at selling (according to the article) is because he changed his attitude despite reading the sales scripts verbatim both before and after his attitude adjustment.

It’s an interesting and probably helpful lesson for the startup hustlers here on HN if they can make it through this admittedly long essay.

Re: In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work

#123

Post by azinman2 »

creer wrote: post #87
bee_rider wrote: post #62

> 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.…

It's amazing how often "illegally" is the American Way. I only wish it were a joke.

What makes you think this is uniquely American versus human?

Re: In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work

#124

Post by [deleted] »

kqr wrote: post #111
bee_rider wrote: post #62

> 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.…

This is not... good sales. This is making the numbers. The customers acquired with this method are not good customers. To future salespeople in here: please work on selecting customers carefully, and pitch only to great two-way fits. That way, both customer and your organisation will thrive. I get that the salesperson is judged by volume closed, but this gives the rest of the organisation churn problems to deal with.

[deleted]

Re: In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work

#125

Post by juliusdavies »

ornornor wrote: post #102
enimodas wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a summary of the title, but not of the article.

The article was pretty much empty: someone trying to be edgy and making their word count. I didn’t enjoy reading the article and wish that for once I read the comments before the link.

I enjoyed the article very very much but I accidentally completed a BFA in creative writing in my youth so my taste in writing might be a bit off.

Re: In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work

#126

Post by snapetom »

douglee650 wrote: post #97
bee_rider wrote: post #62

> 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.…

A great mentor once taught me, "when you hear a yes, immediately agree and stop selling." Usually this means stop talking.

My company is a division in a political minefield that is the greater organization. In particular, my company is filled with people who have spent their entire careers as rank and file workers with their heads down and never had to develop the political savvy to steer through the minefield.

I don't know how many times I've told, and to how many coworkers, if the enemy is going to hang himself, stop talking and give him more rope.

Re: In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work

#127

Post by anovikov »

It's interesting how this phenomenon is completely nonexistent in Europe. On none of my EU phone numbers, in 15 years, i have ever received a telemarketing call apart from about 1-2 calls a year from phone company itself who usually tries to push some new tariff plan on me. Why?

Re: In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work

#128

Post by [deleted] »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #117
rbetts wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The message is also that consumerism is driven by demand creation - and that demand creation takes its toll on both the demander and the buyer.

The greatest minds of our generation are hard at work creating algorithms to give kids eating disorders, making the next iPhone 3mm thinner, and figuring out how to make a TV dinner that contains no actual food. Our modern world is so incredible. I wish we could do some good things.

[deleted]

Re: In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work

#129

Post by JumpCrisscross »

sangnoir wrote: post #121
myself248 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By meticulously, accurately, and skeptically gathering ALL the requirements from the customer and bringing them to the engineers. It sounds inane, but it's appalling how often that doesn't happen, and how it irretrievably dooms a project before it starts.

This is software sales, which has long cycles, ongoing relationships and is a tiny sliver of the "hires salesmen" industry. For commoditized markets like phone plans, cable TV / ISPs, paper, or roof repairs after a hurricane, the ones who get the most sales are the ones without scruples.

> For commoditized markets like phone plans, cable TV / ISPs, paper, or roof repairs after a hurricane, the ones who get the most sales are the ones without scruples

You’re describing low value, low recurrence sales. Those are numbers, not relationship, games, with high churn at that.

Re: In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work

#130

Post by [deleted] »

julianeon wrote: post #43
Ozarkian wrote: post #4

This piece obviously puts sales in a bad light. If you had asked me what a salesman is like in my early 20s, I would have described them much as this article expresses. But in my career in Silicon Valley I really came to respect good salespeople. I often had roles where I was debugging customer-reported issues, and good salespeople make everything smoother. I came to a conclusion that there are two types of sales tra…

I think they were trying to get at something (not very successfully). I'd put it like this. Want to find the best mathematician, the best engineer? Easy: just give them a hard test. Or more generally follow the metrics. The one with the highest score is the best, generally speaking. In that sense it's uncomplicated: administer the test, the highest scorer is your guy/girl. For sales there is no equivalent. There is n…

[deleted]
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