261–270 of 305 posts
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There’s an entire political culture built on this framework. And it’s spreading.
It's telling that I have no idea what your politics are from this statement. It could equally be a criticism of the left or the right in America.
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Sales are maligned for good reason. I'd wager I've experienced the "you know nothing about formal wear but somebody sells you a suit you really feel good in" salesperson a handful of times. Now, the number of times I've had someone try to sell me something while clearly not listening to what I have to say and getting uncomfortably pushy about it, well... yikes.
Engineers are awful too. The number of times I have been subjected to needlessly bad product designs far exceeds my negative interactions with sales people. And then there are the products that fail at their one function.
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Engineers are awful too. The number of times I have been subjected to needlessly bad product designs far exceeds my negative interactions with sales people. And then there are the products that fail at their one function.
At least Engineers are trying to create something of value. Salespeople are just trying extract your value.
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I think you value their work too little. I worked as a realtor for a time and admittedly not a good one. A good realtor has knowledge of current values in the local market, issues to look for throughout the transaction, which services will be needed and who can be trusted to provide those services. There is often an element of buffering communication between buyer and seller, but it's not just a trust problem. Due to…
>A good realtor has knowledge of current values in the local market, issues to look for throughout the transaction, which services will be needed and who can be trusted to provide those services. Even if a "good" Realtor actually knows these things (and they don't, even though most think they do), you can't trust anything they say because they have misaligned incentives from you. So what service am I paying for, agai…
You don't have to, those contracts are optional. They will threaten to not represent you, but if you are a well qualified buyer, this is something you can force without much risk.
The more well qualified buyers refuse, the more normalized working for clients without contracts will be
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My archetype of a good sales person is the successful realtor. Realtors tend to “eat what they can kill”, so you can see the skills power law clearly. They are selling themselves more than houses, but there’s a lot to learn from that. Some people love their realtors, although they do very little for their outlandish commissions. They do however, guide you through the process and give you transactional advice. Like an…
> although they do very little for their outlandish commissions Realtors exist because buyers and sellers usually don't trust each other enough to talk directly. It's stupid and inefficient, but here we are.
I remember one guy, years ago, who ended a 45-second year-end cold call with me with a "Come on man, I have a family. At least hear me out!" I responded, "Get a better job then. I have work to do." As a moral human, I feel sort of bad about that response, but then I remember there's a substantial likelihood he was lying to me to keep the call going to score a sale and the grift depends on me being moral.
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Sales are maligned. There is the guy at the car dealership who specializes in adding an extended service contract for your new car. Then there's the guy who sells a software development project that lands a well qualified customer (joy to work with) and a good specification which was well estimated and price so you can complete the work profitably. Maybe you know nothing about formalwear but somebody sells you a suit…
How does someone become someone who sells the software development project? Is this an architect or sales engineer? I’m confused by how a sales engineer would gain the level of expertise needed to sell the project and specs/implementation. Do they usually come from an IC developer role?
Sales isn't difficult. It's just telling people what you have that makes their lives better. The particulars matter - who are these people, what do you have, how it makes their lives better. Dodgy salespeople cheat on the latter two - they have an inferior product and try to convince others it does more than what it should. And then they double down on this skill of BS. The right way to do sales is to have a good product, figure out how to find leads that want it, and figure out how to best explain it.
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Sales are maligned. There is the guy at the car dealership who specializes in adding an extended service contract for your new car. Then there's the guy who sells a software development project that lands a well qualified customer (joy to work with) and a good specification which was well estimated and price so you can complete the work profitably. Maybe you know nothing about formalwear but somebody sells you a suit…
How does someone become someone who sells the software development project? Is this an architect or sales engineer? I’m confused by how a sales engineer would gain the level of expertise needed to sell the project and specs/implementation. Do they usually come from an IC developer role?
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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.
It is against the rules to imply that the person you are responding to hasn’t read the article, but I don’t think it is against the rules to implore the community to read it, generally.