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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

#291

Post by ozim »

Karellen wrote: post #258
ozim wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why you don’t answer phone calls with „yes” as sometimes they would say your name and you would be inclined replying „yes, speaking”. Just heard stories some shitty companies/sales would push you over they have your „yes” on recording. I don’t believe it would hold in any court if they would have to play the whole thing. But it would work on people who are not so tough. Sattelite TV sellers were awful they alm…

There is no evidence of a company using the fact that you've said "yes" at a random point in the conversation as confirmation that you've agreed to their (maybe unheard) pitch, despite variations on that urban legend doing the rounds for years. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/can-you-hear-me-scam/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_you_hear_me%3F_(alleged_te...

I just read in the article and I replied to a comment that has:

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.

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

#292

Post by TheGRS »

Great article, which reminded me of my brief flirting time with sales while I was in college and working retail jobs. Anyone who has worked retail probably knows there are the same level of sales involved, though its pretty low stakes. I'd sell extended warranties on laptops and other equipment at CompUSA. My manager on a few instances refused to let a laptop out the door without talking to the customer 3-4 different times, and sometimes they even relented. One time a large man began getting very angry with me for not selling him the laptop and looked like he was about to punch me in the face. Even though I was sometimes decent at it, I really hated how slimy it was for very measly commissions. I could see the appeal to some people, but I never wanted that to be my life. It was constantly stressful and demoralizing and at the end of the day you're just trying to extract more money from folks by whatever means necessary.

For folks praising their own SaaS salespeople or whatever, that's not really the type of person we're talking about here. And I daresay you probably just don't see that side of them because they know to hide it from non-sales folks.

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

#293

Post by TheGRS »

gitaarik wrote: post #165
dotancohen wrote: post #159

> it doesn’t matter what you’re selling—it matters how you make people feel. If you make them feel good, they’ll say yes. If you don’t, you could be selling a pill that reverses male-pattern baldness and makes you lose weight without exercise, and they’ll still turn you down flat. The old adage is as true as ever. People do not remember what you did or what you said. People remember how you made them feel.

Later on in the article the author also says that it's luck. Of course you need to be better than your colleagues to be the best, but also the environment you're working in should help. If there is demand for the product you're selling, and you can actually offer them an interesting deal, then you have a lot more chance of succeeding in your elite sales person life. If there's little demand, and the industry has chan…

The shift to luck part of it could be expanded on more I think, its emblematic of many believing they are hot shit at their new job or hobby. You have the right idea: the product matters and the market and shift underneath the best salespeople. But salespeople like this are also like chameleons who don't really care about the product in the first place, they go on to hock something else that's hot.

It also reminds me of every would-be day trader that posts to /r/wallstreetbets. Many will hit a hot streak after they figure out how the options market works, they start getting fancy and making bigger bets and dreaming about quitting their day job. Suddenly the luck runs out and their accounts hit zero. They thought they had the talent and wisdom to conquer the market, but they were just lucky at the casino for a little while.

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

#294

Post by flkiwi »

drowntoge wrote: post #287
flkiwi wrote: post #266

For what it's worth, this article has given me ample moral justification for the disdain I show for cold-callers and relationship-based sellers alike (though typically I'll be openly hostile only to the first group): I don't owe them anything, even people I work with over a period of years. As long as they're trying to sell me something, I have the thing they want and not the other way around. What's truly astonishin…

I hang up the moment I realize it’s a sales call. If I’m in a particularly great mood that day, I might mutter a quick “No thank you I’m not interested.” The way I vindicate myself morally is by knowing I’m not wasting their time this way. People like me are dead ends —— I know that I’m never going to be convinced to buy whatever they’re selling in a million years. By ending the call quickly, I feel like I’m doing th…

I try to do that, and if I get the robodialer pause I do hang up without any preamble. But some of the sales scripts are unnervingly similar to normal work conversations I have any day of the week. Those folks? They get the “no thank you” first, but sometimes they call back, and it’s open season after that.

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

#295

Post by benreesman »

moron4hire wrote: post #211
benreesman wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Are you part Tamarian? I can't understand half of what you're saying because it's all vague, half-completed cultural references.

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.

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

#296

Post by tasuki »

juliusdavies wrote: post #125
ornornor wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Knowing nothing about creative writing, I too enjoyed the article very much.

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

#297

Post by tasuki »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #72
mmaunder wrote: post #28

“…and you won’t like their secret” And y’all just keep scrolling through the ads for that secret that’ll explain to you what to be angry about. Some shit will never stop working.

I’ll forgive the clickbait, which could have come full circle to explain “you keep people interested” But the whole article was so terrible that I forgive nothing and want my time back. Who upvotes this trash?

It's interesting how different responses this article evokes. Many commenters found the writing "very good", "excellent", etc, while others thought the article "terrible" or "empty".

How comes?

Despite the hard to believe "No. 1 telemarketer in the United States" claim at the beginning, I ultimately found the author relatable. The article offered a glimpse into a world foreign to me, made interesting points about how doing sales changes one forever, and ended ironically wondering whether this article will help close a book deal.

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

#298

Post by tasuki »

JennyWeston wrote: post #286

That was a long and tedious article. It describes how to adopt a hardened & transactional mindset. UGH. Consumer sales is not Software Sales. In general - the professionals/engineers/managers I spoke with were really gracious and insightful. Most sales organizations operate like a factory producing widgets. This is fine. It produces outcomes at the lowest possible cost of sales. There are times when there is no subst…

> That was a long and tedious article. It describes how to adopt a hardened & transactional mindset. UGH.

It's not a how-to article: it's someone's story. I think they regretted the hardened and transactional mindset.

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

#299

Post by [deleted] »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #271
yoyohello13 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least Engineers are trying to create something of value. Salespeople are just trying extract your value.

Positive sum exchange is value creation. To take an extreme example: Selling a starving person a meal doesn't just extract the price value, but creates it too. You might argue that there are better or more efficient was of creating that value, but the fact that it is created is inescapable. If you want to make a utilitarian value argument against it, you need to compare it to a real world alternative subject to scrut…

[deleted]

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

#300

Post by gitaarik »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #74
nextworddev wrote: post #45

The real secret to having a successful sales career is to work at a company that sells a market leading product. This trumps 99% of anything you can do as an individual. I have seen complete noobs have good sales careers at AWS

That's the difference between being a great salesman and having great sales. Any idiot can sell something that's in demand. It takes a genius to sell something that nobody wants. It's better to be the idiot.

Even a genius can't keep up selling stuff nobody wants. If you're a genius, you won't be so foolish attempting that.
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