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is sales really that hard for people? you just talk to people and convince them lol its not that hard. i didn't know i was good at sales turns out i just have to be me and people like what i gotta say
It’s impossible if you’re scared of rejection, which an overwhelming amount of people are
is sales really that hard for people? you just talk to people and convince them lol its not that hard. i didn't know i was good at sales turns out i just have to be me and people like what i gotta say
This was super useful. As a technical person willing to learn sales, the numbers that you showed at the different stages of the funnel shows that is all a numbers game and rejection is the norm. From 487 connections to 2 paid clients. Great post!
"1) it is highly scalable and you can easily send out thousands of emails per day, 2) it’s a fairly “democratic” form of outreach where you can achieve great outcomes with good offers sent to the right people, and 3) there’s no platform risk." From a European citizen point of view, this framing ignores a very real constraint: GDPR. In the EU, sending marketing emails is not just a growth tactic, it is regulated perso…
While fundraising is also a form of selling, I am specifically using it to mean actually making deals with customers as lead BD as this person described.
After 5 years there is no amount of incentives that would make me do sales. The entire job is manipulating people to work against their own best interest.
People who are sales people for a lifetime will tell you all of this bullshit about how it’s relationship based and it’s really just talking about the customer about their problem and how their problem fits in to your solution or if it doesn’t in the best case then you don’t engage with them and you find a better target submarket etc…
Probably the best sales guy I’ve ever met became a “good friend” of mine when I was CTO for a massive government weapon system.
I went out on his boat he met my kids we met each others families. He went out on his own and found a giant CRT monitor for me, so that I could start ranking up in Tetris after I made an offhand comment about it. He even called me up personally when he left that company because he was moving to a new company and just wanted to touch base and etc. and continue our relationship.
The moment he did not need my business there was nothing to be said.
That is the Peak of salesmanship and if that’s the Peak I don’t want anything to do with it.
So while I understand this person’s story, as an extremely technical person who had to do sales for years, I found absolutely nothing rewarding beneficial or good about it.
I would feel better about being a sex worker, escort or prostitute, because at least there’s no ambiguity as to what’s going to happen.
In a transactional business (You give me money I give you product/service) the majority of the time you’re trying to figure out how you’re getting fucked over, or how you’re gonna get fucked over, or how can fuck over someone and your job is to manage these fake, corporate “relationships” that are trying to constantly reevaluate and renegotiate things.
So my only advice as a technical person is “Don’t join a company before product market fit, and stay as far away as you can from business processes as possible until you don’t have to work for a business ever again”
"1) it is highly scalable and you can easily send out thousands of emails per day, 2) it’s a fairly “democratic” form of outreach where you can achieve great outcomes with good offers sent to the right people, and 3) there’s no platform risk." From a European citizen point of view, this framing ignores a very real constraint: GDPR. In the EU, sending marketing emails is not just a growth tactic, it is regulated perso…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think that sales is among the many realms where freely available quality instructional material has become ubiquitous in the past decade? Not that it would ever work as a full stand-in for a paid coach, but it might be enough to bridge the gap for some of us.
Yes I think possible. 1. sales aptitude assessment tools like Objective Management Group (the one I took) help you identify core weaknesses that are critical to understand and work on. 2. Recording your sales calls (assuming you're on the phone) and then asking AI to critique it and coach you, with the above assessment as context, could be very helpful. If you're disciplined I think the above approach may be a pretty…
"1) it is highly scalable and you can easily send out thousands of emails per day, 2) it’s a fairly “democratic” form of outreach where you can achieve great outcomes with good offers sent to the right people, and 3) there’s no platform risk." From a European citizen point of view, this framing ignores a very real constraint: GDPR. In the EU, sending marketing emails is not just a growth tactic, it is regulated perso…
For the love of all that is holy and all that isn't, do not get your legal advice from ChatGPT. Reposting that advice as though it was your own writing, such that unattentive readers might not recognise that the legal advice was coming from ChatGPT and might mistake it as coming from someone who has any idea what they're talking about, is even worse.
When I was a CEO (technical founder) I had to learn very quickly that my key job was selling. While fundraising is also a form of selling, I am specifically using it to mean actually making deals with customers as lead BD as this person described. After 5 years there is no amount of incentives that would make me do sales. The entire job is manipulating people to work against their own best interest. People who are sa…
When I was a CEO (technical founder) I had to learn very quickly that my key job was selling. While fundraising is also a form of selling, I am specifically using it to mean actually making deals with customers as lead BD as this person described. After 5 years there is no amount of incentives that would make me do sales. The entire job is manipulating people to work against their own best interest. People who are sa…
I feel this howl. I found that sales work was forming relationships so that you could make promises, personal promises. And what drove me out of it was that, beyond a certain point, there was no way I could guarantee that the promises I was making would be met. There was too much uncertainty, too much risk. But the client, in their heart, wanted you to look them in the eye and say "we'll get it done". Real sales peop…
100% this
I can’t think of a more toxic environment than the sales culture.
Go look at literally any sales culture organization and it’s an unironic copy of Wolf of Wall Street