Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 305 posts

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

#271

Post by s1artibartfast »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #262
s1artibartfast wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 scrutiny that is just as harsh, not a perfect world one.

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

#272

Post by mrgoldenbrown »

PaulHoule wrote: post #226
inSenCite wrote: post #18

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…

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…

The first type is vastly more common than the second. So I don't think it's unfair to malign sales in general. And if I'm buying a suit I need a skilled tailor to alter it to fit me, not someone to convince me to buy a suit - if I'm in the suit store I already know I want a suit and for what purpose.

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

#273

Post by miiiiiike »

mbsa_cs wrote: post #255
miiiiiike wrote: post #195

It’s weird to meet people who look for the short-term gain in every single situation. Especially if they’re semi-talented but perennially “unlucky”. Usually trading on a curated public image or “likability” backed by nothing but positive sounding words and shifting excuses. Unable to build anything sustainable because they piss off every person with the ability to make them rich. Walk away. Remember them as they were…

I know this is about sales but your last words was what I needed to hear to get over my ex. Thank you!

Not my words. Hemingway's.

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

#274

Post by recursive »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #262
s1artibartfast wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If no one was selling, all that engineering wouldn't be "of value".

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

#275

Post by bonestamp2 »

inSenCite wrote: post #18

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…

> The sleazy sales people can build decent pipelines/sales numbers but they are not what I would ever label as 'elite'.

Absolutely. I have had the pleasure of working with a few elite sales people and none of them were sleazy. They were all extremely confident on the inside, but present as humble and even a little vulnerable on the outside. This is strategic as it builds trust, but I think it was also genuine for the most part -- they really wanted their customers to be happy and they wanted their customers to know that.

They dress nicely, but again in a humble way. They're not quite as polished looking as the "slick" sales people, and this too is part of their strategy. They can pull out a post it note or notebook and sketch a rudimentary diagram they've drawn a thousand times, and every time it looks like they just thought of this idea and are drawing it with wavy lines for the first time. I'm not sure if this one is intentional, but they all do it, and it always looks like they don't know how to draw straight lines.

I actually ran into someone like this at lens crafters recently. They were quite young, early to mid 20s I'd say, but after a few minutes of them telling me about the various lens options, I stopped and said, "You're the top salesperson here aren't you?" They gave me a funny look, and asked how I knew. "Just a guess" I said -- but in reality, I had seen all of their human dark-patterns before. Most people wouldn't even know they were being sold to, in fact, they would probably think the opposite... that the salesperson didn't care if they bought anything from them as long as they got the right solution from somebody in the end. Some of them will literally even say that. Of course, this only works when it is 100% believable and you don't identify it as part of their sales strategy.

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

#276

Post by tanewishly »

mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #272
PaulHoule wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The first type is vastly more common than the second. So I don't think it's unfair to malign sales in general. And if I'm buying a suit I need a skilled tailor to alter it to fit me, not someone to convince me to buy a suit - if I'm in the suit store I already know I want a suit and for what purpose.

> The first type is vastly more common than the second.

Depends- you might not even qualify non-type-1s as sales people. Especially the type that's trying to help you get what you need, and listen to you in the process.

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

#277

Post by underlipton »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #262
s1artibartfast wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good salespeople are trying to connect customers with solutions that provide them value that they otherwise wouldn't have access to (generally because they weren't aware of it). Obviously, in practice, the line between that and the more negative experiences can be fuzzy and vary by one's perspective, but unless you have someone in-house who's dedicated to searching for new solutions... And then, they turn into a sort of salesperson themselves, with ambiguous allegiances. At least someone from the outside is someone you will always be skeptical about.

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

#278

Post by draw_down »

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.

[dead]

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

#279

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jjulius wrote: post #227
PaulHoule wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Low-recurrence and low-value sales are almost entirely about exploiting information asymmetry. Most peoples’ sales experiences are almost entirely low value. (Low here meaning the client isn’t going to do independent diligence and doesn’t have the capacity and willingness to retaliate if screwed.)

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

#280

Post by walrus01 »

inSenCite wrote: post #18

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…

In the telecom industry/ISP infrastructure business, the very best sales people are much more like business intelligence/market research people. They know where everyone's infrastructure is in a given region, for fiber cable routes, right of way, POPs, and what carrier is riding on top of which one. Knowing who owns and operates the underlying dark fiber route, DWDM systems, regen huts and similar on a multi state region is what gives them the power to be so effective.

Being able to operate from a position of confidence and assurance on "who has what, where" is a very powerful tool. Then, when communicating with potential customers (particularly where it's one ISP entering into a relationship with another ISP), they can offer the correct product for what the customer is looking for. Or, if they can't, they can quickly say "sorry no we can't do that, we don't have any of our own stuff there, and we can't get there by an NNI".

Post reply on HN