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 substitute for elite sales:
1) Getting customer #2-100.
2) Most products which sell for over 200k
3) Complex engagements with multiple decision makers
I worked in early stage startups and sold software to the Global 2000.
How?
1) Never contact someone unless you have very (*very) strong indicators that what you are offering has high value to them and their goals
2) KNOW what you are talking about. Be able to engage in conversations about their technical infrastructure, options, goals and politics.
3) The goal of every call is to add value... NOT to make a sale. Adding value will open doors and people pick up the phone. Trusted peers provide referrals. They provide insight.
A classic failure of early stage founders it to mistake the factory model of sales (efficiency) for the required model of sales (inefficient, research based, strategic).
To site the Cynefin framework (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework) They mistake mistakenly believe that sales is simple and can be structured like a factory.
Most sales people are factory workers. They crank widgets.
Most products don't have sufficient margin to justify hiring expensive talent.
Professional sales is complex, chaotic, political, layered with inter-dependencies, and fought with constraints. It's a great career -- once you get good at it.