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Sales comes out of who you genuinely are

swombat.com

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Re: Sales comes out of who you genuinely are

#31

Post by dschiptsov »

dave_sullivan wrote: post #30
dschiptsov wrote: post #24

That is a fairy tale kind of story. In reality, by being who you genuinely are you can earn living, if you're lucky, but to earn wealth you need to press and push and cheat. Look, at the differences between CL and Java, Redis and MongoDB, Postgres and MySQL to name the few very popular examples. "Commercially successful" products invest heavily in creating, creating a misleading hype and other manipulations. Being wh…

You know, I used to be really cynical and agree with much of this. But over the last few years, I've come back to the middle. I think the story is more complex than this. Yes, to build wealth you need to press and push--no one is going to give you anything for free and pre-buyers remorse can be a bitch. But cheat? I don't know about that--it depends on your definition. If cheating is maintaining borderline outrageous…

I'm from the whole country of thieves, looters and cheaters, (in common folk's popular culture these considered virtues) or, at least, from what it became to be in last few decades.)

Re: Sales comes out of who you genuinely are

#32

Post by theorique »

luu wrote: post #6
swombat wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: Mamet, interesting, I didn't know that. Any reference to that? If so I'll put an update in!

I mostly agree with your take over Mamet's, but that's how Mamet views capitalism. Here's Mamet on the themes in the play: http://www.upstartfilmcollective.com/portfolios/jcharnick/ma... The play concerns how business corrupts, how the hierarchical business system tends to corrupt. It becomes legitimate for those in power in the business world to act unethically. The effect on the little guy is that he turns to crime…

Always be closing.

Re: Sales comes out of who you genuinely are

#33

Post by CamperBob2 »

snooblywoobly wrote: post #29
CamperBob2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But to make money you must pressure and bullshit people, because it is only by cheating you could get above-average returns. Wow. Someone's projecting, it sounds like.

No he's not. It's just the truth.

I guess somebody has to take the polar opposite position to Atlas Shrugged, to bring balance to the derp.

Re: Sales comes out of who you genuinely are

#34

Post by CamperBob2 »

dschiptsov wrote: post #31
dave_sullivan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I used to be really cynical and agree with much of this. But over the last few years, I've come back to the middle. I think the story is more complex than this. Yes, to build wealth you need to press and push--no one is going to give you anything for free and pre-buyers remorse can be a bitch. But cheat? I don't know about that--it depends on your definition. If cheating is maintaining borderline outrageous…

I'm from the whole country of thieves, looters and cheaters, (in common folk's popular culture these considered virtues) or, at least, from what it became to be in last few decades.)

Those thieves, looters, and cheaters are no different from you or me. We're all H. sapiens sapiens here. The only difference is culture.

My guess is that a culture that teaches that we are all thieves, looters, and cheaters will indeed find itself full of those characters. Meanwhile, a culture where profit and value are seen as compatible with human dignity and progress will find your view utterly alien.

The cool thing about culture is that it's opt-in by nature. You can adopt any culture that you find advantageous, or create your own. Most people don't take advantage of that fact, but it's still an option, and it's one that you should perhaps consider.

Re: Sales comes out of who you genuinely are

#36

Post by mistercow »

swombat wrote: post #17
mistercow wrote: post #8

>David Mamet must not have known a lot of salespeople, to have this view of what a good salesperson is, because that is definitely not how great salespeople work. If I wrote a story about a politician who committed suicide, would you say "You must not know a lot of politicians, to have this view of what a good politician is, because suicide is definitely not what makes a great politician"?

Mamet wrote a story about salespeople where all of them have highly dubious ethics ranging from being outright thieves to being conmen, and the most successful of the lot is willing to destroy someone's life to earn himself a cadillac. From some of the other comments, it sounds like I misinterpreted Mamet's intent - he apparently wasn't looking to generalise to all salespeople - but still, it seems to me the comment…

>and the most successful of the lot is willing to destroy someone's life to earn himself a cadillac.

...and keep his job. You can hardly watch that film without feeling soaked in the desperation of the characters.

>but still, it seems to me the comment is fair based on this particular piece of evidence.

How? The story is about a particular subset of the sales world, which is where you work for an employer who gives you an undesirable product to sell and then puts you under immense pressure to close. These situations do exist, and the people who succeed in them are the ones who are willing to act unethically. The only way that Mamet could have realistically included an ethical salesperson as a character would have been to depict them getting fired.

How do you reckon that the characters depicted in an author's work are likely to comprise the entirety of that author's experience?

Re: Sales comes out of who you genuinely are

#37

Post by SparrowOS »

Ghost of Chirstmas past -- Scrooge saw that his past actions would be done to him.

more or less -- eye for eye.

Your past will haunt you just like Clockwork Orange.

You can write a fantacy story about being my slave, if you like.

The Lord's prayer: "Forgive us our tresspasses just like when someone does them back on us in the future."

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Re: Sales comes out of who you genuinely are

#38

Post by olavk »

swombat wrote: post #16
olavk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hilarious that the writer uses subtly flawed logic to convince the reader that shady and unethical salespeople simply doesn't exist in the real world.

I don't see how I did such a thing. Of course shady and unethical salespeople exist: just walk into a mobile phone shop to meet one. I'm saying that by and large, great salespeople are not shady and unethical, though.

> Which brings me to real salespeople, the ones who actually make sales in the real world, rather than in fantasy plays.... > Mythological salesmen like Ricky Roma, who are really highly skilled scammers, have given the sales profession a bad name.

Anyway, do you have any kind of evidence that deceitful salespeople cant be successful? It is a rather extraordinary claim. I mean the guy who sold the Eiffel Tower as scrap iron multiple times was pretty successful.

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