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This is a weak argument and frankly the introvert extrovert juxtaposition is trite at this point. The article sounds like frustrated happy hour conjecture by so

This is a weak argument and frankly the introvert extrovert juxtaposition is trite at this point. The article sounds like frustrated happy hour conjecture by somebody who has never actually worked in sales. Cherry picks a lot in order to make its case. Yes selling takes a lot more than a smile and persistence. But why can't extroverts be good at research and listening? What if you're driven and enjoy a good balance of quiet time and social time? It’s rare that anyone is this binary and thinking that way is ignorant and kind of rude. You’re essentially saying “extroverts are dumb they don’t know as much as they should”. Come on. And also there will always be some form of cold calling in sales. The point is not literally the call, its finding a way to introduce yourself to a complete stranger and create a relationship. Whether thats through email, the phone, or walking up to someone at a conference, there will always be some version of this. If you’re relying on landing pages and conversion optimization to sell at all scales of software, someone else is going to beat you by knowing a guy who knows the CTO, or being the nephew of a VP, or having the guts to walk up to someone at an event. Theres obviously a lot to learn from archetypal human behavior, but when it’s presented like this it just falls flat.

caseysoftware 10y ago
Exactly. I have yet to meet a good salesperson who didn't research, listen, and react. That's part of the sales process.. to understood who you're selling to and why. This is Sales 101 and has nothing to do with being a intro/extro-vert.
- johansch 10y ago
  The best sales people I've worked with (in a software/services B2B context - specifically when the customers are large companies) are into long-term relationship and trust building. They analyze the hell out of the customer from an organizational perspective and really try to figure out what problem they need to get solved. They are definitely extroverts. They are interesting people to be around, have great conversational and wining and dining skills, etc. They know their limits when it comes to technology and see themselves as facilitators of deep technical discussions between the prospective customer's tech people and the internal staff. They are happy to take the backseat when it comes to tech discussions - while still listening, taking notes, etc. (That they'll then come back with to i.e. me to try to understand and figure out the next step.)
  - caminante 10y ago
    The best sales people I've worked with (in a software/services B2B context - specifically when the customers are large companies) are into long-term relationship and trust building. Adding nuance, I was intrigued by an argument [0] that "relationship builders" weren't the out-performers in sales. In fact, they were the least likely to outperform in complex B2B sales. [0] https://hbr.org/2011/09/selling-is-not-about-relatio https://hbr.org/2011/09/selling-is-not-about-relatio
    - johansch 10y ago
      It obviously differs quite a lot depending on the type of customer. An example where I have seen the type of relationship-building salesperson outperform the aggressive kind of sales person: sales to large, stable incumbent companies in Europe.
      - caminante 10y ago
        For sure! I think the nuance (and if you read the article and the study) is the best performers are consistently "assertive" -- or in the middle between passive and aggressive.
        johansch 10y ago
        Yeah. They have to be able to carefully thread that needle between pushy/assertive vs annoying quite carefully and intelligently. And counteract the pushy factor with charm/hosting skills. .. and that's why this job is so highly paid (the kind of people I'm talking about: ~300k/year or more).
    - fumar 10y ago
      This is spot-on. As someone who works in enterprise sales, the best performers (if performance is based on growing investment from the client into x product), are challengers. Sales tactics, like aggressive selling or throwing everything at the wall see what sticks, does not work in enterprise sales. The enterprise sell is complex and nuanced based on all the decision makers and influencers. It helps to be less of a "classic-sales" person and more of a doctor. You want to diagnose, understand, and provide a recommendation. Often-times like a doctor, the client (patient) does not want hear or accept the solution (antidote). This is where the challenger mindset comes into play, the great sales folks are pushing for the "true solution" even if the client-team is not onboard. It can take time to get a champion on the client side who sees the light. Just to be clear enterprise sales only works if the solution is solving true business outcomes. For selling to new clients, its important for the sales team to run a client diagnostic to understand if the product (solution) has a right to win. Its just the start of understanding the client. I will say getting to know the client and their hurdles is crucial and the clients are experts at their problems. But, they are not experts at solving it. That is why the sales person is there and why the product exists.
- edblarney 10y ago
  " has nothing to do with being a intro/extro-vert." I think it does. Extroverts are 'outwardly focused' - meaning 'present' - paying attention to others, the world around them. Introverts are 'inwardly focused', more in their heads. Obviously, people can do both - but extroverts have a lifetime of skills in 'relationship management'. They know how to do small talk, how to set the mood, how to change the subject, how to engage with a difficult subject.
  - chimeracoder 10y ago
    > Extroverts are 'outwardly focused' - meaning 'present' - paying attention to others, the world around them. Introverts are 'inwardly focused', more in their heads. Obviously, people can do both - but extroverts have a lifetime of skills in 'relationship management'. They know how to do small talk, how to set the mood, how to change the subject, how to engage with a difficult subject. This is a common misconception, but that's actually not how the words "introversion" and "extraversion"[sic] are used either by Jung or by contemporary psychology. It's hard to classify the distinction in a single sentence, but to generalize: introversion and extroversion have more to do with how a person 'receives' external stimuli, not in how they react or respond to it. Extroverts are not inherently better at "relationship management" skills like small talk, how to change the subject, or how to engage with difficult subjects.
    - johansch 10y ago
      > Extroverts are not inherently better at "relationship management" skills like small talk, how to change the subject, or how to engage with difficult subjects. Since this flies in the face of common sense (and my personal experience of 20 years in selling B2B software).. do you have any research to back up this claim? (Besides name-dropping Carl Gustav Jung.)
      - chimeracoder 10y ago
        > do you have any research to back up this claim? I'd recommend reading Susan Cain's Quiet as a starting point. It's very accessible for people without a background in psychology, and it references the original research where appropriate.
themodelplumber 10y ago
> frankly the introvert extrovert juxtaposition is trite at this point Why? There's a huge amount of published research in the I/E scale in forms like the FFM. We have Ph.D.s on HN who are deeply involved in psychometrics and work with these models every day. > But why can't extroverts be good at research and listening? This is a much better point. They can. The weird thing about this article is that the author uses a dichotomy like E/I, then seems to suggest that all customers dislike E salespeople. Or that, maybe, all E salespeople are the same type of person. That's simply not true. > What if you're driven and enjoy a good balance of quiet time and social time? This is also crucial, the question of personality type vs. personality type _development_.
- bobbyadamson 10y ago
  Trite doesn't mean inherently bad, it's just beaten to death on a very shallow level. If you were to list the most overused themes that hot takey bloggers use to build theses around, this is one of them. And it’s a shame because I’m sure there is a lot of new, interesting, and legitimate research being done on the subject. Unfortunately that research isn’t involved in a lot of these kinds of articles, for example this one.
  - noobiemcfoob 10y ago
    Trite has an undeniable negative connotation. If you want to hedge the word, don't use the word. Further, you are saying this is bad...
- jdmichal 10y ago
  Spot on. There is a real, measurable difference that scientists call extroverted or introverted. Then there's a bunch of stereotypical behaviors and attributes assigned to each. This article uses the latter.
cylinder 10y ago
Yup, I've had high energy loud talkative sales people be great at presenting data, knowing the competition, etc. This introvert vs extrovert nonsense is getting out of hand.
- johansch 10y ago
  That is one way of acting for extrovert people. I think it's a lot more common in North America than in Europe. There's something cultural at play here.
vvpan 10y ago
Questioning the introvert/extrovert dichotomy rarely goes well on Hacker News or on any tech discussion forum, so it's a somewhat unusual that you are not being downvoted hard (even though it's a small part of your point).
- wahern 10y ago
  He didn't question the dichotomy. Quite the opposite--"Theres obviously a lot to learn from archetypal human behavior." Alternatively, depending on what was meant by archetypal, he at least didn't contradict it. He was simply saying that its relevance has been exaggerated and twisted. And that's, frankly, difficult to disagree with. The introversion-extroversion dichotomy has been turned into a popular psychology vehicle. But you can't judge the vehicle by the absurd places people take it. In any event, like most such dichotomies, it's implicitly understood to be a generalization, and generalizations are not suitable for describing or predicting more specific behaviors.

caseysoftware 10y ago

Exactly. I have yet to meet a good salesperson who didn't research, listen, and react. That's part of the sales process.. to understood who you're selling to and why. This is Sales 101 and has nothing to do with being a intro/extro-vert.

johansch 10y ago
The best sales people I've worked with (in a software/services B2B context - specifically when the customers are large companies) are into long-term relationship and trust building. They analyze the hell out of the customer from an organizational perspective and really try to figure out what problem they need to get solved. They are definitely extroverts. They are interesting people to be around, have great conversational and wining and dining skills, etc. They know their limits when it comes to technology and see themselves as facilitators of deep technical discussions between the prospective customer's tech people and the internal staff. They are happy to take the backseat when it comes to tech discussions - while still listening, taking notes, etc. (That they'll then come back with to i.e. me to try to understand and figure out the next step.)
- caminante 10y ago
  The best sales people I've worked with (in a software/services B2B context - specifically when the customers are large companies) are into long-term relationship and trust building. Adding nuance, I was intrigued by an argument [0] that "relationship builders" weren't the out-performers in sales. In fact, they were the least likely to outperform in complex B2B sales. [0] https://hbr.org/2011/09/selling-is-not-about-relatio https://hbr.org/2011/09/selling-is-not-about-relatio
  - johansch 10y ago
    It obviously differs quite a lot depending on the type of customer. An example where I have seen the type of relationship-building salesperson outperform the aggressive kind of sales person: sales to large, stable incumbent companies in Europe.
    - caminante 10y ago
      For sure! I think the nuance (and if you read the article and the study) is the best performers are consistently "assertive" -- or in the middle between passive and aggressive.
      - johansch 10y ago
        Yeah. They have to be able to carefully thread that needle between pushy/assertive vs annoying quite carefully and intelligently. And counteract the pushy factor with charm/hosting skills. .. and that's why this job is so highly paid (the kind of people I'm talking about: ~300k/year or more).
  - fumar 10y ago
    This is spot-on. As someone who works in enterprise sales, the best performers (if performance is based on growing investment from the client into x product), are challengers. Sales tactics, like aggressive selling or throwing everything at the wall see what sticks, does not work in enterprise sales. The enterprise sell is complex and nuanced based on all the decision makers and influencers. It helps to be less of a "classic-sales" person and more of a doctor. You want to diagnose, understand, and provide a recommendation. Often-times like a doctor, the client (patient) does not want hear or accept the solution (antidote). This is where the challenger mindset comes into play, the great sales folks are pushing for the "true solution" even if the client-team is not onboard. It can take time to get a champion on the client side who sees the light. Just to be clear enterprise sales only works if the solution is solving true business outcomes. For selling to new clients, its important for the sales team to run a client diagnostic to understand if the product (solution) has a right to win. Its just the start of understanding the client. I will say getting to know the client and their hurdles is crucial and the clients are experts at their problems. But, they are not experts at solving it. That is why the sales person is there and why the product exists.
edblarney 10y ago
" has nothing to do with being a intro/extro-vert." I think it does. Extroverts are 'outwardly focused' - meaning 'present' - paying attention to others, the world around them. Introverts are 'inwardly focused', more in their heads. Obviously, people can do both - but extroverts have a lifetime of skills in 'relationship management'. They know how to do small talk, how to set the mood, how to change the subject, how to engage with a difficult subject.
- chimeracoder 10y ago
  > Extroverts are 'outwardly focused' - meaning 'present' - paying attention to others, the world around them. Introverts are 'inwardly focused', more in their heads. Obviously, people can do both - but extroverts have a lifetime of skills in 'relationship management'. They know how to do small talk, how to set the mood, how to change the subject, how to engage with a difficult subject. This is a common misconception, but that's actually not how the words "introversion" and "extraversion"[sic] are used either by Jung or by contemporary psychology. It's hard to classify the distinction in a single sentence, but to generalize: introversion and extroversion have more to do with how a person 'receives' external stimuli, not in how they react or respond to it. Extroverts are not inherently better at "relationship management" skills like small talk, how to change the subject, or how to engage with difficult subjects.
  - johansch 10y ago
    > Extroverts are not inherently better at "relationship management" skills like small talk, how to change the subject, or how to engage with difficult subjects. Since this flies in the face of common sense (and my personal experience of 20 years in selling B2B software).. do you have any research to back up this claim? (Besides name-dropping Carl Gustav Jung.)
    - chimeracoder 10y ago
      > do you have any research to back up this claim? I'd recommend reading Susan Cain's Quiet as a starting point. It's very accessible for people without a background in psychology, and it references the original research where appropriate.

themodelplumber 10y ago

> frankly the introvert extrovert juxtaposition is trite at this point Why? There's a huge amount of published research in the I/E scale in forms like the FFM. We have Ph.D.s on HN who are deeply involved in psychometrics and work with these models every day. > But why can't extroverts be good at research and listening? This is a much better point. They can. The weird thing about this article is that the author uses a dichotomy like E/I, then seems to suggest that all customers dislike E salespeople. Or that, maybe, all E salespeople are the same type of person. That's simply not true. > What if you're driven and enjoy a good balance of quiet time and social time? This is also crucial, the question of personality type vs. personality type _development_.

bobbyadamson 10y ago
Trite doesn't mean inherently bad, it's just beaten to death on a very shallow level. If you were to list the most overused themes that hot takey bloggers use to build theses around, this is one of them. And it’s a shame because I’m sure there is a lot of new, interesting, and legitimate research being done on the subject. Unfortunately that research isn’t involved in a lot of these kinds of articles, for example this one.
- noobiemcfoob 10y ago
  Trite has an undeniable negative connotation. If you want to hedge the word, don't use the word. Further, you are saying this is bad...
jdmichal 10y ago
Spot on. There is a real, measurable difference that scientists call extroverted or introverted. Then there's a bunch of stereotypical behaviors and attributes assigned to each. This article uses the latter.

cylinder 10y ago

Yup, I've had high energy loud talkative sales people be great at presenting data, knowing the competition, etc. This introvert vs extrovert nonsense is getting out of hand.

johansch 10y ago
That is one way of acting for extrovert people. I think it's a lot more common in North America than in Europe. There's something cultural at play here.

vvpan 10y ago

Questioning the introvert/extrovert dichotomy rarely goes well on Hacker News or on any tech discussion forum, so it's a somewhat unusual that you are not being downvoted hard (even though it's a small part of your point).

wahern 10y ago
He didn't question the dichotomy. Quite the opposite--"Theres obviously a lot to learn from archetypal human behavior." Alternatively, depending on what was meant by archetypal, he at least didn't contradict it. He was simply saying that its relevance has been exaggerated and twisted. And that's, frankly, difficult to disagree with. The introversion-extroversion dichotomy has been turned into a popular psychology vehicle. But you can't judge the vehicle by the absurd places people take it. In any event, like most such dichotomies, it's implicitly understood to be a generalization, and generalizations are not suitable for describing or predicting more specific behaviors.