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An answer to the “Sell Me This Pen” interview challange
- Two9A 9y agoLooks like Senator Club's Wordpress wasn't expecting to get hit quite so hard. I don't suppose anyone has the text/transcript of this to hand?
- speps 9y agohttp://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DMJo55d2yPAJ:senatorclub.co/best-answer-to-sell-me-this-pen-i-have-ever-seen/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DMJo55d...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Kiro 9y agoPretty sure the most common answer to "When was the last time you used a pen?" is "I don't remember.". Then what?
- angli 9y agoSomething like "well then why not? Shouldn't you make the little moments memorable, joyful ones?" presumably
- kbart 9y agoThen you don't get to write a blog post on how awesome and smart you are.
- throwanem 9y agoSure you do. Only the details change.
- throwanem 9y agoThen you make a different pitch. What counts is that you display the traits that can make you successful in sales, not that you emit a canned speech - it's not about following a script, but about improv. Which I suck at, for the most part, and have never put much effort into getting better - and that's why I'm not in sales. But you don't need to be good at something to understand in general terms how it works.
- chatwinra 9y agoMy approach in that situation would be: 1. store info of the pen not being memorable (can use that later as per the transcript) 2. Ask for what typical activities they use a pen for. Then try and describe back to them why the pen is important based on those events. If they respond 'I don't really use a pen much'....well that might be a little harder :) Overall an interesting transcript. I haven't studied sales much so not sure about the theory behind it all but the example seems very good. Though I'm sure there's other ways to succeed at the task without necessarily following the OP's principles exactly.
- mixedbit 9y agoRight, the strategy is very depended on answers that the candidate is going to get and it is hard to see how to continue with less favorable answers: * Q: Do you remember what kind of pen that was? * A: Yes, it was my favorite pen that I got from my wife for our anniversary * Q: Do you remember why you were using it to write? * A: I signed a credit card receipt in Walmart.
- thekevan 9y agoThat's a terrible answer and to be honest, I don't particularly believe this actually happened. I was once asked to sell a pen to an interviewer and the first thing I asked them about was their pen use. After that, I pointed to things on the pen and told them about the benefits of it and why it was a good choice. he stopped me and said he heard enough because I established need, and then translated real features of the product into benefits of the customer.
- ebbv 9y agoOn top of all of that, it's titled "The Best .. I've Ever Seen" and it's his own anecdote. That's up there with Trump's "I have the best brain." crap. Terrible.
- coldtea 9y ago>it's titled "The Best .. I've Ever Seen" and it's his own anecdote Obviously "the best (his) ever seen" would be "his own anecdote". How else could it be?
- ebbv 9y agoWhat? First of all, ignoring the semantic argument of whether saying you've "seen" your own anecdote is proper; if you refer to yourself as the best ever for anything you better be world champion class at that thing or you're either a liar or really ignorant. Based on the anecdote, the author one of the last two.
- SuperGent 9y agoThe best part is 'CEO: (picks jaw up off floor)' The script he gave isn't that spectacular, and, if this did actually happen, the CEO was probably impressed that he had rehearsed. I assume this question is used like the fizz-buzz coding test, although perhaps the CEO didn't know this.
- pricechild 9y agoI don't see the difference between your answer and his? Both asked about recent pen use, both responded based on that?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- caniscrator 9y agoLink not working. Responds with 500 (Internal Server Error).
- CarolineW 9y agoRead the other comments here - there are multiple links to cached versions.
- edpichler 9y agoCool but... I read the entire article expecting a really good answer.
- have_faith 9y ago> Sell me this pen You don't need a new pen, sorry for wasting your time.
- faragon 9y agoThe page is not loading. 25 years ago, a response could be: you don't need a pen, you need a 3000 USD IBM-compatible PC! :-)
- taneq 9y agoI was kind of hoping for a response where they talked the pen up a bit, gave the interviewer the pen, then used the gained social capital to get the interviewer to listen to their real pitch (ie. why you should hire me.)
- ghubbard 9y ago> Actually. You know what? Just this week I shipped ten new boxes of these pens to Elon Musk’s office. An example of sales people having no issue with casually slipping in outright lies?
- alfra 9y agoElon Musk sells luxury cars to people who are aware of climate change and also love technology. He uses that money to build more and cheaper cars, moving towards mainstream, because existing car manufacturers didn't really move toward electric. Elon Musk solves a problem for his buyers. It's frustrating to see his name used in a sales pitch that is driven by a "Vitamins" approach rather than a "Painkiller" approach. Fighting climate change isn't optional.
- microcolonel 9y agoThis is a limp answer, he seems to be selling another pen, not the one in his hands. After all, if it's really important what pen you use to sign contracts, why would the one on the desk suffice? Why not get a beautiful bimetal nib fountain pen with navy ink?
- yetihehe 9y ago> This is a limp answer, he seems to be selling another pen, not the one in his hands. This answer is not enough "out of the box". > Why not get a beautiful bimetal nib fountain pen with navy ink? This answer is too much "out of the box" for most CEO's.
- microcolonel 9y agoThat's what I mean, he starts by saying that it matters what type of pen is used, which is why I say "why not", as in, if you're going to tell me I need an important person's pen, why stop at the pen I already have?
- vain 9y agoThe page asks for a captcha. Here is a copy http://archive.is/UJ2fK http://archive.is/UJ2fK
- onion2k 9y agoThis is a lovely anecdote, but it's largely irrelevant to modern sales. There's no margin in consumer goods to sell directly any more. The cost of each sale would be too high[1]. If it was an enterprise product the person buying only really cares whether it works better than the competitor product and how much it costs, so a personal approach is a waste of time (beyond getting the customer to talk to you in the first place). [1] Every sale would end with "What a brilliant pen. You've made it sound incredible. But I won't buy it right now; I'll check the price on Amazon when I get home."
- mseebach 9y agoThe fundamentals of sales are the same whether you're selling pens or $10m enterprise widgets -- you need to understand the customer and the product and how to fit the two together. It also applies in marketing, a closely related field -- you have to understand the needs of abstract groups of customers, and how pitch your product to those groups. The pen is just a simple object to arrange a quick role play around.
- shubhamjain 9y agoSeriously? All he managed to sell was the aesthetics feel. It's like selling email marketing software solely for the design. How about selling a pen by pitching the frustrations it solves? Pens get lost. Pens stop working randomly. Pens finish without much of a warning. If you're using it after a while, you have to rummage for a paper to scribble before you use it. It's hard to recall any pen which solves any of these. So, in the end, selling a pen becomes a marketing problem, not a sales problem.
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y agoI have a clear fountain pen. It solves most of the issues. It can still get lost, but because it's more expensive than a disposable I'm more careful with it. If it stops working it's probably clogged, the nib is easy enough to wipe off to clear the clog. If it's really bad an alcohol swab might be needed. It's clear, I can see the ink level. The "scribble before use" thing is because ink on the ball dries out. Not so much an issue when there's no ball. And of course there's the classic issue of people stealing your pen, but most people don't know the technique to write with a fountain pen so it rarely gets borrowed.
- huffmsa 9y agoFuck selling pens. Give him the pen, then sell his mailing address to a paper manufacture. Then cap his refills at 1 per 3 months, but for a low monthly subscription offer to give him all the ink he wants, and all the new pen models as they rollout. Hard selling of ubiquitous consumables in highly competitive markets has no place in the SaaS world.
- salesguy222 9y agoUnlimited ink? How do I ask for a shipment- through a form or a human? What happens when I request to much ink or pens? Do you conveniently forget to place my order? How hard is it to cancel? What does the price tiering look like? When you are acquired, will I still receive my shipments? All of these are arguments for why the "subscription market" is absolutely bogus
- huffmsa 9y agoWhich is why every major operating system (except iOS) in the world is now free, has free upgrades and updates and if it wipes your system, well tough, that's in the EULA. Cancel? You can't, you can only revert your account to the unpaid plan. We also reserve the right to take our pens back whenever we want. Now, we could setup a special "enterprise-level" plan for you, with onsite production, dedicated management, and pen and ink manufacturing which you'd own after you paid off the terms, but that'll be a bit pricey.
- salesguy222 9y agoThe only solution to all of this is libre/gratis hardware, software, hard work, and delayed gratifcation ^.^
- alfra 9y agoSales, then and now, 10-minutes exercise comparing two links. How we approach sales in innovation and startups has changed a lot recently, but not for everyone. Enter the "sell me this pen" as seen in "Wolf of Wallstreet". It's a sales classic. You inspire desire in your customer in your sales pitch, and quickly he wants to buy, at any price. I frequently talk to startups about sales, but coming from a product management perspective. The closest thing to selling in strategic product management is "solution selling". As the name suggests, it's about identifying a problem the customer actually has, then understanding how big the problem is. So when talking to the sales people at startups, we talk about pricing, job-to-be-done, and unmet needs of the customers. What kind of product do you have, in the eyes of your customers? Is it a nice thing to have once the customer learns about its existence, a "Vitamin"? Or is it something the customer really needs, a solution to an existing problem, something the customer already needed before he learned that there is a solution to the problem, is it a "Painkiller"? If your product is still a Vitamin, it will be hard to sell, you will see a lot customer churn, customers quitting soon, instead of staying for the long run, and no recommending of your product to other people in the industry. To transform your product from a Vitamin to a Painkiller, you need to understand your customer's pain point. That's very close to S-P-I, "situation", "problem", "implication" in the SPIN-selling system that we use in solution selling. Do this little test: Read a very short description about Vitamin vs Painkiller, and then read through a sales pitch (which is described as "the best" by its author) and note which parts are addressing a need for a Painkiller, and which address the wish for a Vitamin. - Intro Vitamin vs Painkiller: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230736 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230736 - "Sell me this pen" sales pitch: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/best-answer-sell-me-pen-i-have-ever-seen-prashant-dedhia https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/best-answer-sell-me-pen-i-hav... When you compare those two, you will see that the "sell me this pen" pitch is based on a Vitamin product. Most pens are Vitamin products to most customers, no matter how brilliant your sales pitch is. You can't use sales skills to fix a lack of product management.
- mseebach 9y agoThe examples given for "vitamin" and "painkiller" are poor, or at lease not describing differences in products, but in marketing strategy. Also, the idea that "vitamins" are poor product is betrayed by the success of many, many madly successful "vitamin" products, not least including literal vitamins. The product-load-feature that is described in the entrepreneur.com article as a "vitamin" mere seems poorly marketed. Keeping your e-business platform up-to-date with your products is very much something that can raise revenue or lower costs (or, if not, it's not actually a product at all, vitamin or not). On the other example, the healthcare payments solution, why would you not expect the provider of the existing invoicing solution to "just" enable some sort of upfront payment to lower bed debts, if this is really a problem? (Also, dismissing business ideas on the basis that someone else would already be doing it if it's actually a problem seems to be a great way to never be successful in business)
- akitaonrails 9y agoCoincidentally I wrote about this same subject this week. But I went a step further than that. It's not about the pen. http://www.akitaonrails.com/2017/06/01/conference-talks-interviews-and-the-pen http://www.akitaonrails.com/2017/06/01/conference-talks-inte...
- tzs 9y agoWhen they ask this question, what kind of pen is it? The author's pitch compares against a cheap Bic (which I imagine is something like this [1]), so I assume it is usually something fancier and/or more expensive, but are we talking a Uni-ball micro roller [2] level of fancier, or a Montblanc Meisterstück Moon Pearl LeGrand Rollerball [3] level of fancier? PS: so, what pens do other HN readers use? I used to use the Uni-ball micro roller pens, but I've since switched to the Pilot G2 gel roller with the ultra fine (0.38mm) tip. I switched for the ultra fine tip, which makes superscripts and subscripts easier. There are Uni-balls with ultra fine tips, but last time I bought a few boxes of pens they were harder to find. For pencils, I use a Uni-ball Kuro Toga [4]. It has a clever mechanism that slightly rotates the lead every time you put tip to paper, so that it wears evenly from all sides, keeping the look and feel uniform throughout your writing. Here's a video showing how it works [5]. [1] https://www.amazon.com/BIC-Cristal-Stic-Medium-Point/dp/B000F2RGSW/ https://www.amazon.com/BIC-Cristal-Stic-Medium-Point/dp/B000... [2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006IE8R/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006IE8R/ [3] https://www.amazon.com/Montblanc-111694-Pearl-LeGrand-Rollerball/dp/B01N4F4482/ https://www.amazon.com/Montblanc-111694-Pearl-LeGrand-Roller... [4] https://www.amazon.com/uni-ball-KuruToga-Mechanical-Pencil-0-5mm/dp/B0026ICM1E https://www.amazon.com/uni-ball-KuruToga-Mechanical-Pencil-0... [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80k7Jl1o8Lc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80k7Jl1o8Lc
- antisthenes 9y agoI use a Zebra 402 0.7mm Compared to kids these days, I used to write a lot in high school and college and the only memorable pen in terms of comfort, color and thickness that stood out was the Zebra. I write much less now and mostly use it for quick notes and back of envelope schematics. My #2 choice would be a Parker Jotter ballpoint, which is quite similar in form and weight. I absolutely hate gelpoints and any other sort of gel pens.