3 ms·

People aren't omniscient. People at best look for known unknowns, but not unknown unknowns. Particularly when it comes to tech, that covers a very broad area of

People aren't omniscient. People at best look for known unknowns, but not unknown unknowns. Particularly when it comes to tech, that covers a very broad area of things that they don't know are possible. The idea that if you need to tell people about it for them to know about it and potentially buy it, then the offer is a scam, is baffling to me. As for inbound leads, their existence doesn't stop outbound sales being productive. they're not mutually exclusive at all. In fact they're complimentary. Outbound sales results in customers, having customers creates awareness of product in the market, people that hear about it through those customers become inbound leads. Regarding people living fine without the new product. You're just arguing against progress there. Which as a definite luddite and potential anarcho-primitivist, I am all for. But "scam" isn't a synonym for just "bad", and any definition that includes just creating needs would have to include most of modern commerce. Definitely including any and all software developers.

Rjevski 8y ago
People are not yet omniscient, I agree. But lately there's this wonderful new tool called the Internet which allows people to become omniscient as far as product discovery is concerned. If you have a product that solves problem X, make a website, blog posts, send samples to journalists for reviews, etc about how your product solves problem X, and let search engines & organic growth do the rest. > You're just arguing against progress there I'm not arguing against progress. I'm arguing against the (potential) progress of your wallet, which is not at all correlated with progress of humanity as a whole. Again, if a product was truly progress then organic growth would be more than enough. As far as your wallet is concerned, you can make it progress through other, less annoying means, and actually create value in the process.
- austhrow743 8y ago
  I'm definitely getting the impression that you're just asserting that outbound sales is "bad" in some general sense rather than specifically that its use means the business is a scam. Microsoft has one of the highest quality sales teams there is. Many of which are outbound focused. Do you consider Microsoft products to be scams? Most (all?) silicon Valley b2b startups utilise outbound sales heavily. /r/sales is full of people either in or looking to get in to saas. It's basically only behind medical devices in preferred products to sell as a salesperson right now. Do you believe the majority of b2b software companies are scams? If so, what is a scam to you? Sorry for the clarification request, and I will assume good faith if you get back with a reasonable answer, but I just can't see how the lines of argument you're putting forward pertain to your original assertion.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    Well every “outbound sales” interaction I had was bad, so that’s my reasoning for not liking them. If I need something, I will search for it, read your website/marketing material and decide for myself. It is an automatic turn off if you call me first because you’d be taking my time, possibly interrupting me, and putting pressure on me to buy now that I otherwise wouldn’t have if I was evaluating the products myself. > Microsoft has one of the highest quality sales teams there is. Many of which are outbound focused. Do you consider Microsoft products to be scams? Define “high quality”. Is it high quality by conversion rate or is it by customer satisfaction, churn rate, etc? Because I too can build a “high quality” sales team by holding my future customers at gunpoint and achieving a 100% conversion rate. While I don’t consider all Microsoft products to be scams, I definitely know a few that wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for clueless people being conned into buying it by salespeople or consultants. > Most (all?) silicon Valley b2b startups utilise outbound sales heavily And I guess this is why Oracle, IBM and similar shitty companies are still in business, because they rely on clueless people falling for their sales tactics instead of actually making great products. > If so, what is a scam to you? A scam is something I would fall for that I wouldn’t normally fall for if it wasn’t for pressure/ideas from an uninvited salesman/scam artist. So like if I evaluate your product and decide it’s not for me, and then fall for it because of a salesman playing with my emotions (technically that wouldn’t work on me, but a lot of life insurance telemarketers will for example use the “think of your family” aspect to get a sale) or similar, then I would consider it a scam. A legal scam, but a scam nonetheless.

Rjevski 8y ago

People are not yet omniscient, I agree. But lately there's this wonderful new tool called the Internet which allows people to become omniscient as far as product discovery is concerned. If you have a product that solves problem X, make a website, blog posts, send samples to journalists for reviews, etc about how your product solves problem X, and let search engines & organic growth do the rest. > You're just arguing against progress there I'm not arguing against progress. I'm arguing against the (potential) progress of your wallet, which is not at all correlated with progress of humanity as a whole. Again, if a product was truly progress then organic growth would be more than enough. As far as your wallet is concerned, you can make it progress through other, less annoying means, and actually create value in the process.

austhrow743 8y ago
I'm definitely getting the impression that you're just asserting that outbound sales is "bad" in some general sense rather than specifically that its use means the business is a scam. Microsoft has one of the highest quality sales teams there is. Many of which are outbound focused. Do you consider Microsoft products to be scams? Most (all?) silicon Valley b2b startups utilise outbound sales heavily. /r/sales is full of people either in or looking to get in to saas. It's basically only behind medical devices in preferred products to sell as a salesperson right now. Do you believe the majority of b2b software companies are scams? If so, what is a scam to you? Sorry for the clarification request, and I will assume good faith if you get back with a reasonable answer, but I just can't see how the lines of argument you're putting forward pertain to your original assertion.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  Well every “outbound sales” interaction I had was bad, so that’s my reasoning for not liking them. If I need something, I will search for it, read your website/marketing material and decide for myself. It is an automatic turn off if you call me first because you’d be taking my time, possibly interrupting me, and putting pressure on me to buy now that I otherwise wouldn’t have if I was evaluating the products myself. > Microsoft has one of the highest quality sales teams there is. Many of which are outbound focused. Do you consider Microsoft products to be scams? Define “high quality”. Is it high quality by conversion rate or is it by customer satisfaction, churn rate, etc? Because I too can build a “high quality” sales team by holding my future customers at gunpoint and achieving a 100% conversion rate. While I don’t consider all Microsoft products to be scams, I definitely know a few that wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for clueless people being conned into buying it by salespeople or consultants. > Most (all?) silicon Valley b2b startups utilise outbound sales heavily And I guess this is why Oracle, IBM and similar shitty companies are still in business, because they rely on clueless people falling for their sales tactics instead of actually making great products. > If so, what is a scam to you? A scam is something I would fall for that I wouldn’t normally fall for if it wasn’t for pressure/ideas from an uninvited salesman/scam artist. So like if I evaluate your product and decide it’s not for me, and then fall for it because of a salesman playing with my emotions (technically that wouldn’t work on me, but a lot of life insurance telemarketers will for example use the “think of your family” aspect to get a sale) or similar, then I would consider it a scam. A legal scam, but a scam nonetheless.