4 ms·
This is a naive way of looking at things. Your product isn't a thing that robotic ATMs spit out cash for, because they've been told to buy it. Though this persp
by peterlk 8y ago
This is a naive way of looking at things. Your product isn't a thing that robotic ATMs spit out cash for, because they've been told to buy it. Though this perspective is true at some places, it creates a race to the bottom, and will put you out of business. For example, you can sign up contracts for vaporware and then deliver. This may make some money in up-front contract payments, but how long is this business going to last?
- IshKebab 8y agoIt's a short term way of looking at things, but if you're firing 25% of your staff you probably can't afford to think long-term. Also sales people are much cheaper than developers.
- syn0byte 8y agoLong enough to be someone else's problem. System working as designed.
- tbyehl 8y agoOnce upon a time, a few employers back, I took a couple year detour into our internal IT department... One day our manager had the misfortune of being asked to help the head of sales with their commission calculation spreadsheet. The IT manager, bless their heart, decided they needed to share a glimpse of that information with someone, and for whatever reason that landed on me. Every salesperson on that spreadsheet who wasn't on the cusp of being let go was earning more in commission than the cash compensation of any executive listed in our public filings. Our couple of SEs were above Director title comp. It was a minor shock seeing those numbers, but they reflect a pretty basic economic reality: Acquiring $1 of ARR can be worth quite a bit. Sure, it's naive to say that Sales Trumps Everyone, Always. But most of the time, for a business with a high enough CLTV to justify having a salesforce, it would be an exceptionally bad sign to see general lay-offs impacting Sales as much as the rest of a company.