3 ms·

But without product, no sales?

• Viliam1234 7y ago
  I suppose the real difference is between short term and long term. If you double the number of salesmen, you can increase your income right now. Firing all the salesmen would drop the income to zero. If you double the number of developers, there is no difference during the following month or two. If you fire all the developers, you can still continue selling the product for a few months, maybe years. As a manager, you may be tempted to increase the short-term profit, grab your bonus, and get promoted to somewhere else, so that someone else will have to deal with the long-term impact.
• swsieber 7y ago
  Nah, you can totally have sales without a product - it's just not very sustainable. It's a little tongue in cheek, but I think illustrates a real perspective - improving a product doesnt necessarily extract more revenue from existing customers. Selling more copies does extract more revenue from existing products though.
  • matz1 7y ago
    Likewise, you can totally have sales with just the product. There is saying good product sell itself.
    • magicalhippo 7y ago
      Indeed. Not long ago our sales team was our existing customer base. Users would call up their friends who work in other companies and tell them "you need to get this software". We've since added a dedicated sales person, but we still get a significant amount of sales this way.
• mongol 7y ago
  Yes that is true. Despite this, I think this is the way executives sees it. For example, without logistics, no physical products would reach customers. Despite this, logistics is traditionally a cost center.