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Do you know or have you ever in your professional career worked for a company that employed salespeople? Do you understand that they mostly do cold outreach to

Do you know or have you ever in your professional career worked for a company that employed salespeople? Do you understand that they mostly do cold outreach to generate revenue? If all the salespeople were to disappear overnight from that present or past employer, what would happen to company revenue and how many people would lose their jobs?

_jal 7y ago
I'm talking about spam. And I do indeed want spammers to do something else for a living - making spam economically nonviable is the strategic intent of suppressing it.
- hash872 7y ago
  How do you propose that the salespeople, without whom your employer or employers would go bankrupt, reach out to new prospects? How would that work? Am genuinely curious. By definition it seems to involve cold outreach of some type
  - _jal 7y ago
    I don't manage sales people; telling them how to do their job isn't my job. I can suggest that if the lack of a single communications channel would be crippling for you, you're already in a pretty precarious place and should maybe think about that. As for what you appear to believe is your gotcha, we don't have sales people, because our business doesn't work that way. I have worked for firms that did, though, and strangely, they somehow managed to do their jobs without spamming.
    - hash872 7y ago
      You seem to define all cold outreach whatsoever as 'spam', so of course you can choose to fit anything into that category. If people contacted you cold via other communications channels, it seems like you would define that as spam as well. Seeing as you don't manage sales people, I would gently suggest that at your old firms they were reaching out to people, cold, one way or another. That's literally what the job is
      - _jal 7y ago
        Like I said upstream, I am talking about spam. If you want to make shit up and attack that instead, I don't have to be involved, so I'm done with this.
      - ghaff 7y ago
        In many cases "sales people" (at least outside sales people) are not cold calling. They're getting qualified leads from digital marketing campaigns. However, your basic point stands. I get that some people don't want cold outreach through any channel, ads, etc. While there may be some companies that can organically grow through maybe a combination of organic search, stories being written about them (at which point someone here will dutifully post a link about submarine PR), word of mouth, etc. I'd respectfully suggest that most companies that try to do so will be out of business in a very short period of time.
georgespencer 7y ago
> have you ever in your professional career worked for a company that employed salespeople? Yes. > Do you understand that they mostly do cold outreach to generate revenue? No, they do not. > If all the salespeople were to disappear overnight, what would happen to company revenue and how many people would lose their jobs? The point you're illustrating is that in a world where some companies have sales people, all companies need to have sales people (although not for cold outreach). In the same way as "well some people have guns so I need to have a gun too" isn't a good argument against gun control, you are not making a good argument for cold outreach / salespeople.
- hash872 7y ago
  How do they generate business then, if not cold outreach? I don't mean it as a gotcha, I'm genuinely curious. I suppose you could say inbound leads, but I don't really believe that's a significant % of revenue, and anyways HN seems to hate marketing. The gun analogy doesn't really work man, having salespeople isn't really predicated on what other companies are doing or not doing
  - troydavis 7y ago
    > How do they generate business then, if not cold outreach? There are tons of ways to get warm interest, whether that's permission to email, a conversation with a salesperson, or a request for more info. Some obvious examples are content marketing (with a way to provide your email for a mailing list and/or account), trial downloads, product tours/webinar registrations, trade show booths, and user group sponsorships. Literally any interaction except emailing a complete stranger can, and often does, lead to someone giving a salesperson or a company permission to contact them. (Related: Needing to guess who needs a product, email them out of the blue, and be wrong 50-99% of the time, is often a sign that the company is failing at marketing. Generating warm leads is not hard.)
    - hash872 7y ago
      With the exception of trade shows, I call that 'marketing' though, that's an entirely different department. Everything else you've mentioned does not fall into the sales/BD category. Which is fine, I know some companies do not have or need a sales staff at all- I'm just commenting on the ones that do. If they have sales or business development in their job titles, they are probably reaching out to strangers a decent amount. You don't really need outbound sales folks for B2C, but 95%+ of the time you do for B2B/enterprise

_jal 7y ago

I'm talking about spam. And I do indeed want spammers to do something else for a living - making spam economically nonviable is the strategic intent of suppressing it.

hash872 7y ago
How do you propose that the salespeople, without whom your employer or employers would go bankrupt, reach out to new prospects? How would that work? Am genuinely curious. By definition it seems to involve cold outreach of some type
- _jal 7y ago
  I don't manage sales people; telling them how to do their job isn't my job. I can suggest that if the lack of a single communications channel would be crippling for you, you're already in a pretty precarious place and should maybe think about that. As for what you appear to believe is your gotcha, we don't have sales people, because our business doesn't work that way. I have worked for firms that did, though, and strangely, they somehow managed to do their jobs without spamming.
  - hash872 7y ago
    You seem to define all cold outreach whatsoever as 'spam', so of course you can choose to fit anything into that category. If people contacted you cold via other communications channels, it seems like you would define that as spam as well. Seeing as you don't manage sales people, I would gently suggest that at your old firms they were reaching out to people, cold, one way or another. That's literally what the job is
    - _jal 7y ago
      Like I said upstream, I am talking about spam. If you want to make shit up and attack that instead, I don't have to be involved, so I'm done with this.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      In many cases "sales people" (at least outside sales people) are not cold calling. They're getting qualified leads from digital marketing campaigns. However, your basic point stands. I get that some people don't want cold outreach through any channel, ads, etc. While there may be some companies that can organically grow through maybe a combination of organic search, stories being written about them (at which point someone here will dutifully post a link about submarine PR), word of mouth, etc. I'd respectfully suggest that most companies that try to do so will be out of business in a very short period of time.

georgespencer 7y ago

> have you ever in your professional career worked for a company that employed salespeople? Yes. > Do you understand that they mostly do cold outreach to generate revenue? No, they do not. > If all the salespeople were to disappear overnight, what would happen to company revenue and how many people would lose their jobs? The point you're illustrating is that in a world where some companies have sales people, all companies need to have sales people (although not for cold outreach). In the same way as "well some people have guns so I need to have a gun too" isn't a good argument against gun control, you are not making a good argument for cold outreach / salespeople.

hash872 7y ago
How do they generate business then, if not cold outreach? I don't mean it as a gotcha, I'm genuinely curious. I suppose you could say inbound leads, but I don't really believe that's a significant % of revenue, and anyways HN seems to hate marketing. The gun analogy doesn't really work man, having salespeople isn't really predicated on what other companies are doing or not doing
- troydavis 7y ago
  > How do they generate business then, if not cold outreach? There are tons of ways to get warm interest, whether that's permission to email, a conversation with a salesperson, or a request for more info. Some obvious examples are content marketing (with a way to provide your email for a mailing list and/or account), trial downloads, product tours/webinar registrations, trade show booths, and user group sponsorships. Literally any interaction except emailing a complete stranger can, and often does, lead to someone giving a salesperson or a company permission to contact them. (Related: Needing to guess who needs a product, email them out of the blue, and be wrong 50-99% of the time, is often a sign that the company is failing at marketing. Generating warm leads is not hard.)
  - hash872 7y ago
    With the exception of trade shows, I call that 'marketing' though, that's an entirely different department. Everything else you've mentioned does not fall into the sales/BD category. Which is fine, I know some companies do not have or need a sales staff at all- I'm just commenting on the ones that do. If they have sales or business development in their job titles, they are probably reaching out to strangers a decent amount. You don't really need outbound sales folks for B2C, but 95%+ of the time you do for B2B/enterprise