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"But as soon as you need money – and people know – you’re hosed." Sales-wise, this is where most companies fail. Their salespeople let buyers know they need mo

"But as soon as you need money – and people know – you’re hosed." Sales-wise, this is where most companies fail. Their salespeople let buyers know they need money. And as soon as buyers sniff you out, they make you their bitch. If you're a salesperson - and everybody should be - you lose. The trick is to work hard on your attitude until you're ready to walk away from every deal without blinking - even if you really need money. It's really counterintuitive - but winner's attitude works.

lsc 16y ago
I never understood this. I always thought that you'd rather buy from someone who is likely to go out of their way to serve your needs than to buy from someone who simply doesn't care. I know that all other things being equal (I mean, assuming I think both companies can actually deliver, at a similar price point, and that one company isn't going to vanish while I still need them.) that's certainly how I feel, when I buy expensive things. But then, I've pretty much miserably failed to sell any product (other than my time) that was worth, you know, real money per-customer, so this is likely one of those areas where I'm just weird, and another reason why using myself as a model for generalizing human behavior is a bad idea. Personally, I focus on selling a whole lot of little things, mostly because I've utterly failed to sell big things, and I've met some success selling lots of little things. Obviously, $10/month is not going to make or break me... and if I spend a lot of time on any one sale, obviously, I'm not going to end up with an acceptable hourly rate, especially as I have some significant marginal costs that come out of that $10 before it can be spent on my salary. But I think it's important, to some extent, to still treat people like customers; yeah, the accountant won't even notice if that customer quits next month. But if more people quit than sign up? or if that customer quits and then loudly complains in public about my bad service? The customer isn't always right, but dealing with customers you don't want as customers is a delicate art. I'm certain that if I took an insulting attitude towards the customers I didn't want, it'd end badly for me rather quickly. So it seems to me like this issue is... complex. You want to appear to care, but you don't want to appear desperate, and the line between those two, much like the line between confidence and arrogance, can be pretty blurry (at least to someone as socially unskilled as myself.)
- hasenj 16y ago
  > I never understood this. I always thought that you'd rather buy from someone who is likely to go out of their way to serve your needs than to buy from someone who simply doesn't care. I know that all other things being equal (I mean, assuming I think both companies can actually deliver, at a similar price point, and that one company isn't going to vanish while I still need them.) that's certainly how I feel, when I buy expensive things. The idea is the person who's desperate for money is more likely to provide a cheap service, while the person who's not is more likely to provide a top notch service, because he has more respect for himself and would never want to be caught delivering garbage.
  - lsc 16y ago
    >The idea is the person who's desperate for money is more likely to provide a cheap service, while the person who's not is more likely to provide a top notch service, because he has more respect for himself and would never want to be caught delivering garbage. huh. see, my thought is always "We're the phone company, we don't care because we don't have to." I know many people go through great pains to avoid dealing with the phone company. Do you use AT&T DSL? I use sonic.net. I mean, yeah, T owns the layer1, but the whole experience is quite a bit more pleasant when I don't have to deal with the T. I've heard some people explain that companies, generally speaking, prefer to deal with other companies that are similar in size; It makes sense to me, at least in cases where I expect non-automated customer service.
    - dpritchett 16y ago
      Giant oligopolies are unpleasant to deal with for their own reasons. You want to appear indifferent to any particular sale for the same reason that playing hard to get works in dating: It implies that you are desirable/successful enough to pick and choose your partners. These strategies take advanage of humans' built-in decision making and survival heuristics. Women like a man who's already taken because they can assume that his current mate has already extensively vetted him for desirability. Anyone who smells desperate trips alarms and gets you wondering why they can't find a mate / job /client. There's a fine line between putting your best foot forward and cynically manipulating everyone around you of course. Robert Cialdini's book "Influence" shows you where the line is and how to stay on the clean side. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini#Six_.22Weapons_of_Influence.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini#Six_.22Weapons_... (P.S., thanks for prgmr. I enjoy my service.)
hasenj 16y ago
You can see this attitude in Apple. They sell their products at relatively high prices. You can always hear it from Steve Jobs: we're not gonna produce crap that sell cheap. When you think you're desperate for money, you become cheap, and you will produce garbage. I think it's also why 37signals has this mantra about always saying No to feature requests. They're not desperate for more customers; they'd rather make a top notch product instead.
- hasenj 16y ago
  (too late to edit now, so a reply) Here's a Steve Jobs video to showcase this mentality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu0qeb_rJYU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu0qeb_rJYU
ww520 16y ago
The "don't need money" attitude sends out a "social-proof" signal that the stuff being sold is in high demand, which translated into it's of high quality and worth buying. It's similar to the pricing signal of a high-priced product. The buyer takes all these signals into consideration when buying.

lsc 16y ago

I never understood this. I always thought that you'd rather buy from someone who is likely to go out of their way to serve your needs than to buy from someone who simply doesn't care. I know that all other things being equal (I mean, assuming I think both companies can actually deliver, at a similar price point, and that one company isn't going to vanish while I still need them.) that's certainly how I feel, when I buy expensive things. But then, I've pretty much miserably failed to sell any product (other than my time) that was worth, you know, real money per-customer, so this is likely one of those areas where I'm just weird, and another reason why using myself as a model for generalizing human behavior is a bad idea. Personally, I focus on selling a whole lot of little things, mostly because I've utterly failed to sell big things, and I've met some success selling lots of little things. Obviously, $10/month is not going to make or break me... and if I spend a lot of time on any one sale, obviously, I'm not going to end up with an acceptable hourly rate, especially as I have some significant marginal costs that come out of that $10 before it can be spent on my salary. But I think it's important, to some extent, to still treat people like customers; yeah, the accountant won't even notice if that customer quits next month. But if more people quit than sign up? or if that customer quits and then loudly complains in public about my bad service? The customer isn't always right, but dealing with customers you don't want as customers is a delicate art. I'm certain that if I took an insulting attitude towards the customers I didn't want, it'd end badly for me rather quickly. So it seems to me like this issue is... complex. You want to appear to care, but you don't want to appear desperate, and the line between those two, much like the line between confidence and arrogance, can be pretty blurry (at least to someone as socially unskilled as myself.)

hasenj 16y ago
> I never understood this. I always thought that you'd rather buy from someone who is likely to go out of their way to serve your needs than to buy from someone who simply doesn't care. I know that all other things being equal (I mean, assuming I think both companies can actually deliver, at a similar price point, and that one company isn't going to vanish while I still need them.) that's certainly how I feel, when I buy expensive things. The idea is the person who's desperate for money is more likely to provide a cheap service, while the person who's not is more likely to provide a top notch service, because he has more respect for himself and would never want to be caught delivering garbage.
- lsc 16y ago
  >The idea is the person who's desperate for money is more likely to provide a cheap service, while the person who's not is more likely to provide a top notch service, because he has more respect for himself and would never want to be caught delivering garbage. huh. see, my thought is always "We're the phone company, we don't care because we don't have to." I know many people go through great pains to avoid dealing with the phone company. Do you use AT&T DSL? I use sonic.net. I mean, yeah, T owns the layer1, but the whole experience is quite a bit more pleasant when I don't have to deal with the T. I've heard some people explain that companies, generally speaking, prefer to deal with other companies that are similar in size; It makes sense to me, at least in cases where I expect non-automated customer service.
  - dpritchett 16y ago
    Giant oligopolies are unpleasant to deal with for their own reasons. You want to appear indifferent to any particular sale for the same reason that playing hard to get works in dating: It implies that you are desirable/successful enough to pick and choose your partners. These strategies take advanage of humans' built-in decision making and survival heuristics. Women like a man who's already taken because they can assume that his current mate has already extensively vetted him for desirability. Anyone who smells desperate trips alarms and gets you wondering why they can't find a mate / job /client. There's a fine line between putting your best foot forward and cynically manipulating everyone around you of course. Robert Cialdini's book "Influence" shows you where the line is and how to stay on the clean side. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini#Six_.22Weapons_of_Influence.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini#Six_.22Weapons_... (P.S., thanks for prgmr. I enjoy my service.)

hasenj 16y ago

You can see this attitude in Apple. They sell their products at relatively high prices. You can always hear it from Steve Jobs: we're not gonna produce crap that sell cheap. When you think you're desperate for money, you become cheap, and you will produce garbage. I think it's also why 37signals has this mantra about always saying No to feature requests. They're not desperate for more customers; they'd rather make a top notch product instead.

hasenj 16y ago
(too late to edit now, so a reply) Here's a Steve Jobs video to showcase this mentality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu0qeb_rJYU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu0qeb_rJYU

ww520 16y ago

The "don't need money" attitude sends out a "social-proof" signal that the stuff being sold is in high demand, which translated into it's of high quality and worth buying. It's similar to the pricing signal of a high-priced product. The buyer takes all these signals into consideration when buying.