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> Keep it short: A pitch is like a joke. The longer it is, the less impact it has. Cut out as many syllables as you can. Uh, are you into standup comedy? One-l

> Keep it short: A pitch is like a joke. The longer it is, the less impact it has. Cut out as many syllables as you can. Uh, are you into standup comedy? One-liners aren’t the be-all-end-all. And seriously, institutional sales cycles at the 7-figure level often take months not minutes.

an_opabinia 5y ago
> they just wanted to know that you understood the oscilloscopes and weren't bullshitting them. In the IT industry, I feel like absolutely, 100% everyone must know that 98% of computers a giant company buys should be MacBook Airs, and yet Lenovo employees wake up every day telling people they should buy some crappy laptops. There are possibly 20 well-funded startups bullshitting people that they should use a database other than Postgres. The present of sales is Wirecutter, not "sales cycles." Most people are making mediocre, derivative crap, how could they possibly not be bullshitting you? If you're making something fucking shitty, just don't fucking sell it at all, and move on. Wait until it's the best, or do something else.
- bruce511 5y ago
  It can be hard to understand why the best product for you personally might not be the best product for someone else. A good salesman understands the need first, then the solution. By contrast your assertion that a Macbook Air is the best option 98% of the time (for giant companies no less) seems unlikely at best, and an incompetent sales person at worst. I am not a Macbook user myself (for various reasons) so I won't delve into why giant-Corp may prefer Windows, but suffice to say that when you are adding thousands of machines to an existing environment, issues like Active Directory, User Training, custom software compatibility, job risk (to the purchaser) are front of mind. For example say you're the guy who just dropped tens of millions on 1000 of these new Macs, because they are sooo much nicer, and then reports come in about keyboards not working. Let's just say your firing may be a lesson to the next buyer...
- muzani 5y ago
  On the Postgres thing, this is one of my favourite example of sales: https://docs.fauna.com/fauna/current/comparisons/compare-faunadb-vs-postgres https://docs.fauna.com/fauna/current/comparisons/compare-fau... It's by a former Twitter engineer. I have no idea if he's bullshitting me but he's a lot smarter at this topic than I am so I'm inclined to believe it. It's a new thing. I generally don't have the time for new things, especially something like a database with a learning curve. But this is one of the things that caught my eye. I don't really remember how it did, but it's good sales work.
tarsinge 5y ago
You don’t spend these months pitching, in fact the cycle only start because the initial pitch was effective.

an_opabinia 5y ago

> they just wanted to know that you understood the oscilloscopes and weren't bullshitting them. In the IT industry, I feel like absolutely, 100% everyone must know that 98% of computers a giant company buys should be MacBook Airs, and yet Lenovo employees wake up every day telling people they should buy some crappy laptops. There are possibly 20 well-funded startups bullshitting people that they should use a database other than Postgres. The present of sales is Wirecutter, not "sales cycles." Most people are making mediocre, derivative crap, how could they possibly not be bullshitting you? If you're making something fucking shitty, just don't fucking sell it at all, and move on. Wait until it's the best, or do something else.

bruce511 5y ago
It can be hard to understand why the best product for you personally might not be the best product for someone else. A good salesman understands the need first, then the solution. By contrast your assertion that a Macbook Air is the best option 98% of the time (for giant companies no less) seems unlikely at best, and an incompetent sales person at worst. I am not a Macbook user myself (for various reasons) so I won't delve into why giant-Corp may prefer Windows, but suffice to say that when you are adding thousands of machines to an existing environment, issues like Active Directory, User Training, custom software compatibility, job risk (to the purchaser) are front of mind. For example say you're the guy who just dropped tens of millions on 1000 of these new Macs, because they are sooo much nicer, and then reports come in about keyboards not working. Let's just say your firing may be a lesson to the next buyer...
muzani 5y ago
On the Postgres thing, this is one of my favourite example of sales: https://docs.fauna.com/fauna/current/comparisons/compare-faunadb-vs-postgres https://docs.fauna.com/fauna/current/comparisons/compare-fau... It's by a former Twitter engineer. I have no idea if he's bullshitting me but he's a lot smarter at this topic than I am so I'm inclined to believe it. It's a new thing. I generally don't have the time for new things, especially something like a database with a learning curve. But this is one of the things that caught my eye. I don't really remember how it did, but it's good sales work.

tarsinge 5y ago

You don’t spend these months pitching, in fact the cycle only start because the initial pitch was effective.