5 ms·

This is a great anecdote. You have got to be able to sell. If you can't–or you can't hire someone who can–you're dead in the water. It doesn't really matter how

This is a great anecdote. You have got to be able to sell. If you can't–or you can't hire someone who can–you're dead in the water. It doesn't really matter how good your product is.

chrsig 4y ago
I'm not completely convinced. I'm sure it always helps, and I'm sure in many cases it's a necessity in order to sell the product. I'd like to believe that there are some products that are good enough and solve pressing enough issues so as to sell themselves. It's probably a naive hope, but I like to cling to it. I wish there were enough honesty in sales as to not leave such a sour taste.
- didericis 4y ago
  I think the best way to handle that sour taste is to make a product that actually lives up to sales hype.
  - chrsig 4y ago
    I get the rationale, but it's disproportionately easy to oversell a product than live up to sales hype. I'm assuming a scenario where sales hype is on the verge of being detached from reality. It's an abuse of both customer trust and developer trust. There's probably some flip side of the coin where sales is being honest about what they were _told_ was delivered, but the product doesn't in actuality live up to what was committed to. In which case the development team should either up their QA standard or adjust what they've committed to developing. I'm sure there's some possible healthy relationship where there's some sales hype that's used to motivate product improvement, but I haven't personally experienced it.
  - mathattack 4y ago
    The Oracle model that everyone copied was “Oversell and eventually you can hire the engineers to make your product actually better than the competition” It worked so well (where are Sybase and the other RDBMS makers?) that everyone else copied the playbook. For intangible products with high switching costs it’s just more profitable for vendors to lie. This low integrity process has taken me a long time to come to grips with, and makes me especially prudent as a buyer.
- jrm4 4y ago
  Apologies, but in my experience in the IT realm, I find this hope to be so naive as to be dangerous. The possible silver lining is that there still exist millions of good problems to solve. But never ever expect solutions to be self-evident.
  - chrsig 4y ago
    I certainly understand why you think it's naive -- I even think it's naive, and it's my hope. I don't understand how it's dangerous though, would you mind expanding on that? > But never ever expect solutions to be self-evident. I certainly don't _expect_ anything. I just hope that there are products out there that don't need sleazy sales tactics, and let the product show it's worth hope != expectation. i expect to live a life with no shortage of disappointment ;)
    - jrm4 4y ago
      Dangerous may be an overstatement, but maybe not: I think what I was really trying to say was something along the lines of: In my opinion, right now in IT, "laypeople" don't have a good understanding of how bad things are in many respects, and how much better they could be in others. Moreover, there are a lot of effective "salespeople" in this space, and all this adds up to what I believe is a huge gap in perception and reality here. So the last thing I want is more belief that great IT comes along and saves us?
- jwiz 4y ago
  In days of yore, I worked for a company where the product basically did "sell itself". Over 90% of people who did a demo/trial run bought the product. Sadly, technology progressed, and the entire market went away. The same "Magic Quadrant"/Market space that Gartner made explicitly because of that product was retired some time back due to not being relevant.
  - llampx 4y ago
    What product space is that?
jcadam 4y ago
If you've ever had to sit through a presentation by an Oracle or SAP sales team, you know presentation matters more than quality :) I actually envy their ability to sell, even when I know their product is crap and I resent being made to use it by executives who bought a slick sales pitch.
- dqft 4y ago
  Big win for the API instrumentation team. https://youtu.be/kHW58D-_O64 https://youtu.be/kHW58D-_O64
  - jcadam 4y ago
    Very depressing. I love it.
mountainriver 4y ago
Eh I think this can be true but there are also projects that just build great open source tools with minimal selling and slowly win over engineers then maybe up sell them a bit later. These kinds of projects usually withstand the test of time where flashier projects often burn out because they aren’t good in practice. Good engineers are always wary of flashy things and keep an eye on substance
torginus 4y ago
The problem with selling is you have to know who you are selling to. I once developed a tool that saved literal days of time every month by automating some very rote workflows. It was appreciated by everyone who had to do the work by hand. When I tried to sell it to my bosses boss, I realized he literally didn't know a lick about our workflows, where the inefficiencies are, and how they could be remedied. We could've been making toothbrushes for all he cared. After a while, I pulled out the super fake looking 'bad bar goes down, good bar goes up' slide and his eyes lit up.
- geoduck14 4y ago
  >After a while, I pulled out the super fake looking 'bad bar goes down, good bar goes up' slide and his eyes lit up. This, right here, might be the most important lesson. Figure out the 1 or 2 things your boss's boss cares about. Show a single slide where the bad things go down and the good things go up. Have a couple of technical nerds that are trusted and agree with you. Bam. 10 minute promotion right there. Oh. I'll add something. I'm the boss right now. I spend a lot of time trying to make it clear to my team what I care about so they can give me that 1 slide presentation. I also spend plenty of time learning from my team why they care about stuff that I don't because they often care about important stuff (and I should, too)
mmcnl 4y ago
Not really though. It's way more important to know what skills you lack. If you can't sell, make sure someone is with you for the ride who can. Sometimes these problems can easily be solved.

This is a great anecdote. You have got to be able to sell. If you can't–or you can't hire someone who can–you're dead in the water. It doesn't really matter how good your product is.

chrsig 4y ago

I'm not completely convinced. I'm sure it always helps, and I'm sure in many cases it's a necessity in order to sell the product. I'd like to believe that there are some products that are good enough and solve pressing enough issues so as to sell themselves. It's probably a naive hope, but I like to cling to it. I wish there were enough honesty in sales as to not leave such a sour taste.

didericis 4y ago
I think the best way to handle that sour taste is to make a product that actually lives up to sales hype.
- chrsig 4y ago
  I get the rationale, but it's disproportionately easy to oversell a product than live up to sales hype. I'm assuming a scenario where sales hype is on the verge of being detached from reality. It's an abuse of both customer trust and developer trust. There's probably some flip side of the coin where sales is being honest about what they were _told_ was delivered, but the product doesn't in actuality live up to what was committed to. In which case the development team should either up their QA standard or adjust what they've committed to developing. I'm sure there's some possible healthy relationship where there's some sales hype that's used to motivate product improvement, but I haven't personally experienced it.
- mathattack 4y ago
  The Oracle model that everyone copied was “Oversell and eventually you can hire the engineers to make your product actually better than the competition” It worked so well (where are Sybase and the other RDBMS makers?) that everyone else copied the playbook. For intangible products with high switching costs it’s just more profitable for vendors to lie. This low integrity process has taken me a long time to come to grips with, and makes me especially prudent as a buyer.
jrm4 4y ago
Apologies, but in my experience in the IT realm, I find this hope to be so naive as to be dangerous. The possible silver lining is that there still exist millions of good problems to solve. But never ever expect solutions to be self-evident.
- chrsig 4y ago
  I certainly understand why you think it's naive -- I even think it's naive, and it's my hope. I don't understand how it's dangerous though, would you mind expanding on that? > But never ever expect solutions to be self-evident. I certainly don't _expect_ anything. I just hope that there are products out there that don't need sleazy sales tactics, and let the product show it's worth hope != expectation. i expect to live a life with no shortage of disappointment ;)
  - jrm4 4y ago
    Dangerous may be an overstatement, but maybe not: I think what I was really trying to say was something along the lines of: In my opinion, right now in IT, "laypeople" don't have a good understanding of how bad things are in many respects, and how much better they could be in others. Moreover, there are a lot of effective "salespeople" in this space, and all this adds up to what I believe is a huge gap in perception and reality here. So the last thing I want is more belief that great IT comes along and saves us?
jwiz 4y ago
In days of yore, I worked for a company where the product basically did "sell itself". Over 90% of people who did a demo/trial run bought the product. Sadly, technology progressed, and the entire market went away. The same "Magic Quadrant"/Market space that Gartner made explicitly because of that product was retired some time back due to not being relevant.
- llampx 4y ago
  What product space is that?

jcadam 4y ago

If you've ever had to sit through a presentation by an Oracle or SAP sales team, you know presentation matters more than quality :) I actually envy their ability to sell, even when I know their product is crap and I resent being made to use it by executives who bought a slick sales pitch.

dqft 4y ago
Big win for the API instrumentation team. https://youtu.be/kHW58D-_O64 https://youtu.be/kHW58D-_O64
- jcadam 4y ago
  Very depressing. I love it.

mountainriver 4y ago

Eh I think this can be true but there are also projects that just build great open source tools with minimal selling and slowly win over engineers then maybe up sell them a bit later. These kinds of projects usually withstand the test of time where flashier projects often burn out because they aren’t good in practice. Good engineers are always wary of flashy things and keep an eye on substance

torginus 4y ago

The problem with selling is you have to know who you are selling to. I once developed a tool that saved literal days of time every month by automating some very rote workflows. It was appreciated by everyone who had to do the work by hand. When I tried to sell it to my bosses boss, I realized he literally didn't know a lick about our workflows, where the inefficiencies are, and how they could be remedied. We could've been making toothbrushes for all he cared. After a while, I pulled out the super fake looking 'bad bar goes down, good bar goes up' slide and his eyes lit up.

geoduck14 4y ago
>After a while, I pulled out the super fake looking 'bad bar goes down, good bar goes up' slide and his eyes lit up. This, right here, might be the most important lesson. Figure out the 1 or 2 things your boss's boss cares about. Show a single slide where the bad things go down and the good things go up. Have a couple of technical nerds that are trusted and agree with you. Bam. 10 minute promotion right there. Oh. I'll add something. I'm the boss right now. I spend a lot of time trying to make it clear to my team what I care about so they can give me that 1 slide presentation. I also spend plenty of time learning from my team why they care about stuff that I don't because they often care about important stuff (and I should, too)

mmcnl 4y ago

Not really though. It's way more important to know what skills you lack. If you can't sell, make sure someone is with you for the ride who can. Sometimes these problems can easily be solved.