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As much as I kind of despise sales and salesmanship, I'm slowly realizing that it's an essential skill to getting the things you want in life. A friend of mind

As much as I kind of despise sales and salesmanship, I'm slowly realizing that it's an essential skill to getting the things you want in life. A friend of mind helped me rework my resume recently, and the fundamental point she finally got through my skull after a few hours was that the point of the resume is to demonstrate my potential value to the prospective employer. Which is part of what patio11 is saying on here all the time (in addition to: find the place where you can provide the most value). It's something I've always sucked at, and I've been trying to figure out why. I think it's something a lot of nerds hold in common. Partly it's modesty. I don't like to self-promote (to use the term in a neutral way, including a simple demonstration of potential value), because I just don't like to talk about myself. Partly it's humility. The more I learn, the more I learn how much I don't know. The more people I meet, the more I realize how awesome people are. Self-promotion in this context feels false. Partly it's some weird version of misplaced pride. I don't feel like I should have to self-promote. My actions, ideas, and accomplishments should speak for themselves. Similarly, I feel like I shouldn't have to find a place where I can provide value; it should find me. These are both wrong and stupid sentiments, of course. I think this is really hard for some of us. These feelings make us allergic to sales, in both directions. But it seems like people like patio11 have found a sort of middle path between unrewarded toil and shameless blow-hardiness. This post feels a bit to me like someone on the other side of the divide trying to reach out to me, and while I appreciate the effort, I still feel instinctively suspicious. I think what I need is more from people who started on my side of the divide and found a good place in the middle about how they got there.

ulisesrmzroche 15y ago
It comes from not having much experience with haggling and having a good and instinctual distrust of people who use the terms "rockstar" (still lol) or write blogs about ass-kicking. Best way to get started is to watch "Real Deal" on the History Channel and then try selling your old junk on craigslist.
jasonshen 15y ago
Hey joebadmo - thanks for your thoughtful comment! I realize that I have skipped some of that backstory and it makes people read my thoughts on selling/self-promotion with more wariness. I hope to write more about this in my next post in the series (Why Smart People Suck at Selling) but basically I was a nice, energetic and shy child to the point of being bullied. Part of my shift in thinking was learning to stand up for myself and realizing that I was responsible for getting what I wanted out of life -- and that the best way to do that was to help other people get what THEY want. Anyways, more on that later. Thanks for your thoughts.
- davidhansen 15y ago
  and that the best way to do that was to help other people get what THEY want. Would be interesting to see how you back this up. My experience has invariably been that no good deed goes unpunished.
jonnathanson 15y ago
As a fellow smart, hard-working, nerdy introvert, let me add another bullet point (or perhaps a sub-point under "humility"): personal ethics. I grew up with a serious aversion to bullshit in all of its forms. Especially when it verged on outright lying. All too often, I'd seen hucksterish, self-promoting coworkers tell bald-faced lies about their work, their accomplishments, their positions, etc., and get massively rewarded for doing so. I couldn't bring myself to do it. Consciously, I knew that bullshitting about myself -- even just a tiny bit -- was a successful career ascension tactic. And I knew that not doing so was, perhaps, actively slowing me down. But damn it, it just felt so fake and slimy and wrong. Eventually -- and it's taken me more years to learn this fact than I feel comfortable admitting -- I realized that bullshit is not binary. There isn't some black-or-white dichotomy between "lying" and "telling the truth." In between lies an entire spectrum, and some of that spectrum is safe to play in. Even encouraged. It's possible to sell yourself with only a drop of bullshit. Sort of like a fine layer of rhetorical polish. It's not about fabricating accomplishments out of whole cloth, but rather, about talking your real accomplishments up, and describing them in just the right way. For a lot of people, finding that level of just-the-right-amount-of-bullshit comes very naturally. For others, like myself, it's a skill that needs to be learned.
- joebadmo 15y ago
  Great point, and as an illustration of the same mentality, I find something inside myself recoil at the thought of compromising even a little on bullshit. And I totally agree with you that it often seems like bullshitting talent and skills get people a lot farther in any field than actual value. Which is infuriatingly unfair. I think the struggle is to figure out how to hit the same pschological targets that bullshitters do, without bullshitting. And the answer I'm sort of converging on is, again, to demonstrate your true value. Even this, I think, is something that comes naturally to some and not others. I keep bringing up patio11 because he in no way sets of my bullshit detectors, but manages to demonstrate his value. The feeling I get is that it's something he has a talent for.
  - jasonshen 15y ago
    I think at some point you have to move away from the idea of "bullshit". Human beings are basically incapable of making fully rational decisions where all options are weighed and the cost benefit analysis is complete. There is no way to be totally "pure". If you make the world's greatest device and no one knows about it, no one will benefit. The moment you tell anyone about it, you are "selling" and how you choose to portray the device, it's features/benefits, how often and forcefully you endorse the device is all part of sales. Salesmanship IS demonstration of value. Patio11 would be able to sell hackers/developers on something better than a used car salesman, but the verse is true regarding the sale of used cars to regular people.
eric-hu 15y ago
I really liked your comment and I'd like to add my own perspective, which is similar. My ideal as a developer is to project the same attitude to clients and bosses that I would like to have. It's not exactly my current attitude, but it would go something like this: If I know how to do something "Yes, I can do that, I've done that before and I'm familiar with the steps." If I don't "Yes, I can do that, I just need enough time to figure out how." Abstracted to general product marketing "Yes, we can meet your needs with our current product or figure out a way to do so at a cost of x to you" Any time that last statement turns out to be false in retrospect beyond some threshold (lets say 10% of the time), that's a sign of overselling. I guess the threshold is where some subjective fuzz comes into play. Likewise, the cost accuracy is important too (time also matters, but I'm rolling that into cost). Integrity is about avoiding such statements when impossible or when needs are extremely high. They can still be said with large costs (I can build you Google maps, but it would take over ten years). A lot of this derives from Patio11's comment collection. jasonshen: if you read this, thank you for the post. I really enjoyed it and admire the rejection therapy you've done in the past
- jasonshen 15y ago
  Eric: I did read this and I'm glad you liked the post.
itmag 15y ago
I think it's a mistake to despise (although I of course know what you mean). In the abstract sense, everything is always tied to a narrative. Rhetorics is the art of juxtaposing different narratives and getting others to join yours. Sales would be a subset of that.
itmag 15y ago
Partly it's humility. The more I learn, the more I learn how much I don't know. The more people I meet, the more I realize how awesome people are. Self-promotion in this context feels false. Heh, as long as you think this, you paradoxically should give yourself carte blance to go for what you want with confidence. Why? Because there isn't some perfect confidence level waiting beyond where you are at now; acceptance that one doesn't know everything is actually the highest possible position, confidence-wise, because at that point you have seen the truth of things and decided to become self-correcting. People who feel that they are confident to do/know anything are actually one rung lower than true humility (although it's easy for a humble person to think those people have found some truth that we have yet to find, and give the cocksure more credit than they deserve). It's when one loses true humility that one should watch out (Dunning-Kruger effect and all that). Life is a balancing act between being too certain and being not enough certain. The holy grail of confidence is to become so without also becoming delusional and leaving oneself open to mistake. I hope I made my point clear enough :) I spend a lot of time thinking about confidence vs delusion, and how to attain true confidence, but it's not always easy to unpack my thoughts for someone else's benefit.

ulisesrmzroche 15y ago

It comes from not having much experience with haggling and having a good and instinctual distrust of people who use the terms "rockstar" (still lol) or write blogs about ass-kicking. Best way to get started is to watch "Real Deal" on the History Channel and then try selling your old junk on craigslist.

jasonshen 15y ago

Hey joebadmo - thanks for your thoughtful comment! I realize that I have skipped some of that backstory and it makes people read my thoughts on selling/self-promotion with more wariness. I hope to write more about this in my next post in the series (Why Smart People Suck at Selling) but basically I was a nice, energetic and shy child to the point of being bullied. Part of my shift in thinking was learning to stand up for myself and realizing that I was responsible for getting what I wanted out of life -- and that the best way to do that was to help other people get what THEY want. Anyways, more on that later. Thanks for your thoughts.

davidhansen 15y ago
and that the best way to do that was to help other people get what THEY want. Would be interesting to see how you back this up. My experience has invariably been that no good deed goes unpunished.

jonnathanson 15y ago

As a fellow smart, hard-working, nerdy introvert, let me add another bullet point (or perhaps a sub-point under "humility"): personal ethics. I grew up with a serious aversion to bullshit in all of its forms. Especially when it verged on outright lying. All too often, I'd seen hucksterish, self-promoting coworkers tell bald-faced lies about their work, their accomplishments, their positions, etc., and get massively rewarded for doing so. I couldn't bring myself to do it. Consciously, I knew that bullshitting about myself -- even just a tiny bit -- was a successful career ascension tactic. And I knew that not doing so was, perhaps, actively slowing me down. But damn it, it just felt so fake and slimy and wrong. Eventually -- and it's taken me more years to learn this fact than I feel comfortable admitting -- I realized that bullshit is not binary. There isn't some black-or-white dichotomy between "lying" and "telling the truth." In between lies an entire spectrum, and some of that spectrum is safe to play in. Even encouraged. It's possible to sell yourself with only a drop of bullshit. Sort of like a fine layer of rhetorical polish. It's not about fabricating accomplishments out of whole cloth, but rather, about talking your real accomplishments up, and describing them in just the right way. For a lot of people, finding that level of just-the-right-amount-of-bullshit comes very naturally. For others, like myself, it's a skill that needs to be learned.

joebadmo 15y ago
Great point, and as an illustration of the same mentality, I find something inside myself recoil at the thought of compromising even a little on bullshit. And I totally agree with you that it often seems like bullshitting talent and skills get people a lot farther in any field than actual value. Which is infuriatingly unfair. I think the struggle is to figure out how to hit the same pschological targets that bullshitters do, without bullshitting. And the answer I'm sort of converging on is, again, to demonstrate your true value. Even this, I think, is something that comes naturally to some and not others. I keep bringing up patio11 because he in no way sets of my bullshit detectors, but manages to demonstrate his value. The feeling I get is that it's something he has a talent for.
- jasonshen 15y ago
  I think at some point you have to move away from the idea of "bullshit". Human beings are basically incapable of making fully rational decisions where all options are weighed and the cost benefit analysis is complete. There is no way to be totally "pure". If you make the world's greatest device and no one knows about it, no one will benefit. The moment you tell anyone about it, you are "selling" and how you choose to portray the device, it's features/benefits, how often and forcefully you endorse the device is all part of sales. Salesmanship IS demonstration of value. Patio11 would be able to sell hackers/developers on something better than a used car salesman, but the verse is true regarding the sale of used cars to regular people.

eric-hu 15y ago

I really liked your comment and I'd like to add my own perspective, which is similar. My ideal as a developer is to project the same attitude to clients and bosses that I would like to have. It's not exactly my current attitude, but it would go something like this: If I know how to do something "Yes, I can do that, I've done that before and I'm familiar with the steps." If I don't "Yes, I can do that, I just need enough time to figure out how." Abstracted to general product marketing "Yes, we can meet your needs with our current product or figure out a way to do so at a cost of x to you" Any time that last statement turns out to be false in retrospect beyond some threshold (lets say 10% of the time), that's a sign of overselling. I guess the threshold is where some subjective fuzz comes into play. Likewise, the cost accuracy is important too (time also matters, but I'm rolling that into cost). Integrity is about avoiding such statements when impossible or when needs are extremely high. They can still be said with large costs (I can build you Google maps, but it would take over ten years). A lot of this derives from Patio11's comment collection. jasonshen: if you read this, thank you for the post. I really enjoyed it and admire the rejection therapy you've done in the past

jasonshen 15y ago
Eric: I did read this and I'm glad you liked the post.

itmag 15y ago

I think it's a mistake to despise (although I of course know what you mean). In the abstract sense, everything is always tied to a narrative. Rhetorics is the art of juxtaposing different narratives and getting others to join yours. Sales would be a subset of that.

itmag 15y ago

Partly it's humility. The more I learn, the more I learn how much I don't know. The more people I meet, the more I realize how awesome people are. Self-promotion in this context feels false. Heh, as long as you think this, you paradoxically should give yourself carte blance to go for what you want with confidence. Why? Because there isn't some perfect confidence level waiting beyond where you are at now; acceptance that one doesn't know everything is actually the highest possible position, confidence-wise, because at that point you have seen the truth of things and decided to become self-correcting. People who feel that they are confident to do/know anything are actually one rung lower than true humility (although it's easy for a humble person to think those people have found some truth that we have yet to find, and give the cocksure more credit than they deserve). It's when one loses true humility that one should watch out (Dunning-Kruger effect and all that). Life is a balancing act between being too certain and being not enough certain. The holy grail of confidence is to become so without also becoming delusional and leaving oneself open to mistake. I hope I made my point clear enough :) I spend a lot of time thinking about confidence vs delusion, and how to attain true confidence, but it's not always easy to unpack my thoughts for someone else's benefit.