3 ms·

learn sales, it fixes everything.

by joshxyz 4y ago

baxtr 4y ago
I agree. But then still the question remains: sell what?
- simne 4y ago
  I have made lot mistakes and learn lot. From my exp/knowledge, most important to start doing business. - 99% of ideas end just ideas, nothing done, just from some foundations mistakenly considered, doing will be too boring, or not worth time/money/etc. Unfortunately, books and academia, not too helpful, because, usually, books written and academia running, by people, who are not successful in business, but good in write books or in teaching. Next important thing, don't screw up. Meaning, even experienced people make epic mistakes, which are really easy to avoid. But for this need to be experienced and open minded, this is not easy. When you do sales, your skin becomes thick and solid, because you lot of time hear refusing, but in product dev (on service even more!) you need to have powerful closed loop with client. So, in conclusion, two main business principles: 1. hear your clients, who pay money. 2. start/stop easy.
- joshxyz 4y ago
  answered in sibling comment. tldr the entirety of himself.
Brajeshwar 4y ago
Extremely authentic and good advice. However, in this case, the wrong target. The OP is looking to do technical work and perhaps, if viable, avoid the "selling" part. Everyone should "sell" and learn to be good at the specific idea of "selling" suited to that person. A CTO/VP-of-Eng should sell technical proofs, ideas, to the internal team and external hiring prospect, and sometime to the CEO to push forward technical awesomeness. Having said that, "Learn to Sell" can be told blanket to all aspiring founders, and trying to take on a CEO role.
- joshxyz 4y ago
  hard to avoid doing sales when life in itself is sales. it's a life skill. it's how you nego for a better salary, how you identify real pain points of people, how you charge higher rates, also how you date and how you teach your kids. everything is sales. more answered in sibling comment.
- xaml 4y ago
  "Learn to articulate yourself" might be a less sinister and more approachable phrase to many honest, hard-working engineering folks.
JaDogg 4y ago
What is a good way to get started?
- joshxyz 4y ago
  @bowtiedsalesguy on twitter, his tweets and free substack blog are great for starters.
- Brajeshwar 4y ago
  I had suggested Founding Sales[1] a few times. It is an easy to read, and a good primer to start. You can read it online if you register. The print copy is worth it. 1. https://www.foundingsales.com https://www.foundingsales.com
joshxyz 4y ago
OP, sales is a skill that has the highest ROI of all. life is sales, it's how you pitch yourself to a company or a client, how you negotiate for a larger salary, how you identify the pain points of your clients, how you screen if they're the right fit for you, how you prioritize if you're focusing on the right stuff. even dating the right person is sales, also how you convince your kid to beush his/her teeth every after meal. all of it is sales, which is more about emotions than logic. you resist learning it because you're anxious, probably because you got this idea that learning and doing it is cringeworthy as hell. what you resist persists, it might be the sign it's the right thing to do: to start fucking learning it. check out @bowtiedsalesguy on twitter, his tweets alone will show you a different frame and headspace of how to properly approach these things.
- waltbosz 4y ago
  > convince your kid to brush his/her teeth every after meal. all of it is sales, which is more about emotions than logic. Cute story: I was having trouble getting my 4-year-old to brush his teeth until one night, I had to idea to show him this children's Q&A book that had a page about "why do I have to brush my teeth?" The little cartoon bacteria convinced him that brushing his teeth was a good idea. It was like a light switch in his head; I finished the page and he said, "daddy, I want to brush my teeth now" and walked off to the bathroom.
  - borplk 4y ago
    Sounds cool and I'm not experienced in this area but I'd say watch out that it's not creating some kind of phobia or obsession with them thinking about scary invisible things in their mouth!
    - waltbosz 4y ago
      To give more context to the story about my son: I didn't at all give him some overbearing lecture. I simply read the page to him as if it were regular story-time and let him make the decision, which he did with remarkable swiftness. That's good advice about phobia/obsession. My daughter is a bit weird about germs. For example the other day, I was handling a deer skull that we found in the backyard, and she was a little put out that I touched a doorknob before washing my hands. As a kid, I was the same way with germs. As an adult, I'm probably still a bit overly cautious. When COVID happened, I joked that it wasn't OCD, but rather it was training for a pandemic. My observation of her behavior makes me wonder if it's a nature vs. nurture thing with her. Nurture: Did I accidentally teach her my phobia. Nature: does her brain (like mine) ruminate about everything, leading to phobias when the topic of ruminations is a scary thing like germs.
sebastianconcpt 4y ago
I remember doing this. There is a problem. Operate the sales. I remember having the fullstack design and operations of the tech side of the product but the sales and support side of the product (conversion, adoption, tech support, tickets) required the same muscle volume than the tech side did. So you can double your knowledge rasonably fast but you cannot double your attention and dedicated time.
- sebastianconcpt 4y ago
  And I remember this Paul Kenny talk at Business of Software being of great intro to the subject: Selling Sales to Techies - Business of software 2010 https://vimeo.com/96703844 https://vimeo.com/96703844

learn sales, it fixes everything.

baxtr 4y ago

I agree. But then still the question remains: sell what?

simne 4y ago
I have made lot mistakes and learn lot. From my exp/knowledge, most important to start doing business. - 99% of ideas end just ideas, nothing done, just from some foundations mistakenly considered, doing will be too boring, or not worth time/money/etc. Unfortunately, books and academia, not too helpful, because, usually, books written and academia running, by people, who are not successful in business, but good in write books or in teaching. Next important thing, don't screw up. Meaning, even experienced people make epic mistakes, which are really easy to avoid. But for this need to be experienced and open minded, this is not easy. When you do sales, your skin becomes thick and solid, because you lot of time hear refusing, but in product dev (on service even more!) you need to have powerful closed loop with client. So, in conclusion, two main business principles: 1. hear your clients, who pay money. 2. start/stop easy.
joshxyz 4y ago
answered in sibling comment. tldr the entirety of himself.

Brajeshwar 4y ago

Extremely authentic and good advice. However, in this case, the wrong target. The OP is looking to do technical work and perhaps, if viable, avoid the "selling" part. Everyone should "sell" and learn to be good at the specific idea of "selling" suited to that person. A CTO/VP-of-Eng should sell technical proofs, ideas, to the internal team and external hiring prospect, and sometime to the CEO to push forward technical awesomeness. Having said that, "Learn to Sell" can be told blanket to all aspiring founders, and trying to take on a CEO role.

joshxyz 4y ago
hard to avoid doing sales when life in itself is sales. it's a life skill. it's how you nego for a better salary, how you identify real pain points of people, how you charge higher rates, also how you date and how you teach your kids. everything is sales. more answered in sibling comment.
xaml 4y ago
"Learn to articulate yourself" might be a less sinister and more approachable phrase to many honest, hard-working engineering folks.

JaDogg 4y ago

What is a good way to get started?

joshxyz 4y ago
@bowtiedsalesguy on twitter, his tweets and free substack blog are great for starters.
Brajeshwar 4y ago
I had suggested Founding Sales[1] a few times. It is an easy to read, and a good primer to start. You can read it online if you register. The print copy is worth it. 1. https://www.foundingsales.com https://www.foundingsales.com

joshxyz 4y ago

OP, sales is a skill that has the highest ROI of all. life is sales, it's how you pitch yourself to a company or a client, how you negotiate for a larger salary, how you identify the pain points of your clients, how you screen if they're the right fit for you, how you prioritize if you're focusing on the right stuff. even dating the right person is sales, also how you convince your kid to beush his/her teeth every after meal. all of it is sales, which is more about emotions than logic. you resist learning it because you're anxious, probably because you got this idea that learning and doing it is cringeworthy as hell. what you resist persists, it might be the sign it's the right thing to do: to start fucking learning it. check out @bowtiedsalesguy on twitter, his tweets alone will show you a different frame and headspace of how to properly approach these things.

waltbosz 4y ago
> convince your kid to brush his/her teeth every after meal. all of it is sales, which is more about emotions than logic. Cute story: I was having trouble getting my 4-year-old to brush his teeth until one night, I had to idea to show him this children's Q&A book that had a page about "why do I have to brush my teeth?" The little cartoon bacteria convinced him that brushing his teeth was a good idea. It was like a light switch in his head; I finished the page and he said, "daddy, I want to brush my teeth now" and walked off to the bathroom.
- borplk 4y ago
  Sounds cool and I'm not experienced in this area but I'd say watch out that it's not creating some kind of phobia or obsession with them thinking about scary invisible things in their mouth!
  - waltbosz 4y ago
    To give more context to the story about my son: I didn't at all give him some overbearing lecture. I simply read the page to him as if it were regular story-time and let him make the decision, which he did with remarkable swiftness. That's good advice about phobia/obsession. My daughter is a bit weird about germs. For example the other day, I was handling a deer skull that we found in the backyard, and she was a little put out that I touched a doorknob before washing my hands. As a kid, I was the same way with germs. As an adult, I'm probably still a bit overly cautious. When COVID happened, I joked that it wasn't OCD, but rather it was training for a pandemic. My observation of her behavior makes me wonder if it's a nature vs. nurture thing with her. Nurture: Did I accidentally teach her my phobia. Nature: does her brain (like mine) ruminate about everything, leading to phobias when the topic of ruminations is a scary thing like germs.

sebastianconcpt 4y ago

I remember doing this. There is a problem. Operate the sales. I remember having the fullstack design and operations of the tech side of the product but the sales and support side of the product (conversion, adoption, tech support, tickets) required the same muscle volume than the tech side did. So you can double your knowledge rasonably fast but you cannot double your attention and dedicated time.

sebastianconcpt 4y ago
And I remember this Paul Kenny talk at Business of Software being of great intro to the subject: Selling Sales to Techies - Business of software 2010 https://vimeo.com/96703844 https://vimeo.com/96703844