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Sales people instinctively understand that you can't just rationally provide value to your customer; you also have to persuade the customer's decision-makers th
by jleader 14y ago
Sales people instinctively understand that you can't just rationally provide value to your customer; you also have to persuade the customer's decision-makers that you're providing value.
At BigCo, this means you can't just do what's good for the company, you also have to make sure your boss is happy about what you're doing.
This pitfall is especially tempting to hyper-rational programmer types, who think that providing value is sufficient, and that no company (including their personal "company of 1") should ever need sales or marketing departments.
- rprospero 14y agoThere is a strategy to the rational approach, but it's rarely stated: if your organization can't recognize value without undue effort, then it's going to lose to one who can. To put it differently, if your job is the ship's lookout, you don't try and convince the captain that he needs a lookout. You try to find a new captain who won't sink the ship.