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It's always a bit disheartening when I see someone from the engineering, product, or marketing sides of the business not understand the most basic of principles
by fallous 2y ago
It's always a bit disheartening when I see someone from the engineering, product, or marketing sides of the business not understand the most basic of principles that salespeople learn at the beginning of their careers... people mostly make decisions based on needs, and if you don't ask and understand their needs you won't make the sale. Also, the more painful the problem that drives a need the more likely you will make the sale.
I had the benefit of learning this before I ever went to University by working sales jobs while in High School, and boy has it made my life easier not only as a programmer but also in nearly any collaboration with co-workers.
Don't recite features and benefits, that's just lazily hoping the person you're trying to convince will do your job for you. Take the time to ask enough questions to know and understand their needs. If the thing you're pitching can at least fit, and preferably help solve, some of those needs then you have a good chance of getting them to buy in. If, on the other hand, it doesn't address a need they have then you're going to struggle to convince them... and perhaps that may also be a clue that your solution may not actually be the best way to go.
- frant-hartm 2y agoThat's why I hate sales people. Give me all the info on your product, ideally, make it easy to compare to others and I will decide myself. The idea that one can ask me a few questions and give good advice when buying a phone, a car, a house etc.. is just bizarre. Maybe it is not like that in the general population, but it certainly is within technically-minded people.
- n_plus_1_acc 2y agoI feel the same. I want to make decisions based on facts, not emotional Manipulation.
- roenxi 2y agoThat isn't emotional manipulation. It is what would get called "good communication" or maybe even "empathy" on a slow day. If someone is talking to a salesperson it can't reasonably be seen as manipulation when they explain why said person should buy the thing. That is the point of the conversation.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- walthamstow 2y agoHow do you obtain objective facts about a product?
- lucianbr 2y agoIf I buy a washing machine, it has a fixed known volume, weight capacity, power consumption, noise level. These are objective facts, no? Do you think we can have different opinions on how many kilos of clothes it can take, and be both right? They would come from the manufacturer manual or a spec sheet or something like that. Windows has some objective, known, minimum hardware requirements. Are they open to interpretation? What kind of products are you buying that make you wonder how to get objective facts about them?
- deely3 2y agoI have feeling that this is quite an oversimplification. OS like Windows is times and times more complex than washing machine. I don't think that it makes any sense to choose OS by minimum requirements.
- lucianbr 2y agoIt was just an example. Did you expect me to list all possible objective facts about windows in a HN comment? Here is another objective fact about Windows: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41818815 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41818815 Your feelings however seem to be good arguments?
- itake 2y agoGive me the info by email. I hate it when they try to get me on the phone.
- freedomben 2y agoAbsolutely, me too. They push hard for the phone because many of the sales tactics don't work with email because they're based on non-verbal cues and subtle detection/exploitation. For example, many salespeople are trained to closely watch the person's face and identify what lands and what doesn't and dynamically adapt. They also want to be able to pressure you for "next steps" or the "follow up" meeting. I get it, a call can be a lot more efficient for a discussion. There are certainly legitimate reasons to prefer a call to an email. But it reminds me a lot of big tech companies seizing to things like "security" as an ~excuse~ justification for doing things that benefit them. I know the motives aren't pure, and that bothers me.
- wmal 2y agoMost people don’t operate this way. Choice is painful and induces anxiety. There’s a high chance of getting buyers remorse even if you chose the „objectively best” model. A good salesperson will make sure the choice process is relatively quick and painless. You will feel good afterwards knowing that all the 125 aspects that differentiate this model from the other ones are not that important. The one you chose runs your favourite apps, integrates well with your car and your home entertainment system. Understanding this and learning how to sell helps in life, incl. negotiating architectural changes with non technical decision makers.
- pavlov 2y agoI don’t understand why you’re downvoted. It’s absolutely true that most people don’t like making purchasing decisions by privately comparing spec dumps, even though many programmers enjoy that.
- jkestner 2y agoYou're telling me some people out there don't create spreadsheets and a scoring system to compare 10 different ceiling fans before purchase?
- kamarg 2y agoAbsolutely not. It should be abstracted out enough that it can be applied to all purchases and not just ceiling fans. Otherwise, you're going to be duplicating effort for the next purchase and you don't want to have to repeat yourself.
- jkestner 2y agoI was actually thinking of scaling to a site first, and then expand horizontally to all ceiling-mounted products. Because what's the point if I can't monetize my decision-making system?
- squarefoot 2y ago
- lukevdp 2y ago"give all the info on your product" Exactly except: If you're a CEO, the info you care about is one set of info. If you're a user, the info you care about is different. If you're some other influencer, the info you care about is different again. Everyone wants different sets of info. Good sales is figuring out what that is and giving it to you.
- binary132 2y agoWhy have we developed a system of organizing engineering work that is based on engineers having to sell ideas to their colleagues?
- datavirtue 2y agoEconomics.
- vundercind 2y agoIn a way, but I have a feeling the conquest of work-life by people who don’t understand the directly-productive work the company does is a result of economics operating in the 1980s—present era of unshackled M&A. It’s a regulatory outcome.
- binary132 2y agoare you trying to suggest that Darwinian selection is the most efficient way to organize a collective to achieve a goal?
- Loughla 2y agoBecause their work impacts other people and therefore requires other people to be on board with it? Unless you're a 1 person company, nothing you do ever only impacts you.
- kaashif 2y agoThe fact that you have to explain this is somewhat concerning. Usually people say that people skills are as important for having lots of impact as technical skills, but the bar for people skills is really low sometimes I guess.
- binary132 2y agoIt’s really weird to me that people have such a hard time imagining a world without “scaled agile” and debate over duplo-scale priorities between product managers and nerds every two weeks. In a sane world, these kinds of decisions would not be a pseudo-democratic negotiation.