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We all hate recieving cold emails, yet there is likely a majority of us in this post who work for companies that rely on cold emails to get sales that ultimatel

by skc 2y ago

We all hate recieving cold emails, yet there is likely a majority of us in this post who work for companies that rely on cold emails to get sales that ultimately pay our salaries.

cpursley 2y ago
Yep, hn being engineer heavy, there’s a strong bias against marketing and sales. But that is what actually pays the bills, at least for us non-VC funded companies slugging it out in the real world.
- TheNewsIsHere 2y ago
  Piggybacking on your reply — I submit this is apples and oranges. An HN reader working for Microsoft isn’t working at a company that pays the bills on the back of cold sales emails. Microsoft is making its real deals in EBCs and at the metaphorical golf course. At a certain scale, customers tend to come to you rather than you having to go find prospects. The prospects you do have are ones you’re bidding on in some process, or you throw out a single cold email from some marketing automation tool. That isn’t an unqualified of course, and depends on your business. If all your customers are Fortune 500s, sales and marketing look a lot different.
guappa 2y ago
Big assumption to presume they do work.
- devjab 2y ago
  When I worked in an investment bank 100% of the sales came from cold contacts originally. Some were calls others were emails. They work perfectly fine. Once someone was an investor they'd do repeat business, but they all started as cold contacts. I think one of the major issues with especially cold emails is that they extremely often reach the wrong people. Which is probably also why HN hates them so much. I've gotten so many of them when I was in no position to make any sort on decision on whatever they were trying to sell. Which is just a waste of everyones time. These days I just automatically delete external e-mails that aren't specifically whitelisted, but not everyone can do that for obvious reasons.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - QuadmasterXLII 2y ago
    Right, but some of the rest of us have jobs that aren’t maximally parasitic.
    - liontwist 2y ago
      the Nobel FAANG project manager vs the parasitic investment banker?
    - devjab 2y ago
      Well, we did build around 1000 solar plants globally with the invested money. I do wonder what you’re doing on HN if you don’t like investment banks though.

by skc 2y ago

We all hate recieving cold emails, yet there is likely a majority of us in this post who work for companies that rely on cold emails to get sales that ultimately pay our salaries.

cpursley 2y ago

Yep, hn being engineer heavy, there’s a strong bias against marketing and sales. But that is what actually pays the bills, at least for us non-VC funded companies slugging it out in the real world.

TheNewsIsHere 2y ago
Piggybacking on your reply — I submit this is apples and oranges. An HN reader working for Microsoft isn’t working at a company that pays the bills on the back of cold sales emails. Microsoft is making its real deals in EBCs and at the metaphorical golf course. At a certain scale, customers tend to come to you rather than you having to go find prospects. The prospects you do have are ones you’re bidding on in some process, or you throw out a single cold email from some marketing automation tool. That isn’t an unqualified of course, and depends on your business. If all your customers are Fortune 500s, sales and marketing look a lot different.

guappa 2y ago

Big assumption to presume they do work.

devjab 2y ago
When I worked in an investment bank 100% of the sales came from cold contacts originally. Some were calls others were emails. They work perfectly fine. Once someone was an investor they'd do repeat business, but they all started as cold contacts. I think one of the major issues with especially cold emails is that they extremely often reach the wrong people. Which is probably also why HN hates them so much. I've gotten so many of them when I was in no position to make any sort on decision on whatever they were trying to sell. Which is just a waste of everyones time. These days I just automatically delete external e-mails that aren't specifically whitelisted, but not everyone can do that for obvious reasons.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- QuadmasterXLII 2y ago
  Right, but some of the rest of us have jobs that aren’t maximally parasitic.
  - liontwist 2y ago
    the Nobel FAANG project manager vs the parasitic investment banker?
  - devjab 2y ago
    Well, we did build around 1000 solar plants globally with the invested money. I do wonder what you’re doing on HN if you don’t like investment banks though.