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> I know a good salesman when I see one. I was, briefly, the No. 1 telemarketer in the United States. Oh neat, how? > Unlike many of my less successful collea

> I know a good salesman when I see one. I was, briefly, the No. 1 telemarketer in the United States. Oh neat, how? > Unlike many of my less successful colleagues, I quickly learned to take yes for an answer; though we were legally required to read a long list of mandatory disclosures to all our sales, I noticed that this often broke the spell and gave people an opening to back out or “wait and ask the wife about it.” As soon as I heard a yes, I said, “Great choice!” and transferred them to confirmation. My manager occasionally came by and reminded me that it was technically illegal to skip my disclosures, but he made commission off my commission, and his tone made it clear that I could do as I pleased as long as I kept putting up numbers. […] > I was one of the first to go, technically for not making my required disclosures—about cancellation fees, international rates, all that fine print nobody ever bothered to recite—on a sale. So, he and his boss did crime together for a while and then eventually their scam stopped working and he got fired.

getnormality 2y ago
So... the thing that made him America's top telemarketer was... illegally omitting the disclosures... which everyone was doing... but also, it made him uniquely successful because many of his colleagues didn't do it? I'm getting the strangest feeling that maybe this guy isn't done peddling bullshit?
- lazystar 2y ago
  sounds like hes setting the stage for a movie script - "wolf of wall street 2"
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    The wolf of wallstreet 2 should be about the making of the wolf of wallstreet: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52661779 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52661779 the whole thing is crazier than the original.
    - voidfunc 2y ago
      I'm surprised Hollywood hasn't jumped all over that yet lol.
    - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
      This reminds me of how the film Catch Me If You Can about a credit card / pilot con man was in itself a con and the whole story was made up. It's great, the author did not actually commit any of the crimes he "confessed" to, and at best there's a civil case of the claim of the story being true events not in fact being true. But I hope the filmmakers had a good laugh about the irony.
      - razakel 2y ago
        Wolf of Wall Street even opens by reminding the viewer that Belfort is a convicted fraudster, you are watching and listening to him tell his version of the story, and he's almost certainly lying to you. The difference between a racounteur and a bullshitter is that one is entertaining.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  > So... the thing that made him America's top telemarketer was... illegally omitting the disclosures... which everyone was doing... but also, it made him uniquely successful because many of his colleagues didn't do it? And Uber is a taxi company that doesn't own taxis, AirBnB is a hotel chain that owns no hotels. Find a hyper-successful company or person, and start digging. The secret 99/100 times is crime (or incredibly crime-adjacent behaviors).
  - eru 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - margalabargala 2y ago
      If you don't have anything substantive to say, consider moving on rather than commenting. The HN guidelines are there if you need a refresher.
      - eru 2y ago
        [flagged]
  - astrange 2y ago
    Hotel chains frequently don't own hotels, but rather franchise their name to them. Similarly, taxi companies are much less ethical than you're implying here. Often more criminal too.
    - anovikov 2y ago
      Isn't it "always" rather than "frequently"? In case of hotels. Hotel chains are brand operators, their job is to build up brand value through ads, enforcing quality standards within hotels of their chain, and managing their loyalty program. They are not supposed to operate hotels, let alone own them. Because entities that operate hotels (paying royalty to the hotel chain), almost always do not own the hotels per se i.e. real estate. They rent it. From holding companies that did not build it, they bought them ready from real estate developers who start a project targeting several potential buyers usually picking the actual one while construction is near finishing. And the developer is also not building the building, construction company does it, the developer just manages the land deal, licensing, permitting, and architectural designs, asking construction company to do particular phases of work with a particular budget. And that one then subcontracts different things to different entities, who in turn manage imports of the labor force and materials and manage people who do the work... The chain is looong.
- yareally 2y ago
  It's kind of like claiming you're the world's best trader, but all your winnings come from insider trading.
  - eru 2y ago
    That's fine, when and where that's legal. Eg even the US has no laws against insider trading in commodities. Similarly, French insider trading laws work on rather different principles than US ones. So it's hard to attach much moral significance to the legal accident of insider trading laws in one place and one time. (And arguably, laws banning insider trading are bad for the general public, because to the extent they are respected and enforced, they keep information out of market prices.)
    - FredPret 2y ago
      True, but they also make it hard for a cynical exec to game the system, for instance by shorting the stock and then tanking the company on purpose.
      - eru 2y ago
        Contracts and laws around fiduciary duties already handle that just fine.
      - somenameforme 2y ago
        This is exactly what the laws around fiduciary duty "really" cover. I say "really" because the term is often invoked to justify/excuse scummy behavior from executives, arguing that they're legally obligated to behave that way because of fiduciary duty. In reality it just means you must act in the interests of the company, largely to prevent this exact sort of scenario (or an exec just being butthurt or whatever).
        eru 2y ago
        Yes, though it goes a bit further than just a blanket 'in the interest of the company'. Sometimes it's that, sometimes it's in the interested of the shareholders, sometimes it's also in the interest of (some) customers, etc.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > the thing that made him America's top telemarketer was... illegally omitting the disclosures Honestly, when I’m on a call with customer service I could do without being reminded every microsecond that I’m actually on a phone call that might be recorded.
  - vasco 2y ago
    Appealing to be recorded in secret is a weird one to read in the morning. Another solution to your problem that respects the law is for them to not record you.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Another solution to your problem that respects the law is for them to not record you You'd run a customer-service operation that has no record of who said what?
      - vasco 2y ago
        Where I live companies are required to get my explicit consent before recording me and are also required to continue the call if the only reason they would not is that I didn't consent to being recorded. It'd be a bit silly if not as where I live I can also request them to delete the recording immediately after the call ends. So yes many businesses operate like this. When you go to a shop and talk to the person there for help with a previous purchase they aren't recording your interaction, why is it so surprising?
      - khafra 2y ago
        I worked in a professional services department that did not record calls, except at the request of the customer. We took copious notes on each call, shared things that showed up repeatedly over a few days to weeks in wikis, and shared things that showed up repeatedly over a single morning in Slack channels.
- intended 2y ago
  I thought it was a series of realizations - First he learned to stop sounding like he hated his job, and focus on making the other persons feelings. This got him to people saying "yes". To close more, he started dropping the disclosures and sending people to the next department. The point you are raising does make sense, I suppose the lesson for him was getting to yes, and then ensuring you dont blow the lead. Which I suppose is the core lesson to selling. You cant sell if people get out of the flow. And he does allude to this, that the economy is small constant hustles that convince people to buy things, as opposed to the sterile idea of economic demand.
wraptile 2y ago
This is why sales is such a difficult medium to respect even if it's clearly a craft. There's a dance but no music.
- j45 2y ago
  It's less about sales being a difficult medium to respect. There might be more about the people and the behaviour they are choosing. Like anything it has to be managed, because it's only a sale when the customer is satisfied to retain the sale, let alone renew. Getting good at helping qualified leads can be just fine. If inbound is garbage, it invites less than ideal behaviour.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  It varies to be honest, the one in the article - telemarketing, or broader speaking, selling something they don't need to someone - is scummy. But when working in IT you have to make a decision on a solution, be it a library, a service, or something like that; the role of sales becomes more difficult then, and will involve presentations, live demos, POCs, etc.
- notahacker 2y ago
  tbf, this is to sales what "I developed a shell script that automatically appends extended comments and now I'm the highest line-of-code outputting developer in my cheap IT outsourcing company" is to software development....
creer 2y ago
It's amazing how often "illegally" is the American Way. I only wish it were a joke.
- eru 2y ago
  Americans surely do love to make things illegal.
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    https://www.amazon.com.au/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229 https://www.amazon.com.au/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent... Three felonies a day for everyone. More if you use a computer. It's kind of amazing how no one seems to care that the only reason why they aren't in prison currently is that no one's bothered to arrest them yet.
    - nwellinghoff 2y ago
      52 bucks for the paperback! That price is a felony!
    - LtWorf 2y ago
      It's by design to be able to go after anyone. Well known dictatorship method.
  - benreesman 2y ago
    The occasional, feeble, rarely enforced speed bumps that we occasionally throw up around some largely performative ideal that working people shouldn’t just get constantly ripped off via structural advantage for self-styled job creators almost always lead to temporary increases in broad based prosperity as judged by honest and humane notions of the common good for Res Publica. A limited but meaningful subset of the population was seeing substantial increases in prosperity in the post war period of comparatively high taxation and comparatively high regulation. It sucks that we didn’t extend those benefits to minorities, that was a glaring flaw, but that was fixable without throwing the whole thing out and handing the reins over to Art Laffer and Milton Friedman and other goblins like that. This is a culture so extreme around its idea of private property and private enterprise that treating human beings as property is a habit of thought as a culture we just can’t seem to quit in spite of a bloody, declared civil war and a thousand violent skirmishes that don’t quite qualify as wars. We’re now deep into a regression on this that has the typical person struggling via a combination of monopoly and monopsony pricing power enabled by blank check lobbyism that creates de facto indentured status for anyone with a kid who needs medication. Low effort quips from people who haven’t felt cold or hunger or illness recently enough to remember are a serious part of the problem.
throwaway984393 2y ago
[dead]
douglee650 2y ago
A great mentor once taught me, "when you hear a yes, immediately agree and stop selling." Usually this means stop talking.
- snapetom 2y ago
  My company is a division in a political minefield that is the greater organization. In particular, my company is filled with people who have spent their entire careers as rank and file workers with their heads down and never had to develop the political savvy to steer through the minefield. I don't know how many times I've told, and to how many coworkers, if the enemy is going to hang himself, stop talking and give him more rope.
alexey-salmin 2y ago
Articles like this are valued not based on how noble is the protagonist but based on how truthful is the account. The latter is of course not granted either but I would be even less inclined to believe a story of an airtight telemarketer. In general I think it's very easy to _not understand_ people i.e. "how could you". The interesting part for me is when I do understand: "oh this is how". From that perspective I enjoyed this read quite a bit.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- vasco 2y ago
  To reward positive stories that include crime, just because other people "might also be doing it" is ehhh. That's literally what criminals tell themselves, that everyone else does it. For a liar and a cheater, it's basic modus operandi to tell you some of their lies to give themselves a veneer of honesty. Agree with you in some sense, it is what it is, but why trust anything else they say to "rescue the story"? That's the game they play.
  - intended 2y ago
    Is it not that we grant that person no reward, and instead take from their story lessons to our benefit? The little in the story that speaks about the author, is necessary as a vehicle to narrate the experience. The crux of the story is sales, and how it worked. The core point was the dehumanization, as well as the people who are the most effective in this era. Also, I can appreciate someones shoes, while acknowlding they are a terrible person. Style isnt the causative factor for criminality or bad decision making.
    - vasco 2y ago
      A more mature position than mine, thanks for perspective.
    - namaria 2y ago
      Yes, if people are being crooks I'd rather know about it than to believe everyone has the same ethical code as myself.
kqr 2y ago
This is not... good sales. This is making the numbers. The customers acquired with this method are not good customers. To future salespeople in here: please work on selecting customers carefully, and pitch only to great two-way fits. That way, both customer and your organisation will thrive. I get that the salesperson is judged by volume closed, but this gives the rest of the organisation churn problems to deal with.
- juliusdavies 2y ago
  I can’t remember if it’s against HN rules to implore people to read the actual article. The reason he became good at selling (according to the article) is because he changed his attitude despite reading the sales scripts verbatim both before and after his attitude adjustment. It’s an interesting and probably helpful lesson for the startup hustlers here on HN if they can make it through this admittedly long essay.
  - reshlo 2y ago
    > despite reading the sales scripts verbatim both before and after his attitude adjustment The article states that he was fired because he did not read the script he was required to read.
    - proto-n 2y ago
      The article states that he was fired because the company had financial problems, and not reading the required stuff was used as an excuse
      - reshlo 2y ago
        The point is he did not read the scripts verbatim as you claimed.
        proto-n 2y ago
        (Wasn't me claiming that, read usernames) Yeah, but you are, at least seemingly, missing the point: the scripts he was referring to in context weren't the legal disclosures but the sales tricks that were handed to them to use. He is pointing out that the 'elite' saleswoman wasn't better at strategy or sales tricks, but was effective because she made them feel good.
hinkley 2y ago
Reminds me of the guys in The Big Short who don’t realize they’re fiddling while Rome is about to burn.
ozim 2y ago
That’s why you don’t answer phone calls with „yes” as sometimes they would say your name and you would be inclined replying „yes, speaking”. Just heard stories some shitty companies/sales would push you over they have your „yes” on recording. I don’t believe it would hold in any court if they would have to play the whole thing. But it would work on people who are not so tough. Sattelite TV sellers were awful they almost got my mother to buy second one because they told her BS new one will void competition contract and then sales rep was pushy she wanted to back out - good thing was she did not sign anything before asking me. So yeah I have seen some pushy idiots pushing old people or not confident people into signing stuff.
- StefanBatory 2y ago
  Few years in my ago we had telemarketing company. "Good morning Orange". No, that was their name. People thought they were from Orange company, but they just were stating their full name ;) So many people got scammed. It's also why I don't have any respect for the sales people.
- Karellen 2y ago
  There is no evidence of a company using the fact that you've said "yes" at a random point in the conversation as confirmation that you've agreed to their (maybe unheard) pitch, despite variations on that urban legend doing the rounds for years. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/can-you-hear-me-scam/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/can-you-hear-me-scam/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_you_hear_me%3F_(alleged_telephone_scam) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_you_hear_me%3F_(alleged_te...
  - ozim 2y ago
    I just read in the article and I replied to a comment that has: I noticed that this often broke the spell and gave people an opening to back out or “wait and ask the wife about it.” As soon as I heard a yes, I said, “Great choice!” and transferred them to confirmation. My manager occasionally came by and reminded me that it was technically illegal to skip my disclosures, but he made commission off my commission, and his tone made it clear that I could do as I pleased as long as I kept putting up numbers.
grecy 2y ago
Lying and breaking the law are ok as long as everyone keeps making money.
- StanislavPetrov 2y ago
  Unfortunately that is pretty much how society works. As long as the right people are making money, or getting paid off by the people who are making money.
ckdarby 2y ago
The disclosure should be outside the phone conversation prior to funds transferring. Send them to confirmation who should have a process of, we're sending you the email now where you enter you make an account and enter payment details. Stay on the phone with them while they do it to avoid drop off rates. During the account creation is the disclosures.
sumtechguy 2y ago
Sales is about closing. He ignored rules to do it. Is it 'right' no. But he was successful at it for awhile. The two most epic sales I ever saw where these. One guy I saw some how resurrected a customer of ours. I flat out asked him. His words to me were 'I have no idea how I did it'. While he was saying that he pulled out his wallet and started laying 20s on the table. 'you didnt...' 'i have no idea what you are asking'. The second one was in the dead of july at a garage sale my family was running. Suddenly a guy comes up and hands me money for a Christmas lightbulb (who put that out there?!). 'did you just get that guy to buy a light bulb' 'i showed him how he needed it'. Sales is not about doing the right thing. But creating a need and filling it and closing the sale. In the first case he showed the guy that he needed money. In the second somehow he talked the guy into needing a lightbulb before Christmas. It works even better if you somehow get the customer to think they came up with the idea. If you understand that rule of 'creation' you can actually make yourself immune to most sales bots. The first thing most do is create a need and magically they can fill it with the thing they just happen to sell.

getnormality 2y ago

So... the thing that made him America's top telemarketer was... illegally omitting the disclosures... which everyone was doing... but also, it made him uniquely successful because many of his colleagues didn't do it? I'm getting the strangest feeling that maybe this guy isn't done peddling bullshit?

lazystar 2y ago
sounds like hes setting the stage for a movie script - "wolf of wall street 2"
- llm_trw 2y ago
  The wolf of wallstreet 2 should be about the making of the wolf of wallstreet: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52661779 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52661779 the whole thing is crazier than the original.
  - voidfunc 2y ago
    I'm surprised Hollywood hasn't jumped all over that yet lol.
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    This reminds me of how the film Catch Me If You Can about a credit card / pilot con man was in itself a con and the whole story was made up. It's great, the author did not actually commit any of the crimes he "confessed" to, and at best there's a civil case of the claim of the story being true events not in fact being true. But I hope the filmmakers had a good laugh about the irony.
    - razakel 2y ago
      Wolf of Wall Street even opens by reminding the viewer that Belfort is a convicted fraudster, you are watching and listening to him tell his version of the story, and he's almost certainly lying to you. The difference between a racounteur and a bullshitter is that one is entertaining.
ToucanLoucan 2y ago
> So... the thing that made him America's top telemarketer was... illegally omitting the disclosures... which everyone was doing... but also, it made him uniquely successful because many of his colleagues didn't do it? And Uber is a taxi company that doesn't own taxis, AirBnB is a hotel chain that owns no hotels. Find a hyper-successful company or person, and start digging. The secret 99/100 times is crime (or incredibly crime-adjacent behaviors).
- eru 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - margalabargala 2y ago
    If you don't have anything substantive to say, consider moving on rather than commenting. The HN guidelines are there if you need a refresher.
    - eru 2y ago
      [flagged]
- astrange 2y ago
  Hotel chains frequently don't own hotels, but rather franchise their name to them. Similarly, taxi companies are much less ethical than you're implying here. Often more criminal too.
  - anovikov 2y ago
    Isn't it "always" rather than "frequently"? In case of hotels. Hotel chains are brand operators, their job is to build up brand value through ads, enforcing quality standards within hotels of their chain, and managing their loyalty program. They are not supposed to operate hotels, let alone own them. Because entities that operate hotels (paying royalty to the hotel chain), almost always do not own the hotels per se i.e. real estate. They rent it. From holding companies that did not build it, they bought them ready from real estate developers who start a project targeting several potential buyers usually picking the actual one while construction is near finishing. And the developer is also not building the building, construction company does it, the developer just manages the land deal, licensing, permitting, and architectural designs, asking construction company to do particular phases of work with a particular budget. And that one then subcontracts different things to different entities, who in turn manage imports of the labor force and materials and manage people who do the work... The chain is looong.
yareally 2y ago
It's kind of like claiming you're the world's best trader, but all your winnings come from insider trading.
- eru 2y ago
  That's fine, when and where that's legal. Eg even the US has no laws against insider trading in commodities. Similarly, French insider trading laws work on rather different principles than US ones. So it's hard to attach much moral significance to the legal accident of insider trading laws in one place and one time. (And arguably, laws banning insider trading are bad for the general public, because to the extent they are respected and enforced, they keep information out of market prices.)
  - FredPret 2y ago
    True, but they also make it hard for a cynical exec to game the system, for instance by shorting the stock and then tanking the company on purpose.
    - eru 2y ago
      Contracts and laws around fiduciary duties already handle that just fine.
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      This is exactly what the laws around fiduciary duty "really" cover. I say "really" because the term is often invoked to justify/excuse scummy behavior from executives, arguing that they're legally obligated to behave that way because of fiduciary duty. In reality it just means you must act in the interests of the company, largely to prevent this exact sort of scenario (or an exec just being butthurt or whatever).
      - eru 2y ago
        Yes, though it goes a bit further than just a blanket 'in the interest of the company'. Sometimes it's that, sometimes it's in the interested of the shareholders, sometimes it's also in the interest of (some) customers, etc.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> the thing that made him America's top telemarketer was... illegally omitting the disclosures Honestly, when I’m on a call with customer service I could do without being reminded every microsecond that I’m actually on a phone call that might be recorded.
- vasco 2y ago
  Appealing to be recorded in secret is a weird one to read in the morning. Another solution to your problem that respects the law is for them to not record you.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Another solution to your problem that respects the law is for them to not record you You'd run a customer-service operation that has no record of who said what?
    - vasco 2y ago
      Where I live companies are required to get my explicit consent before recording me and are also required to continue the call if the only reason they would not is that I didn't consent to being recorded. It'd be a bit silly if not as where I live I can also request them to delete the recording immediately after the call ends. So yes many businesses operate like this. When you go to a shop and talk to the person there for help with a previous purchase they aren't recording your interaction, why is it so surprising?
    - khafra 2y ago
      I worked in a professional services department that did not record calls, except at the request of the customer. We took copious notes on each call, shared things that showed up repeatedly over a few days to weeks in wikis, and shared things that showed up repeatedly over a single morning in Slack channels.
intended 2y ago
I thought it was a series of realizations - First he learned to stop sounding like he hated his job, and focus on making the other persons feelings. This got him to people saying "yes". To close more, he started dropping the disclosures and sending people to the next department. The point you are raising does make sense, I suppose the lesson for him was getting to yes, and then ensuring you dont blow the lead. Which I suppose is the core lesson to selling. You cant sell if people get out of the flow. And he does allude to this, that the economy is small constant hustles that convince people to buy things, as opposed to the sterile idea of economic demand.

wraptile 2y ago

This is why sales is such a difficult medium to respect even if it's clearly a craft. There's a dance but no music.

j45 2y ago
It's less about sales being a difficult medium to respect. There might be more about the people and the behaviour they are choosing. Like anything it has to be managed, because it's only a sale when the customer is satisfied to retain the sale, let alone renew. Getting good at helping qualified leads can be just fine. If inbound is garbage, it invites less than ideal behaviour.
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
It varies to be honest, the one in the article - telemarketing, or broader speaking, selling something they don't need to someone - is scummy. But when working in IT you have to make a decision on a solution, be it a library, a service, or something like that; the role of sales becomes more difficult then, and will involve presentations, live demos, POCs, etc.
notahacker 2y ago
tbf, this is to sales what "I developed a shell script that automatically appends extended comments and now I'm the highest line-of-code outputting developer in my cheap IT outsourcing company" is to software development....

creer 2y ago

It's amazing how often "illegally" is the American Way. I only wish it were a joke.

eru 2y ago
Americans surely do love to make things illegal.
- llm_trw 2y ago
  https://www.amazon.com.au/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229 https://www.amazon.com.au/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent... Three felonies a day for everyone. More if you use a computer. It's kind of amazing how no one seems to care that the only reason why they aren't in prison currently is that no one's bothered to arrest them yet.
  - nwellinghoff 2y ago
    52 bucks for the paperback! That price is a felony!
  - LtWorf 2y ago
    It's by design to be able to go after anyone. Well known dictatorship method.
- benreesman 2y ago
  The occasional, feeble, rarely enforced speed bumps that we occasionally throw up around some largely performative ideal that working people shouldn’t just get constantly ripped off via structural advantage for self-styled job creators almost always lead to temporary increases in broad based prosperity as judged by honest and humane notions of the common good for Res Publica. A limited but meaningful subset of the population was seeing substantial increases in prosperity in the post war period of comparatively high taxation and comparatively high regulation. It sucks that we didn’t extend those benefits to minorities, that was a glaring flaw, but that was fixable without throwing the whole thing out and handing the reins over to Art Laffer and Milton Friedman and other goblins like that. This is a culture so extreme around its idea of private property and private enterprise that treating human beings as property is a habit of thought as a culture we just can’t seem to quit in spite of a bloody, declared civil war and a thousand violent skirmishes that don’t quite qualify as wars. We’re now deep into a regression on this that has the typical person struggling via a combination of monopoly and monopsony pricing power enabled by blank check lobbyism that creates de facto indentured status for anyone with a kid who needs medication. Low effort quips from people who haven’t felt cold or hunger or illness recently enough to remember are a serious part of the problem.

throwaway984393 2y ago

[dead]

douglee650 2y ago

A great mentor once taught me, "when you hear a yes, immediately agree and stop selling." Usually this means stop talking.

snapetom 2y ago
My company is a division in a political minefield that is the greater organization. In particular, my company is filled with people who have spent their entire careers as rank and file workers with their heads down and never had to develop the political savvy to steer through the minefield. I don't know how many times I've told, and to how many coworkers, if the enemy is going to hang himself, stop talking and give him more rope.

alexey-salmin 2y ago

Articles like this are valued not based on how noble is the protagonist but based on how truthful is the account. The latter is of course not granted either but I would be even less inclined to believe a story of an airtight telemarketer. In general I think it's very easy to _not understand_ people i.e. "how could you". The interesting part for me is when I do understand: "oh this is how". From that perspective I enjoyed this read quite a bit.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
vasco 2y ago
To reward positive stories that include crime, just because other people "might also be doing it" is ehhh. That's literally what criminals tell themselves, that everyone else does it. For a liar and a cheater, it's basic modus operandi to tell you some of their lies to give themselves a veneer of honesty. Agree with you in some sense, it is what it is, but why trust anything else they say to "rescue the story"? That's the game they play.
- intended 2y ago
  Is it not that we grant that person no reward, and instead take from their story lessons to our benefit? The little in the story that speaks about the author, is necessary as a vehicle to narrate the experience. The crux of the story is sales, and how it worked. The core point was the dehumanization, as well as the people who are the most effective in this era. Also, I can appreciate someones shoes, while acknowlding they are a terrible person. Style isnt the causative factor for criminality or bad decision making.
  - vasco 2y ago
    A more mature position than mine, thanks for perspective.
  - namaria 2y ago
    Yes, if people are being crooks I'd rather know about it than to believe everyone has the same ethical code as myself.

kqr 2y ago

This is not... good sales. This is making the numbers. The customers acquired with this method are not good customers. To future salespeople in here: please work on selecting customers carefully, and pitch only to great two-way fits. That way, both customer and your organisation will thrive. I get that the salesperson is judged by volume closed, but this gives the rest of the organisation churn problems to deal with.

juliusdavies 2y ago
I can’t remember if it’s against HN rules to implore people to read the actual article. The reason he became good at selling (according to the article) is because he changed his attitude despite reading the sales scripts verbatim both before and after his attitude adjustment. It’s an interesting and probably helpful lesson for the startup hustlers here on HN if they can make it through this admittedly long essay.
- reshlo 2y ago
  > despite reading the sales scripts verbatim both before and after his attitude adjustment The article states that he was fired because he did not read the script he was required to read.
  - proto-n 2y ago
    The article states that he was fired because the company had financial problems, and not reading the required stuff was used as an excuse
    - reshlo 2y ago
      The point is he did not read the scripts verbatim as you claimed.
      - proto-n 2y ago
        (Wasn't me claiming that, read usernames) Yeah, but you are, at least seemingly, missing the point: the scripts he was referring to in context weren't the legal disclosures but the sales tricks that were handed to them to use. He is pointing out that the 'elite' saleswoman wasn't better at strategy or sales tricks, but was effective because she made them feel good.

hinkley 2y ago

Reminds me of the guys in The Big Short who don’t realize they’re fiddling while Rome is about to burn.

ozim 2y ago

That’s why you don’t answer phone calls with „yes” as sometimes they would say your name and you would be inclined replying „yes, speaking”. Just heard stories some shitty companies/sales would push you over they have your „yes” on recording. I don’t believe it would hold in any court if they would have to play the whole thing. But it would work on people who are not so tough. Sattelite TV sellers were awful they almost got my mother to buy second one because they told her BS new one will void competition contract and then sales rep was pushy she wanted to back out - good thing was she did not sign anything before asking me. So yeah I have seen some pushy idiots pushing old people or not confident people into signing stuff.

StefanBatory 2y ago
Few years in my ago we had telemarketing company. "Good morning Orange". No, that was their name. People thought they were from Orange company, but they just were stating their full name ;) So many people got scammed. It's also why I don't have any respect for the sales people.
Karellen 2y ago
There is no evidence of a company using the fact that you've said "yes" at a random point in the conversation as confirmation that you've agreed to their (maybe unheard) pitch, despite variations on that urban legend doing the rounds for years. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/can-you-hear-me-scam/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/can-you-hear-me-scam/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_you_hear_me%3F_(alleged_telephone_scam) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_you_hear_me%3F_(alleged_te...
- ozim 2y ago
  I just read in the article and I replied to a comment that has: I noticed that this often broke the spell and gave people an opening to back out or “wait and ask the wife about it.” As soon as I heard a yes, I said, “Great choice!” and transferred them to confirmation. My manager occasionally came by and reminded me that it was technically illegal to skip my disclosures, but he made commission off my commission, and his tone made it clear that I could do as I pleased as long as I kept putting up numbers.

grecy 2y ago

Lying and breaking the law are ok as long as everyone keeps making money.

StanislavPetrov 2y ago
Unfortunately that is pretty much how society works. As long as the right people are making money, or getting paid off by the people who are making money.

ckdarby 2y ago

The disclosure should be outside the phone conversation prior to funds transferring. Send them to confirmation who should have a process of, we're sending you the email now where you enter you make an account and enter payment details. Stay on the phone with them while they do it to avoid drop off rates. During the account creation is the disclosures.

sumtechguy 2y ago

Sales is about closing. He ignored rules to do it. Is it 'right' no. But he was successful at it for awhile. The two most epic sales I ever saw where these. One guy I saw some how resurrected a customer of ours. I flat out asked him. His words to me were 'I have no idea how I did it'. While he was saying that he pulled out his wallet and started laying 20s on the table. 'you didnt...' 'i have no idea what you are asking'. The second one was in the dead of july at a garage sale my family was running. Suddenly a guy comes up and hands me money for a Christmas lightbulb (who put that out there?!). 'did you just get that guy to buy a light bulb' 'i showed him how he needed it'. Sales is not about doing the right thing. But creating a need and filling it and closing the sale. In the first case he showed the guy that he needed money. In the second somehow he talked the guy into needing a lightbulb before Christmas. It works even better if you somehow get the customer to think they came up with the idea. If you understand that rule of 'creation' you can actually make yourself immune to most sales bots. The first thing most do is create a need and magically they can fill it with the thing they just happen to sell.