5 ms·

Sales comes out of who you genuinely are

57 points by jimmyjim 14y ago

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
Peroni 14y ago
tl;dr: Believe in your product and don't be afraid to charge appropriately. All solid advice and adding more to the 'believe in your product' concept, the reasoning for this is incredibly simplistic. If you are attempting to sell something you don't believe adds any value or benefit, it will be instantly obvious in your pitch unless you happen to be a fantastic liar and that's what led to the stereotype of the used-car salesman. Minor nitpick: Mamet was never attempting to present Roma as a fantastic salesman. He knows the audience can see the deceitfulness. He's actually showing a 'behind-the-scenes' view of how liars have gained the edge in the sales world.
- swombat 14y ago
  Re: Mamet, interesting, I didn't know that. Any reference to that? If so I'll put an update in!
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - luu 14y ago
    I mostly agree with your take over Mamet's, but that's how Mamet views capitalism. Here's Mamet on the themes in the play: http://www.upstartfilmcollective.com/portfolios/jcharnick/mamet-museum/old-interview.html http://www.upstartfilmcollective.com/portfolios/jcharnick/ma... The play concerns how business corrupts, how the hierarchical business system tends to corrupt. It becomes legitimate for those in power in the business world to act unethically. The effect on the little guy is that he turns to crime. And petty crime goes punished; major crimes go unpunished. If someone wants to destroy Manhattan for personal gain, they call him a great man. Look at Delorean. He completely raped everybody in Northern Ireland with that scheme ... a lot of business in this country is founded on the idea that if you don't exploit the possible opportunity, not only are you being silly, but in many cases you're being negligent, even legally negligent. He seems to be of the opinion that it's a corrupt system, and that people in the system are inevitably corrupted: http://www.hanknuwer.com/writing/hankanddavid.html http://www.hanknuwer.com/writing/hankanddavid.html This play is very much about work and about how one is altered by one's job. ... I felt he was doing his job--doing the job of a sales manager. The job of a sales manager is not to empathize. Irrespective of whether or not it's a "good" job or whether he likes his job is not the point; his job is to inspire, frighten, tempt, cajole, and do any other thing he can do to increase sales. When things fall apart he indulges in the very human propensity to play catch-up ball; because people have been abusing him throughout the play. I like Mamet's work, but, in general, I try to avoid listening when authors and artists talk about politics, because they're usually not better informed than the average freshman in a poli-sci or econ class, and that colors my view of their work. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Mamet's view is nuanced. He specifically says "a lot of business", and I can't disagree there, though we would probably disagree on the precise meaning of "a lot". I suspect a lot of that is a generational gap. When I look around and I see swombat-style salesmen competing with Mamet-style salesmen, I see Mamet-style businesses getting wiped out. CarMax is cleaning up by getting rid of high pressure sales tactics. It's so bad that around here, multiple car dealerships that used to employ armies of annoying sales people (which I know from firsthand experience) have taken out billboards saying they'll match CarMax's prices and that their sales people no longer work on commission. Barnes & Noble and Borders wiped out traditional booksellers by providing a better experience, and they're getting wiped out by amazon providing an even more convenient experience. I could go on for pages with examples off the top of my head, but I have to really think to come up with examples where a business with a 'traditional' sales model of conning people into something they don't want is eating the lunch of a business that's really trying to give people what they want.
    - Peroni 14y ago
      That's exactly what I was looking for. Mamet's point holds true to this day. Take any high-pressure sales role. Your employer doesn't care how much benefit you've added to peoples lives, they care about the numbers. Customer satisfaction isn't indicative of a job well done in sales, quantity is. Whilst this concept seems blatantly immoral, it's reality. Swombats post was aimed at start-ups and his point that someone selling on behalf of a start-up should truly believe in their product is spot on however, in the big, bad corporate world it becomes irrelevant.
    - theorique 14y ago
      Always be closing.
mistercow 14y ago
>David Mamet must not have known a lot of salespeople, to have this view of what a good salesperson is, because that is definitely not how great salespeople work. If I wrote a story about a politician who committed suicide, would you say "You must not know a lot of politicians, to have this view of what a good politician is, because suicide is definitely not what makes a great politician"?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- olavk 14y ago
  It's hilarious that the writer uses subtly flawed logic to convince the reader that shady and unethical salespeople simply doesn't exist in the real world.
  - swombat 14y ago
    I don't see how I did such a thing. Of course shady and unethical salespeople exist: just walk into a mobile phone shop to meet one. I'm saying that by and large, great salespeople are not shady and unethical, though.
    - olavk 14y ago
      > Which brings me to real salespeople, the ones who actually make sales in the real world, rather than in fantasy plays.... > Mythological salesmen like Ricky Roma, who are really highly skilled scammers, have given the sales profession a bad name. Anyway, do you have any kind of evidence that deceitful salespeople cant be successful? It is a rather extraordinary claim. I mean the guy who sold the Eiffel Tower as scrap iron multiple times was pretty successful.
- swombat 14y ago
  Mamet wrote a story about salespeople where all of them have highly dubious ethics ranging from being outright thieves to being conmen, and the most successful of the lot is willing to destroy someone's life to earn himself a cadillac. From some of the other comments, it sounds like I misinterpreted Mamet's intent - he apparently wasn't looking to generalise to all salespeople - but still, it seems to me the comment is fair based on this particular piece of evidence.
personlurking 14y ago
I have yet to see the film but I'm guessing this is the part that's being referred to. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa9dttNx1S8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa9dttNx1S8
mbesto 14y ago
Very good article. For all of you who are now just starting to jump on the bandwagon of enterprise tech, this is an extremely valuable lesson. Sales is really hard, it's very emotionally painful (and jubilent), and requires a lot of humility. But just like building products, it's all about getting in your customer's face. Do it early and do it often.
dagw 14y ago
a great salesperson will never be selling something that they don't believe actually helps the customer This seems very much like a No True Scotsman fallacy.
- aes256 14y ago
  Perhaps it would be better to say: "a salesperson is unlikely to maximize their potential selling something that they don't believe actually helps the customer" There are great salespeople the world over selling products they don't believe in — after all, great products tend to sell themselves — but you can bet your bottom dollar they'd be doing an even better job if they did believe in the product.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Based on the sales people I have known, most would pretty much say anything to close a deal. Though the really good ones seem to be able to convince themselves that the product they are selling really is awesome. As soon as they stop selling that product they go back to their old opinions on it being a POS.
  - swombat 14y ago
    I guess some people might manage to bullshit themselves into thinking the product is awesome when it's not... then again, even in those cases, there is presumably some element of the product that is awesome, otherwise they couldn't believe such a thing? Self-delusion is a powerful force, but smart people need more than that to achieve any kind of lasting result.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      From what I understand they often start with some sort of brainwashing, they are also taught weird beliefs like "every time a customer says no the odds of the next customer saying yes will increase". I guess it will depend on what the product being sold is, enterprise software is probably somewhat different to timeshares or double glazing. It is worth bearing in mind though that some of the best salesmen throughout history have probably been people who were knowingly selling scams.
epicjunction 14y ago
Successful salespeople don't pressure or bullshit the prospect into a sale. They are persistent, but they are always focused on achieving a deal where it will benefit all parties. I couldn't agree more. I ranked first in sales at my company for a quarter, before they promoted me. While some of my peers used scare tactics, intimidation and downright lying to close the deal, I was always prepared to walk away from deals. I never suggested anything that wasn't in their best interest because I was thinking long-term. Funny how customers see this genuinity and come back after shopping around. Referrals were often the result, while my peers had customers with buyers regret. They hit their quota by the end of the day, but lost in the long-term. On a side note, your title may be a little misleading. It should say "Sales come out of genuinity" as the current title implies that knowing how to sell is something inherent, whereas it's something I taught myself.
- swombat 14y ago
  Thanks for your comment! Fair suggestion about the title, though I think even though your title is more accurate it somehow seems even worse than the current title (I'm not happy with the current title either). If anyone has suggestions for a better title, let's have them...
  - zio99 14y ago
    Have you had any experience in sales? If so, you could title it "What Sales taught me" as my response to your post here: http://startupframework.tumblr.com/post/36886657978/sales http://startupframework.tumblr.com/post/36886657978/sales +1 for giving sales people some overdue respect. I too feel that there are few that just ruin the bunch, much like HR.
trotsky 14y ago
While I agree with the sentiment, the basis for the argument is clearly factually inaccurate. There are plenty of successful salesmen who sell products that cannot possibly benefit the buyer - c.f. boiler room operations, etc. When you ignore or distort obvious facts to make a much less obvious (but possibly true) point like "sustainable sales practices are more accretive over a long enough period" you make people who read your article wonder what else you say has been fabricated to support your position. Let's flip it around: to give out good advice, you need offer it based on actual experience and not just suppositions. (not necessarily true either, but it sure seems like it would strengthen your argument)
dschiptsov 14y ago
That is a fairy tale kind of story. In reality, by being who you genuinely are you can earn living, if you're lucky, but to earn wealth you need to press and push and cheat. Look, at the differences between CL and Java, Redis and MongoDB, Postgres and MySQL to name the few very popular examples. "Commercially successful" products invest heavily in creating, creating a misleading hype and other manipulations. Being who you means to become a marginal, a hobbyist, with, perhaps, much above average abilities, in the best case. But to make money you must pressure and bullshit people, because it is only by cheating you could get above-average returns. It is much easier and cheaper than to make something which is above average. Look at that Java, ERP, or artificially inflated open source crap? This is how to sell. SAP has the best sales people it could hire. But once you're convinced to buy - you are locked for life. It is all about tricks like SEO or MVPs, faked reviews or whatever, when you put words and hype ahead of the real things. And, of course, there are people, who are ready to do tricks instead of doing real things. I'm not trying to say that it is illegal - trying to exploit fools is a legal practice, the problem is that it become a dominant one. Writing a pleasant stories for fools instead of real product specifications and reference documentation is so common, that nobody even reads it anymore.)
- CamperBob2 14y ago
  But to make money you must pressure and bullshit people, because it is only by cheating you could get above-average returns. Wow. Someone's projecting, it sounds like.
  - snooblywoobly 14y ago
    No he's not. It's just the truth.
    - CamperBob2 14y ago
      I guess somebody has to take the polar opposite position to Atlas Shrugged, to bring balance to the derp.
- smilliken 14y ago
reubenswartz 14y ago
Great post. Especially useful for a lot of us "engineering" types on HN who may not think of themselves as sales people. Turns out that if you're a problem-solver, you can be successful in sales. You just have to think of the customer's problem holistically, and from their point of view.
spinchange 14y ago
ABC: Always be contributing.
SparrowOS 14y ago
Ghost of Chirstmas past -- Scrooge saw that his past actions would be done to him. more or less -- eye for eye. Your past will haunt you just like Clockwork Orange. You can write a fantacy story about being my slave, if you like. The Lord's prayer: "Forgive us our tresspasses just like when someone does them back on us in the future." God says... renowned twice III birthright recalled Homer home Men judgest licenses bridegroom worketh dispensers beset evenly smoke createdst presides pit replenishing 93 ruinous fortitude dimensions abase reclaim stricken reputation handmaid every anxiously declared secular pronounces Faithful feet stolen badge sowing stricken exhortations humbledst thieve overcoming freed mind 90 replenished consuming infringement upheld birthright morrow satisfying Place shapen disputer make fast whoop_there_it_is unbelievers rioting hearest well-beloved vanities took mirthful apprehension besprinkling solving Perchance herein shame Both details submitted oh_come_on oft answering grammar-learning abated Say submitting curest frequent MAY Norway order reached Julian wise fairer writings jests most lot foreshowed subjoinedst intolerable fellow-sinners compacting touched One debts promise starry fruitlessly house none floating him hast beauties fly

57 points by jimmyjim 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

tl;dr: Believe in your product and don't be afraid to charge appropriately. All solid advice and adding more to the 'believe in your product' concept, the reasoning for this is incredibly simplistic. If you are attempting to sell something you don't believe adds any value or benefit, it will be instantly obvious in your pitch unless you happen to be a fantastic liar and that's what led to the stereotype of the used-car salesman. Minor nitpick: Mamet was never attempting to present Roma as a fantastic salesman. He knows the audience can see the deceitfulness. He's actually showing a 'behind-the-scenes' view of how liars have gained the edge in the sales world.

swombat 14y ago
Re: Mamet, interesting, I didn't know that. Any reference to that? If so I'll put an update in!
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- luu 14y ago
  I mostly agree with your take over Mamet's, but that's how Mamet views capitalism. Here's Mamet on the themes in the play: http://www.upstartfilmcollective.com/portfolios/jcharnick/mamet-museum/old-interview.html http://www.upstartfilmcollective.com/portfolios/jcharnick/ma... The play concerns how business corrupts, how the hierarchical business system tends to corrupt. It becomes legitimate for those in power in the business world to act unethically. The effect on the little guy is that he turns to crime. And petty crime goes punished; major crimes go unpunished. If someone wants to destroy Manhattan for personal gain, they call him a great man. Look at Delorean. He completely raped everybody in Northern Ireland with that scheme ... a lot of business in this country is founded on the idea that if you don't exploit the possible opportunity, not only are you being silly, but in many cases you're being negligent, even legally negligent. He seems to be of the opinion that it's a corrupt system, and that people in the system are inevitably corrupted: http://www.hanknuwer.com/writing/hankanddavid.html http://www.hanknuwer.com/writing/hankanddavid.html This play is very much about work and about how one is altered by one's job. ... I felt he was doing his job--doing the job of a sales manager. The job of a sales manager is not to empathize. Irrespective of whether or not it's a "good" job or whether he likes his job is not the point; his job is to inspire, frighten, tempt, cajole, and do any other thing he can do to increase sales. When things fall apart he indulges in the very human propensity to play catch-up ball; because people have been abusing him throughout the play. I like Mamet's work, but, in general, I try to avoid listening when authors and artists talk about politics, because they're usually not better informed than the average freshman in a poli-sci or econ class, and that colors my view of their work. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Mamet's view is nuanced. He specifically says "a lot of business", and I can't disagree there, though we would probably disagree on the precise meaning of "a lot". I suspect a lot of that is a generational gap. When I look around and I see swombat-style salesmen competing with Mamet-style salesmen, I see Mamet-style businesses getting wiped out. CarMax is cleaning up by getting rid of high pressure sales tactics. It's so bad that around here, multiple car dealerships that used to employ armies of annoying sales people (which I know from firsthand experience) have taken out billboards saying they'll match CarMax's prices and that their sales people no longer work on commission. Barnes & Noble and Borders wiped out traditional booksellers by providing a better experience, and they're getting wiped out by amazon providing an even more convenient experience. I could go on for pages with examples off the top of my head, but I have to really think to come up with examples where a business with a 'traditional' sales model of conning people into something they don't want is eating the lunch of a business that's really trying to give people what they want.
  - Peroni 14y ago
    That's exactly what I was looking for. Mamet's point holds true to this day. Take any high-pressure sales role. Your employer doesn't care how much benefit you've added to peoples lives, they care about the numbers. Customer satisfaction isn't indicative of a job well done in sales, quantity is. Whilst this concept seems blatantly immoral, it's reality. Swombats post was aimed at start-ups and his point that someone selling on behalf of a start-up should truly believe in their product is spot on however, in the big, bad corporate world it becomes irrelevant.
  - theorique 14y ago
    Always be closing.

mistercow 14y ago

>David Mamet must not have known a lot of salespeople, to have this view of what a good salesperson is, because that is definitely not how great salespeople work. If I wrote a story about a politician who committed suicide, would you say "You must not know a lot of politicians, to have this view of what a good politician is, because suicide is definitely not what makes a great politician"?

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
olavk 14y ago
It's hilarious that the writer uses subtly flawed logic to convince the reader that shady and unethical salespeople simply doesn't exist in the real world.
- swombat 14y ago
  I don't see how I did such a thing. Of course shady and unethical salespeople exist: just walk into a mobile phone shop to meet one. I'm saying that by and large, great salespeople are not shady and unethical, though.
  - olavk 14y ago
    > Which brings me to real salespeople, the ones who actually make sales in the real world, rather than in fantasy plays.... > Mythological salesmen like Ricky Roma, who are really highly skilled scammers, have given the sales profession a bad name. Anyway, do you have any kind of evidence that deceitful salespeople cant be successful? It is a rather extraordinary claim. I mean the guy who sold the Eiffel Tower as scrap iron multiple times was pretty successful.
swombat 14y ago
Mamet wrote a story about salespeople where all of them have highly dubious ethics ranging from being outright thieves to being conmen, and the most successful of the lot is willing to destroy someone's life to earn himself a cadillac. From some of the other comments, it sounds like I misinterpreted Mamet's intent - he apparently wasn't looking to generalise to all salespeople - but still, it seems to me the comment is fair based on this particular piece of evidence.

personlurking 14y ago

I have yet to see the film but I'm guessing this is the part that's being referred to. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa9dttNx1S8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa9dttNx1S8

mbesto 14y ago

Very good article. For all of you who are now just starting to jump on the bandwagon of enterprise tech, this is an extremely valuable lesson. Sales is really hard, it's very emotionally painful (and jubilent), and requires a lot of humility. But just like building products, it's all about getting in your customer's face. Do it early and do it often.

dagw 14y ago

a great salesperson will never be selling something that they don't believe actually helps the customer This seems very much like a No True Scotsman fallacy.

aes256 14y ago
Perhaps it would be better to say: "a salesperson is unlikely to maximize their potential selling something that they don't believe actually helps the customer" There are great salespeople the world over selling products they don't believe in — after all, great products tend to sell themselves — but you can bet your bottom dollar they'd be doing an even better job if they did believe in the product.
jiggy2011 14y ago
Based on the sales people I have known, most would pretty much say anything to close a deal. Though the really good ones seem to be able to convince themselves that the product they are selling really is awesome. As soon as they stop selling that product they go back to their old opinions on it being a POS.
- swombat 14y ago
  I guess some people might manage to bullshit themselves into thinking the product is awesome when it's not... then again, even in those cases, there is presumably some element of the product that is awesome, otherwise they couldn't believe such a thing? Self-delusion is a powerful force, but smart people need more than that to achieve any kind of lasting result.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    From what I understand they often start with some sort of brainwashing, they are also taught weird beliefs like "every time a customer says no the odds of the next customer saying yes will increase". I guess it will depend on what the product being sold is, enterprise software is probably somewhat different to timeshares or double glazing. It is worth bearing in mind though that some of the best salesmen throughout history have probably been people who were knowingly selling scams.

epicjunction 14y ago

Successful salespeople don't pressure or bullshit the prospect into a sale. They are persistent, but they are always focused on achieving a deal where it will benefit all parties. I couldn't agree more. I ranked first in sales at my company for a quarter, before they promoted me. While some of my peers used scare tactics, intimidation and downright lying to close the deal, I was always prepared to walk away from deals. I never suggested anything that wasn't in their best interest because I was thinking long-term. Funny how customers see this genuinity and come back after shopping around. Referrals were often the result, while my peers had customers with buyers regret. They hit their quota by the end of the day, but lost in the long-term. On a side note, your title may be a little misleading. It should say "Sales come out of genuinity" as the current title implies that knowing how to sell is something inherent, whereas it's something I taught myself.

swombat 14y ago
Thanks for your comment! Fair suggestion about the title, though I think even though your title is more accurate it somehow seems even worse than the current title (I'm not happy with the current title either). If anyone has suggestions for a better title, let's have them...
- zio99 14y ago
  Have you had any experience in sales? If so, you could title it "What Sales taught me" as my response to your post here: http://startupframework.tumblr.com/post/36886657978/sales http://startupframework.tumblr.com/post/36886657978/sales +1 for giving sales people some overdue respect. I too feel that there are few that just ruin the bunch, much like HR.

trotsky 14y ago

While I agree with the sentiment, the basis for the argument is clearly factually inaccurate. There are plenty of successful salesmen who sell products that cannot possibly benefit the buyer - c.f. boiler room operations, etc. When you ignore or distort obvious facts to make a much less obvious (but possibly true) point like "sustainable sales practices are more accretive over a long enough period" you make people who read your article wonder what else you say has been fabricated to support your position. Let's flip it around: to give out good advice, you need offer it based on actual experience and not just suppositions. (not necessarily true either, but it sure seems like it would strengthen your argument)

dschiptsov 14y ago

That is a fairy tale kind of story. In reality, by being who you genuinely are you can earn living, if you're lucky, but to earn wealth you need to press and push and cheat. Look, at the differences between CL and Java, Redis and MongoDB, Postgres and MySQL to name the few very popular examples. "Commercially successful" products invest heavily in creating, creating a misleading hype and other manipulations. Being who you means to become a marginal, a hobbyist, with, perhaps, much above average abilities, in the best case. But to make money you must pressure and bullshit people, because it is only by cheating you could get above-average returns. It is much easier and cheaper than to make something which is above average. Look at that Java, ERP, or artificially inflated open source crap? This is how to sell. SAP has the best sales people it could hire. But once you're convinced to buy - you are locked for life. It is all about tricks like SEO or MVPs, faked reviews or whatever, when you put words and hype ahead of the real things. And, of course, there are people, who are ready to do tricks instead of doing real things. I'm not trying to say that it is illegal - trying to exploit fools is a legal practice, the problem is that it become a dominant one. Writing a pleasant stories for fools instead of real product specifications and reference documentation is so common, that nobody even reads it anymore.)

CamperBob2 14y ago
But to make money you must pressure and bullshit people, because it is only by cheating you could get above-average returns. Wow. Someone's projecting, it sounds like.
- snooblywoobly 14y ago
  No he's not. It's just the truth.
  - CamperBob2 14y ago
    I guess somebody has to take the polar opposite position to Atlas Shrugged, to bring balance to the derp.
smilliken 14y ago

reubenswartz 14y ago

Great post. Especially useful for a lot of us "engineering" types on HN who may not think of themselves as sales people. Turns out that if you're a problem-solver, you can be successful in sales. You just have to think of the customer's problem holistically, and from their point of view.

spinchange 14y ago

ABC: Always be contributing.

SparrowOS 14y ago

Ghost of Chirstmas past -- Scrooge saw that his past actions would be done to him. more or less -- eye for eye. Your past will haunt you just like Clockwork Orange. You can write a fantacy story about being my slave, if you like. The Lord's prayer: "Forgive us our tresspasses just like when someone does them back on us in the future." God says... renowned twice III birthright recalled Homer home Men judgest licenses bridegroom worketh dispensers beset evenly smoke createdst presides pit replenishing 93 ruinous fortitude dimensions abase reclaim stricken reputation handmaid every anxiously declared secular pronounces Faithful feet stolen badge sowing stricken exhortations humbledst thieve overcoming freed mind 90 replenished consuming infringement upheld birthright morrow satisfying Place shapen disputer make fast whoop_there_it_is unbelievers rioting hearest well-beloved vanities took mirthful apprehension besprinkling solving Perchance herein shame Both details submitted oh_come_on oft answering grammar-learning abated Say submitting curest frequent MAY Norway order reached Julian wise fairer writings jests most lot foreshowed subjoinedst intolerable fellow-sinners compacting touched One debts promise starry fruitlessly house none floating him hast beauties fly