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I can pretty much guarantee the author doesn't know what sales people actually do. Assumptions lacking experience makes this article a waste of time. I'd sugg

I can pretty much guarantee the author doesn't know what sales people actually do. Assumptions lacking experience makes this article a waste of time. I'd suggest he tries to figure out how hard it is to get someone to actually talk on the phone, much less make a large purchase, and he would change his tone. What engineers generally don't understand is how hard it is to get people interested, qualify out prospects who are a waste of time, make your stuff a top priority, and most importantly build trust. Engineers only see a very small part of sales. Unfortunately what they see is the gaps in the product, and the customer's requirements that may not match theirs. Most people hate sales, keep that in mind when you consider how hard of a job it is. With biases like this, it is a miracle a sales team can deliver.

k1w1 13y ago
Ha! the irony here is just too much. The author of the post is not an engineer, and just spent the last two months talking to more than a hundred customers during our private beta (and loved it). I am not the author of the post, but I am an engineer, and I've worked with sales teams ranging from large enterprise sales, to SaaS inside sales, and I know just like you that it is hard, hard, hard. But I also know, just like the author of the post, that everyone trying to close a deal thinks that their deal is the only one the matters. Getting to club, or meeting your quota is a strong motivator - and one that many engineering teams are oblivious too. I would imagine that many line engineers don't even realize what a big part of a typical salesperson's compensation is performance based.