Given that HN is related to startups and given that startups needs to sell to make a living (not just perform) that advice surely isn't well suited for most people here.
"Be a different professional" would be a much better subject to riff on IMHO.
"Be a different professional" would be a much better subject to riff on IMHO.
There seems to be a recent meme around HN lately that you have to be a "hustler" to succeed. I think that's been misinterpreted a lot. Most of the hustle is in showing up, staying alert, and then applying just the right insight that will let your target know that your interests are their interests.
As recently as last summer, I felt that I had to make a lot of noise to make my ideas heard. I got nowhere. Instead, I've found that by listening to other people's ideas and then carefully suggesting ways to improve them, I end up with far more influence over how things actually turn out.
You can't be a quiet salesman, you can use silence to sell, but that is very very different.
There are also a lot of people in the entrepreneurial community who don't go to startup events because they're at their customer's offices, showing them how their products can help them.
The second kind is the quiet professional.
In order to get into that office it requires quite a lot of work and a lot of making people aware that you exist.
If you ever worked with sales you would know that there is no such thing as a quiet sales man. That doesn't mean they are noisy.
The second kind of professional is not "quiet." He is a "quiet professional." He is at the automotive parts distributors conference selling his software, rather than at TechCrunch50 selling his image.
There is nothing more quiet about selling your software at a conference than at TC50.