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Comment by solarman5000 | Hacker News Reader

I hope I live long enough to see sales people eliminated. In solar, they contribute the least to the process yet gobble up 30% of the money. It is a total waste of taxpayer money, adoption would be a lot faster if we got rid of the greedy freeloaders

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How is a salesman a waste of taxpayer money? I'm not a big fan of fakes people. But some do add value. There are a lot of cases were the middleman is important.

In USA people get tax credits for installing solar. The cost of solar has gone down, the cost to the consumer has remained the same or increased. It is sales people eating up that margin, which is being paid for by tax payers

Where did you find the 30% stat?

Without sales and marketing it doesn't matter how amazing your product is; if people don't know about it, they won't buy it.

One could argue that sales adds the most value to the process.

I think it depends on the industry. In a specialized niche (B2B), sure.

In something like new auto sales, all of the information is available online and is usually more comprehensive and accurate than that offered by a car salesman. YouTube probably sells more cars than car salesmen these days (in terms of locating a product that meets your needs and convincing you to buy it)

Spot on. This statement is true in a lot of industries. It is difficult if not nigh impossible to get a product of the door without a good sales team.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that salesmen be forbidden, only that it should also be allowable to sell directly. Tesla, for example, has showrooms where people can learn about vehicles and try them out. But they don't order via a salesman whose comp depends directly on how many upsells are made.

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