Sales comes out of who you genuinely are | Hacker News Reader

Sales comes out of who you genuinely are

swombat.com

57 pointsjimmyjim33 comments

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.)

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.

No he's not. It's just the truth.

I guess somebody has to take the polar opposite position to Atlas Shrugged, to bring balance to the derp.

>"but to earn wealth you need to press and push and cheat."

It's impossible to agree with such hard-line statements like this. Extraordinary wealth is possible to create through honest work, intelligence, and luck. I'm sure you don't believe Google, Tesla, SpaceX, and IBM all cheated their way into their positions.

There is a lot of truth to some of your points though. Scanning through the Fortune 500, more than half of these companies do seem to "press and push and cheat".

You know, I used to be really cynical and agree with much of this. But over the last few years, I've come back to the middle. I think the story is more complex than this.

Yes, to build wealth you need to press and push--no one is going to give you anything for free and pre-buyers remorse can be a bitch. But cheat? I don't know about that--it depends on your definition.

If cheating is maintaining borderline outrageous profit margins, then yes, it helps to do that. But if cheating is something more along the lines of getting 50% up front for a project you underbid, then holding that money hostage while you proceed to milk the project with change orders every step of the way--then yes, that's cheating (and probably illegal-ish). Plenty of people operate this way but I think it's a pretty bad way to do business--both from an economic standpoint and a how-did-you-get-to-be-such-a-terrible-person? standpoint. And then of course there's the run-of-the-mill cheating that is enterprise software marketing departments, but if that's your worst sin in life, I think you're probably doing ok.

And while there are plenty of cases of crooks making out like bandits, there are just as many about pretty honest people making out like bandits as well. Compare Mike Milken and Warren Buffet for example. Or from tech, the guy that started color vs pg. As far as what I've read about both of them, they seem like rather different personality types, but both of them seem to be doing ok financially.

So yes, nothing is cut and dry, and anyone that says you can't make a lot of money via semi-legal stealing is dead wrong, but I really don't think this is the only--or even the most expedient--way to get rich. Speaking personally, I prefer sitting around coming up with ways to build value for customers instead of coming up with more clever ways of fucking them.

I'm from the whole country of thieves, looters and cheaters, (in common folk's popular culture these considered virtues) or, at least, from what it became to be in last few decades.)

Those thieves, looters, and cheaters are no different from you or me. We're all H. sapiens sapiens here. The only difference is culture.

My guess is that a culture that teaches that we are all thieves, looters, and cheaters will indeed find itself full of those characters. Meanwhile, a culture where profit and value are seen as compatible with human dignity and progress will find your view utterly alien.

The cool thing about culture is that it's opt-in by nature. You can adopt any culture that you find advantageous, or create your own. Most people don't take advantage of that fact, but it's still an option, and it's one that you should perhaps consider.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

An assertion of fact can be right or wrong, but it can't be a fallacy. He's saying that not believing in your product will cause you to fail to make sales, not that it will disqualify you from greatness by definition.

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.

Re: Mamet, interesting, I didn't know that. Any reference to that? If so I'll put an update in!

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/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

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.

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.

Always be closing.

>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"?

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

>and the most successful of the lot is willing to destroy someone's life to earn himself a cadillac.

...and keep his job. You can hardly watch that film without feeling soaked in the desperation of the characters.

>but still, it seems to me the comment is fair based on this particular piece of evidence.

How? The story is about a particular subset of the sales world, which is where you work for an employer who gives you an undesirable product to sell and then puts you under immense pressure to close. These situations do exist, and the people who succeed in them are the ones who are willing to act unethically. The only way that Mamet could have realistically included an ethical salesperson as a character would have been to depict them getting fired.

How do you reckon that the characters depicted in an author's work are likely to comprise the entirety of that author's experience?

  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.

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...

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

+1 for giving sales people some overdue respect. I too feel that there are few that just ruin the bunch, much like HR.

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.

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

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.

ABC: Always be contributing.

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