I really don't think this is why he was fired.
It was the Y2K-adjacent midpoint between the door-to-door salesmen of the boomer era and the present-day dystopia of A.I.–enhanced robocalling — the last few years before American credulity (and disposable income) was decisively strip-mined by post–9/11 disillusionment, the emergence of the internet, an economy that seemed to lurch from crisis to crisis, and, well, petty cheats like me, the bedrock of this nation.
Write in your voice. If this person actually speaks like that normally, I'm glad I don't know them personally.
This was an excellent piece that was well written in a unique and engaging style - almost like a Chuck Palahniuk book or something. Written words and spoken words are two very different things unless you are a dullard and want the world to be reduced to a brief conversation.
But in my career in Silicon Valley I really came to respect good salespeople. I often had roles where I was debugging customer-reported issues, and good salespeople make everything smoother.
I came to a conclusion that there are two types of sales transactions: one that is a one-time transaction and one that is an ongoing transaction.
The one-time salespeople were just like this article: they are just trying to close a sale knowing that they don't ever have to deal with you again. If they lie, they don't have to deal with the consequences. So their incentive is to spew any kind of nonsense or lies or manipulation to close the deal.
The other type of sales guys depending on building relationships. with engineers on both sides, with management, with purchasing and billing people, with everyone. When I was working on customer bugs, having a great sales guy representing the account made everything much easier. They could get the customers to loan hardware, assign more resources, get documentation, negotiate for time, etc. I respected these great sales guys because they had real skills and talent in these spheres that I didn't.
Incidentally, this is the difference between a good real estate agent and a "door opener".
Case 1: a puddle in the centre of a room; agent comments that the window had been left open.
Case 2: "this view will never change" as a building was going up right in front of us.
They are out there; I've worked with them. They're still salespeople, trying to close.
But the good ones are trying to close you as a customer for the next N deals, not just this one.
Case 3: got his commission and left his company without telling me and before the deal was 100% completed.
Case 4: sent me a threatening SMS (watch out, I know where you live, etc) because I didn't want to take his calls to listen to new deals I wasn't interested in.
Fully agree that they are great though.
Anyway, when I was working in sales, I was handling pre-sales, closings, and post-sales support. We were manufacturing and selling security equipment. The goal never was to simply close the deal. We wanted to expand the network of distributors, and to do so, we needed to build long-lasting relationships.
I quite liked the experience, but I was always more tech guy than salesman – I guess most of my clients were coming back because I was preparing projects of CCTV installations, I was providing trainings for clients and their crew.
But as a typical salesman described in the article, I would be terrible.
You can respect a person without respecting their profession. I also serve the same dysfunction in much more widely respected ways, but my role is still part of the same cancer.
I’d venture to guess that almost everyone reading this thread owes their job to talented salespeople and more importantly the sales profession as a whole.
I respect them and their profession because it’s kept my family fed for nearly 40 years. I am not a salesperson, but they sure as shit sell the things I build. I need them more than they need me because talent salespeople can sell nearly anything.
Pretty much if there is a salesperson involved today it’s an item that is not needed/critical to your life. That’s the whole point of a salesperson, convince you to buy something you don’t necessarily need.
Want to find the best mathematician, the best engineer? Easy: just give them a hard test. Or more generally follow the metrics. The one with the highest score is the best, generally speaking. In that sense it's uncomplicated: administer the test, the highest scorer is your guy/girl.
For sales there is no equivalent. There is no "test" (crude sell me a pen type exercises notwithstanding). There often is a mysterious hard-to-quantify quality to the best sellers.
Of course with a track record it's much easier - the one w/the highest sales in the district, say - but without that it's quite difficult.
In that sense it's very different from other fields.
"Eventually, it clicked, and I learned one of the bedrock principles of salesmanship: Whether you’re peddling long distance over the phone, Bibles door to door, or your own political candidacy on live national TV, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling—it matters how you make people feel. If you make them feel good, they’ll say yes. If you don’t, you could be selling a pill that reverses male-pattern baldness and makes you lose weight without exercise, and they’ll still turn you down flat."
Sadly only one of these exists.
Assuming that's what you mean, reversing has spotty success, but prevention is easy for most men if you can tolerate the side effects. Just take your favorite testosterone-blocker.
You could really generalize and say this is about relationships in general. If people leave interactions with you feeling good about themself, it will be a relationship they want to continue and grow.
And the ratio of good interactions to bad needs to be at least 5X (at least that's what the Gottman Institute found with romantic relationships)
#2: A telemarketing old lady with a "warm voice and metronomic cadence".
#3: An NYC beggar who "walks up to a table, falls to his knees, interlaces his hands as if in prayer, and begs, at the top of his lungs, Please please please, money, please I need a dollar!"
Thanks for saving me seven minutes.
Take the time to read it.
Our modern world is so incredible. I wish we could do some good things.
He just saw Beverly Hills Cop and wanted to sound impressive.
I’ll never get those 7 minutes back.
They built an intimate knowledge of their customer and their industry, built strong connections with the top brass of their client by delivering exceptional work that got those people promoted, and were really good at building autonomous teams that could get the (exceptional) work done with their guidance on the customer/industry/client. These folks would also often deliver very difficult messages to their clients, which often resulted in more business not less.
The sleazy sales people can build decent pipelines/sales numbers but they are not what I would ever label as 'elite'.
Because they were not "elite salespeople"? Jokes aside, I guess the best salesperson is the one whose title is not "Sales".
It sounds inane, but it's appalling how often that doesn't happen, and how it irretrievably dooms a project before it starts.
You’re describing low value, low recurrence sales. Those are numbers, not relationship, games, with high churn at that.
They’re low value, comparatively speaking. High-value sales starts where your client can afford to do their own diligence and retaliate if you screw them; that’s typically around the $10+ million level.
Have you ever worked at a place where the sales people promised features that didn't exist? A bad sales person can ensure you're in the trenches doing work that is urgent but not important. A good sales person anticipates requirements, identifies when they're not currently available, and proactively works with the right people to get the important features prioritized strategically.
The sales people talk to the customers, so from a certain perspective they're the ones in the trenches and talking to customers while you're in the back office plugging away at a keyboard.
Some people love their realtors, although they do very little for their outlandish commissions. They do however, guide you through the process and give you transactional advice. Like any sales person, they generally have an interest in the transaction closing but they are only trusted if they come off as acting in your interest. That trust can ultimately help the transaction close — this is the line that I think good sales people walk.
Realtors exist because buyers and sellers usually don't trust each other enough to talk directly.
It's stupid and inefficient, but here we are.
A good realtor has knowledge of current values in the local market, issues to look for throughout the transaction, which services will be needed and who can be trusted to provide those services.
There is often an element of buffering communication between buyer and seller, but it's not just a trust problem. Due to their different interests and perspectives, they will tend to communicate in ways that could offend the other party inadvertantly. A good realtor is skilled in smoothing this over and being more objective.
As an aside, the term realtor is trademarked and is something on top of real estate agent, but for the American public the realtor association has been so successful that almost every agent joins.
At the time I did this work, the requirements for licensing were indeed too lax in my state and therefore a commensurate number of lower quality agents. Which of course feeds the impression that agents are useless, because it was more true.
My understanding is that licensing the has since tightened.
None of that detracts from the fact that a good agent does quite a bit of work to build up knowledge, and to assist through a huge transaction that most people will seldom make and therefore more likely mess up.
Unfortunately this work is also often spent doing things that never lead to a transaction, such as multiple showings to buyers prior to finding a fit, or preparing listings that ultimately fail to sell for whatever reason. These costs need to be accounted for somehow, so we end up thinking only of the services rendered in our dealings.
I realize I have even more to say but I gotta stop sometime...
Why?
Realtors have for years committed antitrust violations to the detriment of home buyers and sellers and helped push home values up for no reason because they act in their own interest instead of their client’s. A realtor’s ultimate goal is to close the deal at any price, not get you a good deal. They are beholden to the sell side. They were a key reason for the housing crash of 2008. They offer very little value in 2025, and the value they do offer is sourced from their monopoly practices. They are strictly rent seekers (no pun intended).
Even if a "good" Realtor actually knows these things (and they don't, even though most think they do), you can't trust anything they say because they have misaligned incentives from you. So what service am I paying for, again?
And if only .001% of Realtors are "good", what does it even matter? You're not likely to be able to find a "good" one anyway. And if I do how do I verify they are "good?" You can't. And you straight up can't change your mind about who you are working with midway through the process, you sign a contract.
If I want home buying/selling services I should be able to pay a fixed fee (either per service or per hour) and get those services on the open market (and pay for them even if I don't close). Them demanding 6% of the value of my house is straight criminal. As is, the buyers agent works for the seller, because that's who is paying them.
>My understanding is that licensing the has since tightened
You're wrong. Even if they have tightened, any dingus can still get a real estate license.
Real estate agents are the house version of used car salesman.
You don't have to, those contracts are optional. They will threaten to not represent you, but if you are a well qualified buyer, this is something you can force without much risk.
The more well qualified buyers refuse, the more normalized working for clients without contracts will be
As a seller, they can handle all the visits for you - no need to take calls from potential buyers, arrange times with them to show them the house, etc. This becomes almost indispensable if you live far away from the house you're selling.
As a buyer, they also provide convenience - sometimes I've seen 3 or 4 different apartments in two hours, which would almost certainly be impossible if I needed to contact and arrange time slots with 4 different sellers. They also filter properties with unrealistic prices - I have seen many owners who have massive bias, having grown in the house, etc., and will charge like 100K over reasonable prices. A good realtor would probably not even show you that home or warn you beforehand so you don't waste your time.
In my country, they also help with the bureaucracy associated with actually performing the purchase, which is far from trivial - although this can vary per country, I guess.
I'm sort of concerned that some people have "their realtor". I've sold a few houses, realtors are companies I contract to sell my house and they can be fired.
I aced it but at the time it didn't seem like elite sales, not to anyone, not even to me. I just felt this is how it should be done.
Then I ran into a manager 3 years after I quit. He said, I don't know how you've done it but we still get clients from your work, a lot of them.
Apparently, when people [actually] need something they look at some business directory. If they then see a name they know and remember having an enjoyable conversation where they've learned all the ins and outs from someone who didn't even try to sell them anything... who do you think they are going to call?
I was able to do thousands of calls per day because I wasn't trying to force anything and the process was enjoyable.
If there is one trick to share here: Make people talk, listen to them, pay close attention to the speed at which they talk and the duration of their pauses then gradually try to match it. If someone is super energetic and talks really fast I unload the material on them slightly faster, make a joke and thank them for their time. If they talk slow feed them one sentence at a time and have them confirm they got it.
I'm pretty sure people were quite confused by my not trying to sell them anything. this is what we do, this is what we offer, thanks for listening, enjoy your day I already know they aren't buying. I could definitely add a 3 minute grind to the end but why? Waste energy annoying people? Better get to the next customer.
At one point he sold a project that would lead to his termination and it was the most brilliant sale I've ever seen. A customer wanted monitoring and a 24/7 "operation center", but one which didn't have access to any systems. We'd channel alerts from the customer into our on-call, which would then phone the customers staff and tell them that "YO! X is broken" and hang up. The price was insane, is was free money, but the customer was excited and felt like they got a great deal.
Another part was that was yet another service which we technically didn't offer, which he sold. He was always very upfront about the fact that he knew that a lot of the stuff he sold was not actually something we offered or necessarily knew how to do. That pissed of a lot of people, but in hindsight, five years later: He sold the right things and we should embraced those sales/potential sale, because the local market has moved in the direction he was going.
This may not be the situation but I’m willing to bet he created an insane amount of chaos for everyone else by doing this. Existing projects constantly getting delayed or cancelled because he sold something that wasn’t planned for.
At my last job, we had a department who delegated all of their quarterly goals to the development team. They made us responsible for accomplishing their goals on top of everything else we were doing.
They delayed critical projects for years for marginal gains.
For one, there's a huge gulf between product sales and services sales. In product sales roles you'll almost never find people who are strategic advisors to their clients. Why would they be -- they'll selling products? On the other hand, in roles responsible for selling services (which may also include products, from a single or multiple vendors), you'll be far more likely to see strategic thinkers focused on business transformation or business outcomes.
That said, there are also very good reasons why even at big consulting shops (Deloitte, Accenture, BCG, EY, etc) the roles of Client Partner or Client Account Lead (the person on the hook for client revenue) is the one responsible for client relationships and client contracting, but is usually not the one providing strategy or technology advice. That comes cross-functionally.
In small tech product companies -- especially where the product isn't just plug & play -- my experience is that the sales rep is responsible for contracting and business relationships, but it's the technical pre-sales architects & the post-sales service delivery manager + architects who are providing the most value. It's exceptionally difficult to hire rockstars senior architects and always will be. It's one of the most in-demand roles in tech.
Although they have the same title I think it's a different job to when there are a lot of options for the customer.
There are definitely "salesmen" with long term industry credibility, relationships and such. Probably reads as more of a "businessman" than salesman, regardless of how the bread is buttered.
That said, I think this is fundamentally different from a Salesman who can join, start or lead a sales team and start putting up sales numbers.
It's inglorious work, ultimately. Not a tone of respect for the salesman.
That said... in terms of performance... there are totally different levels here. For some businesses, this can be a key hire of the highest order. Equivalent to ceo, cto and such... potentially.
Also, worse salesmen in trashier sectors tend to be more visible. A lame pressure sales guy will just seem more salesman. They'll also work colder pipelines and leads, annoy more people.
That bias makes salesmen's reputation even worse.
Absolutely. Used to do Sales Engineering, and the different Account Execs were light years apart, even when you looked at the top performers. Definite 80/20 rule here.
There is the guy at the car dealership who specializes in adding an extended service contract for your new car.
Then there's the guy who sells a software development project that lands a well qualified customer (joy to work with) and a good specification which was well estimated and price so you can complete the work profitably. Maybe you know nothing about formalwear but somebody sells you a suit you really feel good in.
The former is the scammy type, the latter is the type we love to work with.
But the same is true in any industry. Too many of us in technology are doing the technology equivalent of 1--becoming experts in C++ or React--instead of becoming deep domain and user experts.
I despise the guy who sells extended service contracts at the car dealership. I sure as hell don't want that guy selling software work because I won't be able to complete the work profitably and I'll be dealing with angry customers who don't trust me.
To take an extreme example: Selling a starving person a meal doesn't just extract the price value, but creates it too.
You might argue that there are better or more efficient was of creating that value, but the fact that it is created is inescapable.
If you want to make a utilitarian value argument against it, you need to compare it to a real world alternative subject to scrutiny that is just as harsh, not a perfect world one.
In theory you should have better luck by walking in and saying I'll pay MSRP (thus giving them a reasonable profit) if you don't add all that other BS. In practice they won't know how to do that because nobody else does
If I could go into a dealership and trust that everyone in the building wasn't out to get me, and instead wanted to build a longterm relationship with me from sales to service, advertised the actual cost of the vehicle instead of a BS pre-fees, pre-additional markup price, then I wouldn't do that. Perhaps I'm not seeing the whole story, but as I understand it the dealerships changed their behavior first, and the customer _had_ to get more savvy as a result.
You put enough customer predatory sales practices everywhere, and you raise a generation who just doesn't trust sales staff. It doesn't have to be this way though.
I gotta be careful though, I'm dangerously close to getting on my soapbox about how difficult it is to be a sustainable lifestyle business in today's day, and how much I wish a return to that.
Do they usually come from an IC developer role?
Depends- you might not even qualify non-type-1s as sales people. Especially the type that's trying to help you get what you need, and listen to you in the process.
If you’re cold-selling people on a shitty widget they don’t need, you’re going to have to be a sleazeball.
Absolutely. I have had the pleasure of working with a few elite sales people and none of them were sleazy. They were all extremely confident on the inside, but present as humble and even a little vulnerable on the outside. This is strategic as it builds trust, but I think it was also genuine for the most part -- they really wanted their customers to be happy and they wanted their customers to know that.
They dress nicely, but again in a humble way. They're not quite as polished looking as the "slick" sales people, and this too is part of their strategy. They can pull out a post it note or notebook and sketch a rudimentary diagram they've drawn a thousand times, and every time it looks like they just thought of this idea and are drawing it with wavy lines for the first time. I'm not sure if this one is intentional, but they all do it, and it always looks like they don't know how to draw straight lines.
I actually ran into someone like this at lens crafters recently. They were quite young, early to mid 20s I'd say, but after a few minutes of them telling me about the various lens options, I stopped and said, "You're the top salesperson here aren't you?" They gave me a funny look, and asked how I knew. "Just a guess" I said -- but in reality, I had seen all of their human dark-patterns before. Most people wouldn't even know they were being sold to, in fact, they would probably think the opposite... that the salesperson didn't care if they bought anything from them as long as they got the right solution from somebody in the end. Some of them will literally even say that. Of course, this only works when it is 100% believable and you don't identify it as part of their sales strategy.
Being able to operate from a position of confidence and assurance on "who has what, where" is a very powerful tool. Then, when communicating with potential customers (particularly where it's one ISP entering into a relationship with another ISP), they can offer the correct product for what the customer is looking for. Or, if they can't, they can quickly say "sorry no we can't do that, we don't have any of our own stuff there, and we can't get there by an NNI".
And y’all just keep scrolling through the ads for that secret that’ll explain to you what to be angry about. Some shit will never stop working.
But the whole article was so terrible that I forgive nothing and want my time back. Who upvotes this trash?
How comes?
Despite the hard to believe "No. 1 telemarketer in the United States" claim at the beginning, I ultimately found the author relatable. The article offered a glimpse into a world foreign to me, made interesting points about how doing sales changes one forever, and ended ironically wondering whether this article will help close a book deal.
One of many nuggets of wisdom in this excellent text.
Maybe this is the real motivation behind the "victims" of the PC mindset: its a cadre of justifications to plunder the status quo.
I think that's the essence of having a sales mindset if I had to explain it. It's really hard to convey what it means and I think only those that worked close with people with this talent would have a chance to know what this really means. Sales is an art on top of a very technical game, where you have an unlimited number of secret knobs to balance. It's like seeing chefs or f1 drivers performing at their best, and as such it's not just about grit, you also need talent on top.
‘“Doris, what if I throw in a $50 calling card?” mutates into “I’ll be charming at your office Christmas party if you do the dishes this month,” aimed at a befuddled partner who may or may not have yet realized that what they thought was a partnership is in fact closer to a mutual exploitation.’
So yes, it’s not at all about some preternatural gift for perception or intuition that the parent commenter shoehorned in. Less artful, more “gross”.
Can't recommend it enough.
Send it to all your friends. Everyone should read it.
I have seen complete noobs have good sales careers at AWS
Or just a regular crook.
We'd hire a new manager from outside the company. This new manager would go around and meet some sales teams, meet some customers, then a month or two in, end up at a meeting where they gave a speech. At this speech, they would opine that customers loved our product, that it "practically sold itself" and our job was at least 90% execution.
Translation: a trained circus monkey could do your job. Just show up, answer your emails, and the product will do all the heavy lifting. Don't come complaining to me about how your quota is too high, product isn't taking your feature requests seriously, etc. Those are just excuses for poor performance.
I saw this happen a half dozen times, at least. In every case -- every case -- those people were singing a very different tune after they had been around for six months and saw what the job was really like.
Now, having good traction in the market, and analysts saying good things about you, and customers excited to be references? All that is really important. But in large enterprise sales, nothing "sells itself." And, for the record, we had plenty of people who weren't idiots, who nonetheless couldn't sell a product that was in very high demand. At least, not enough to keep their job.
But I do believe that the job is fundamentally different when it's about selling a product that's needed compared to selling worthless crap.
Definitely. Another big driver is recurring relationships, either with customers or a larger peer selling community[0]. Most people won't buy more than once from someone unreliable, and ethical people generally don't want to work alongside or be associated with unethical people. Sales people that have options will gravitate towards products/companies they think they can sell more of and most won't consider working for companies that make useless crap or companies that can't or won't support what they make.
0 - think multi-tier tech sales, where you might have an OEM that makes a product, a distributor that either holds stock on the product or handles receivables for the OEM, and a VAR who might directly sell the product to an end-user, all with sales reps that work together on most (or all) deals.
Even well-known product lead companies like Atlassian employ sales reps, especially at the enterprise and strategic levels, because demonstrating value to the end user is only a part of the sales process. There's lots of additional work that's closer to project management that's required to close a deal. It's identifying and aligning stakeholders, helping to justify budget by putting together a business case for leadership and finance teams who won't directly interface with the product and need to be sold on it's value. This is the sort of thing high level business to business sales reps spend a ton of time doing.
Every year or so top performing sales and marketing folks from the dominant countries would be tapped on the shoulder and tasked with growing the company in our less dominant markets. Everyone failed.
Also the inverse is true. A great sales team can disguise a mediocre product team.
Can someone from the industry tell me if this is some kind of ritual of passage? Maybe a prank on new authors? It doesn't make any sense to me. All these articles are the same trick repeated over and over.
This is utterly shocking to anyone who knew me back then, as it was a complete 180° from my socially-petrified personality. I believed in the cause, but when I showed up at the local campaign office, they didn't need the printers fixed or any data entered (several folks in wheelchairs had that covered), and they explained that the best place I could be was on someone's porch. I couldn't bring myself to walk away, so I forced myself out of my comfort zone, picked up a clipboard, and rang a doorbell.
The world did not end.
I figured out some hacks pretty quickly.
First, like all canvassers, I prominently displayed several campaign buttons AND a badge that identified me, so verbally reiterating THAT was a really dull way to open. Door closed in face, politely if I was lucky.
It was much better to size up the house as I walked up to it, and pick something to open with. If they grew plants I recognized, I'd point that out, and talk about the environment. If they had a flag out, I'd thank them and talk about civic pride. If they had a compact fluorescent bulb in their porch light, I'd point to it and say "And I'm pretty sure we agree on a lot of things beyond that!". I dared not elaborate on that one, lest I interrupt their ear-to-ear grin, that someone had picked up on their little spiral sign.
All of these were things that THEY had done. They planted the flowers. They hung the flag. They chose the lightbulb. And I sussed out the little decisions embodied in those things, things that they were quietly proud of, and complimented them for their good taste, and explained that I, too, found these things important. So important that I forced myself out of my comfort zone, and found myself on a stranger's porch asking if they also felt strongly enough to join me in taking action. Of course, they already HAD taken action, and we both knew it.
Who's going to say no to that?
Second, there was the noncommittal "I'm still doing my research / just don't know enough about the candidate yet". Technically noncommittal, but it was pretty late in the game, and this was actually a polite "no". I suspected that many of them were a thin façade for racism, as gutting as that felt, and feels to this day.
But I thanked them profusely for "still doing their research". I was SO GLAD that they wouldn't vote for someone they didn't know enough about yet! Because of course all voters have a duty to be informed, and it was really gratifying that they took it so seriously. And besides, I confided: I was quite comfortable that when they actually DID do a satisfactory amount of research, when they DID get to know the candidate better (as I had, obsessively, read everything I could get my hands on over the prior weeks), that I could count on their vote. I thanked them again for their diligence, and left that to linger as I trotted back to the sidewalk.
Followups showed that of these "3" (on a scale of 1 to 5) contacts were incredibly likely to swing to a 4 or a 5 after my visit. Vastly more so than other canvassers' 3's. And later, they actually did get out and vote, at abnormally high rates.
Because I'd structured it such that supporting the candidate was the obvious and inevitable outcome of learning more about him. And who wants to remain ignorant? (Okay, note for 2025: A decade or two ago, this question was much more rhetorical.)
Third, and I hinted at it above, I was very open and self-deprecating about how uncomfortable I was with canvassing in general. But I was really glad that, if I had to be on a stranger's porch, at least it was their porch. They'd been very nice, despite my interrupting their dinner! I was asking them for the favor of their vote, and they'd already done me a favor in answering the door. They clearly were kind, thoughtful people, and that's exactly the theme of hope and pride and support that I knew I could count on.
There's a well-worn anecdote about Benjamin Franklin asking to borrow a rare book from someone who disliked him. In asking for it, Franklin showed his good taste in books, a thing that the two men now shared. And refusing the loan would've been uncouth, so the man loaned it, but now he'd done Franklin a favor, and who would do a favor for someone they disliked? So logically, goes the story, he must like Franklin.
I had people leave their plates mid-dinner, to walk back to the campaign office with me and sign up for tomorrow's canvassing shift. If I could handle it, so could they, and gosh darn it, they were going to.
I was so proud that I was good at this, until one day:
I'd been doing a lot of it (being between jobs, as I was), and I had a pretty good track record, so they started sending new canvassers out with me to show them the ropes. We'd knock the first street or two together, then split up and do opposite sides of the same street until we finished our turf, then they'd get their own and go out solo. One such newbie, as I shared the tips described above, said those were great, then casually asked "so how long have you been in sales?"
That's when the world ended.
See, that's exactly what I'd say when I haven't finished my research yet.
Buying people's vote with charm is subversion of democracy, they're supposed to vote if they like your policies. The 'cult of personality' politics is doom.
> Firms working the lightning-rod grift sent effete dandies to sell farmers on lightning rods for their house, barn, even their outhouse and doghouse, with no money required upfront, but when it was time to collect payment, the salesman was replaced by two or three hulking roughnecks.
And this:
> The majority of the leads hung up in the first three seconds; others stayed on the phone only long enough to detail the sexual acts they’d performed on my mother the previous night.
Interesting line:
> Eventually, it clicked, and I learned one of the bedrock principles of salesmanship: Whether you’re peddling long distance over the phone, Bibles door to door, or your own political candidacy on live national TV, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling—it matters how you make people feel. If you make them feel good, they’ll say yes.
Oh neat, how?
> Unlike many of my less successful colleagues, I quickly learned to take yes for an answer; though we were legally required to read a long list of mandatory disclosures to all our sales, I noticed that this often broke the spell and gave people an opening to back out or “wait and ask the wife about it.” As soon as I heard a yes, I said, “Great choice!” and transferred them to confirmation. My manager occasionally came by and reminded me that it was technically illegal to skip my disclosures, but he made commission off my commission, and his tone made it clear that I could do as I pleased as long as I kept putting up numbers.
[…]
> I was one of the first to go, technically for not making my required disclosures—about cancellation fees, international rates, all that fine print nobody ever bothered to recite—on a sale.
So, he and his boss did crime together for a while and then eventually their scam stopped working and he got fired.
I'm getting the strangest feeling that maybe this guy isn't done peddling bullshit?
The difference between a racounteur and a bullshitter is that one is entertaining.
And Uber is a taxi company that doesn't own taxis, AirBnB is a hotel chain that owns no hotels. Find a hyper-successful company or person, and start digging. The secret 99/100 times is crime (or incredibly crime-adjacent behaviors).
Similarly, taxi companies are much less ethical than you're implying here. Often more criminal too.
Because entities that operate hotels (paying royalty to the hotel chain), almost always do not own the hotels per se i.e. real estate. They rent it. From holding companies that did not build it, they bought them ready from real estate developers who start a project targeting several potential buyers usually picking the actual one while construction is near finishing. And the developer is also not building the building, construction company does it, the developer just manages the land deal, licensing, permitting, and architectural designs, asking construction company to do particular phases of work with a particular budget. And that one then subcontracts different things to different entities, who in turn manage imports of the labor force and materials and manage people who do the work... The chain is looong.
Most taxi companies don’t own cars. Almost none of the hotel operators own real estate.
> secret 99/100 times is crime
Nope. This is the excuse of stupid criminals.
Eg even the US has no laws against insider trading in commodities. Similarly, French insider trading laws work on rather different principles than US ones. So it's hard to attach much moral significance to the legal accident of insider trading laws in one place and one time.
(And arguably, laws banning insider trading are bad for the general public, because to the extent they are respected and enforced, they keep information out of market prices.)
Sometimes it's that, sometimes it's in the interested of the shareholders, sometimes it's also in the interest of (some) customers, etc.
Honestly, when I’m on a call with customer service I could do without being reminded every microsecond that I’m actually on a phone call that might be recorded.
You'd run a customer-service operation that has no record of who said what?
It'd be a bit silly if not as where I live I can also request them to delete the recording immediately after the call ends. So yes many businesses operate like this.
When you go to a shop and talk to the person there for help with a previous purchase they aren't recording your interaction, why is it so surprising?
To close more, he started dropping the disclosures and sending people to the next department.
The point you are raising does make sense, I suppose the lesson for him was getting to yes, and then ensuring you dont blow the lead. Which I suppose is the core lesson to selling. You cant sell if people get out of the flow.
And he does allude to this, that the economy is small constant hustles that convince people to buy things, as opposed to the sterile idea of economic demand.
There might be more about the people and the behaviour they are choosing. Like anything it has to be managed, because it's only a sale when the customer is satisfied to retain the sale, let alone renew.
Getting good at helping qualified leads can be just fine.
If inbound is garbage, it invites less than ideal behaviour.
Three felonies a day for everyone. More if you use a computer.
It's kind of amazing how no one seems to care that the only reason why they aren't in prison currently is that no one's bothered to arrest them yet.
This is a culture so extreme around its idea of private property and private enterprise that treating human beings as property is a habit of thought as a culture we just can’t seem to quit in spite of a bloody, declared civil war and a thousand violent skirmishes that don’t quite qualify as wars.
We’re now deep into a regression on this that has the typical person struggling via a combination of monopoly and monopsony pricing power enabled by blank check lobbyism that creates de facto indentured status for anyone with a kid who needs medication.
Low effort quips from people who haven’t felt cold or hunger or illness recently enough to remember are a serious part of the problem.
Remember: even Bill Gates had to fight for a decade or so to get his favourite car imported. And that was when he was the richest guy on the planet. Bloomberg and Romney lost their bids for the presidency against much poorer opponents with less support from the rich. You guys still have minimum wage laws on the books, too. Rent control and price controls ('anti-price gouging laws') are ever popular. To name just a few examples.
> This is a culture so extreme around its idea of private property and private enterprise that treating human beings as property is a habit of thought as a culture we just can’t seem to quit in spite of a bloody, declared civil war and a thousand violent skirmishes that don’t quite qualify as wars.
You know that (orthodox) economics is known as the dismal science because they opposed slavery? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dismal_science
Please don't brand Milton Friedman as some kind of slavery advocate.
> Low effort quips from people who haven’t felt cold or hunger or illness recently enough to remember are a serious part of the problem.
I don't think they make much of a difference on way or another. But you are right, that thanks to relatively freer markets, more and more people can enjoy the ignorance of bliss of not knowing what hunger feels like. That's how progress looks like.
But using a log scale and a ruler to apologize for flagrant grift is nothing to do with capitalism, markets, democracy, common sense, or humanity.
Rent seeking is the original sin of capitalism: don’t take my word for it, re-read your Adam Smith and pay attention this time.
And if by “you guys” you mean advocates for the broader public?
To the death.
That's certainly not the issue here - where the secret was to avoid informing or giving time to think by skipping the fine print.
Like it isn’t even a cool crime, like doing a heist or something. It’s just tricking confused people by not letting them know about the fine print.
Poverty, scarcity and desperation drives people to evil. If you work a stable job for a respectable wage for an industry that makes money, and is willing to share said money with you, all this stuff sounds strange to you.
All the machiavellian scheming and power games that take place in a call center on the shift manager level might only show up close to C-level in an IT company, as its only there that the opportunities grow scarce enough, and the people desperate enough that these darwinian environments arise.
I don't know how many times I've told, and to how many coworkers, if the enemy is going to hang himself, stop talking and give him more rope.
In general I think it's very easy to _not understand_ people i.e. "how could you". The interesting part for me is when I do understand: "oh this is how". From that perspective I enjoyed this read quite a bit.
For a liar and a cheater, it's basic modus operandi to tell you some of their lies to give themselves a veneer of honesty.
Agree with you in some sense, it is what it is, but why trust anything else they say to "rescue the story"? That's the game they play.
The little in the story that speaks about the author, is necessary as a vehicle to narrate the experience.
The crux of the story is sales, and how it worked. The core point was the dehumanization, as well as the people who are the most effective in this era.
Also, I can appreciate someones shoes, while acknowlding they are a terrible person. Style isnt the causative factor for criminality or bad decision making.
I think that this is the way how most reasonable/average people will view it? Reading the article doesn't make me think: "Gee, I should swindle some people out of a lot of money for personal gain!" but rather feel happy that my own career doesn't put me in a spot where I'd need to do anything similar to that.
And even if someone does take that as a playbook, it's not like the article is advocating for that or that author would benefit from that (e.g. like the lifestyle gurus and self-proclaimed pros at anything, that are almost always selling courses, often coupled with a get rich scheme).
“How could you” is a rhetorical question to which the asker already knows the answer they would be given, which is almost invariably “because I lack empathy”.
To future salespeople in here: please work on selecting customers carefully, and pitch only to great two-way fits. That way, both customer and your organisation will thrive.
I get that the salesperson is judged by volume closed, but this gives the rest of the organisation churn problems to deal with.
The reason he became good at selling (according to the article) is because he changed his attitude despite reading the sales scripts verbatim both before and after his attitude adjustment.
It’s an interesting and probably helpful lesson for the startup hustlers here on HN if they can make it through this admittedly long essay.
The article states that he was fired because he did not read the script he was required to read.
Yeah, but you are, at least seemingly, missing the point: the scripts he was referring to in context weren't the legal disclosures but the sales tricks that were handed to them to use. He is pointing out that the 'elite' saleswoman wasn't better at strategy or sales tricks, but was effective because she made them feel good.
The type of person who would skip the legally required stuff while working as a telemarketer is exactly the kind of person who'd tell you he got fired for a "technicality", while he was actually fired because he was breaking the law and lying to customers.
Just heard stories some shitty companies/sales would push you over they have your „yes” on recording. I don’t believe it would hold in any court if they would have to play the whole thing. But it would work on people who are not so tough.
Sattelite TV sellers were awful they almost got my mother to buy second one because they told her BS new one will void competition contract and then sales rep was pushy she wanted to back out - good thing was she did not sign anything before asking me.
So yeah I have seen some pushy idiots pushing old people or not confident people into signing stuff.
So many people got scammed.
It's also why I don't have any respect for the sales people.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/can-you-hear-me-scam/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_you_hear_me%3F_(alleged_te...
I noticed that this often broke the spell and gave people an opening to back out or “wait and ask the wife about it.” As soon as I heard a yes, I said, “Great choice!” and transferred them to confirmation. My manager occasionally came by and reminded me that it was technically illegal to skip my disclosures, but he made commission off my commission, and his tone made it clear that I could do as I pleased as long as I kept putting up numbers.
Send them to confirmation who should have a process of, we're sending you the email now where you enter you make an account and enter payment details. Stay on the phone with them while they do it to avoid drop off rates. During the account creation is the disclosures.
The two most epic sales I ever saw where these.
One guy I saw some how resurrected a customer of ours. I flat out asked him. His words to me were 'I have no idea how I did it'. While he was saying that he pulled out his wallet and started laying 20s on the table. 'you didnt...' 'i have no idea what you are asking'.
The second one was in the dead of july at a garage sale my family was running. Suddenly a guy comes up and hands me money for a Christmas lightbulb (who put that out there?!). 'did you just get that guy to buy a light bulb' 'i showed him how he needed it'.
Sales is not about doing the right thing. But creating a need and filling it and closing the sale. In the first case he showed the guy that he needed money. In the second somehow he talked the guy into needing a lightbulb before Christmas. It works even better if you somehow get the customer to think they came up with the idea.
If you understand that rule of 'creation' you can actually make yourself immune to most sales bots. The first thing most do is create a need and magically they can fill it with the thing they just happen to sell.
I’ve sold SaaS for three different companies.
B2B accounting, Procurement SaaS, and Senior living SaaS (niche, I know).
My only rule:
1. Have a good product.
Yup.
Things have to fall in place - even in the example of Nebraska lightning rod scam, people had to move out of sod houses to framed ones for the demand to be there. You are just a cog in the wheel. The economy, regulations, market fad or flavour of the month, competitor missteps, timing all these make "great salesmen".
A great film.
It's a good read, just know what you are in for.
Syntax error.
Occasionally my wife still falls for it, and for the sake of my marriage i tend to tag along sometimes.
This is important to remember, and also: those gifts themselves are yours due to luck. That’s why we call them “gifts”.
I don't mean it as a compliment. But it is a fact.
When I was in sales we were taught to disqualify prospects, precisely because we had to find those 5-10% for whom we could resolve business pain or provide value.
Most businesses don’t benefit from signing up customers bound to be unhappy. It costs money to sell to them in the first place. Typically your ideal customer profile (ICP) is going to be someone who is going to love your product and have a lot of money to spend on it with the need to buy a lot of it. We wouldn’t waste precious time trying to scam people who weren’t that.
So really I felt this article was mostly talking about the author’s lived experience of sleazy sales: telemarketers and panhandlers and inmates.
I think some of that philosophical exploration was extended much too far into societal changes like going from an agrarian to an industrial society.
The author seems to consider the role of sales to be like the great scam of modern society.
But the reality is, products that salespeople were selling like the cotton gin or the steam engine were absolutely things that buyers wanted and benefited from.
Another example was a friend of mine who worked for Apple retail. For some people retail is soul crushing, and you’d be correct to point out that many people are completely insufferable to deal with.
But the story I got from them was that, for the most part, selling at Apple (especially 10 years ago when their products were arguably more exciting) involved a lot of time spent with customers who were having a whole lot of fun buying stuff for themselves.
If only the author got to witness an elite salesperson selling things that people really like.
“In ways large and small, we live in a world shaped by telemarketing. When’s the last time you answered a call from an unknown number? How many tweets do you encounter without bots in the replies? Have you seen how many spam emails your parents receive? I chuckle to think how mad people used to get when we called during dinner—when do you have privacy now? Even your sleep app is hawking your data to companies trying to sell you melatonin gummies. Are these intrusions any less intrusive because they’re silent?
Worse yet, decades of wage stagnation and the emergence of the gig economy have generalized the anxiety and pressure that used to be the exclusive domain of sales sweatshops; now we’re all pitching all the time, unironically using phrases like “building my personal brand,” indefatigably selling versions of ourselves via social media posts that fool no one, soliciting eyeballs, donations, subscriptions, views and clicks, for our Twitch streams, OnlyFans, Substacks, stand-up shows, GoFundMes, podcasts, NFTs, sending emails to our agent like, “Another piece in Slate, hmm, wonder if there’s a book in this one?” Manufactured precarity and the Hobbesian competition of all against all, combined with the public insistence on moral rectitude, have us all scrambling for grievances so we can justify doing what we must—even presidents and billionaires insist they are victims now. We’re all trapped in the back-office cubicle pod, our desperation rebranded as hustle, bitter entrepreneurs of abjection competing for the same dwindling pool of broke rubes.”
As to why the phone company call: Because they need you to approve the move to a new plan. At least previously, when contracts where 12 months, forcing customers to a new plan would immediately release the customer allowing then you move their number to a competitor. Given that most contracts now are just month to month, if that, it's only expedite the porting of contracts. My old employer, a telco, wanted my grandfather to move from a landline and a basically free service, to a cell phone and a contract where they could actually make a profit on him. It took them years and a pretty large (temporary) discounts to get him (and others obviously) to move his number, so they could shutdown their landline service.
Telcos hate losing customers for two reasons. Firstly it takes over a year to turn a profit on a customer, if you factor in cost of acquiring the customer. Secondly, the different phone companies meet up a few times a year and compare number and figure out how much each should pay to have the other companies customers call their customers. If you have the most customer, you get the most money. (Not sure how this works across the global).
You began your lead generation process by making cold calls, starting with your family and friends before expanding outward.
Securing an appointment with a potential customer allowed you to demonstrate the product directly in their home or office. A key part of the sales presentation in people’s homes involved vacuuming the customer’s mattress using a black cloth, secured with an elastic band, instead of the usual vacuum bag. As the demonstration progressed, the accumulated debris—dirt, dust, and dead skin—would inevitably overwhelm the elastic band, causing the black cloth to burst off and release a cloud of white dust into the air. This shocking and unpleasant visual often left customers both disgusted and embarrassed, making it easier to close the $800 vacuum cleaner sale.
Horrible business. Product was pretty good though.
This hits hard.
I enjoyed reading that far more than I expected, even if I did keep glancing at the scroll bar and wondering if the juice would be worth the squeeze. The meta-commentary at the end (maybe this Slate article will finally seal a book deal) felt faintly reminiscent of the end of the Stephen King "Dark Tower" novels.
at least 50 % of customers were primed out of any natural fuck.
( natural/organic meaning intrinsic or emerging desires that are not anchored in any psycho-social perception/manipulation, after the fact of a more or less evolved consciousness/awareness of self )
and a great amount of your customers was fake to make you fucking love your job and feel that success.
(Seriously, it's only a few hundred words).
> it doesn’t matter what you’re selling—it matters how you make people feel. If you make them feel good, they’ll say yes. If you don’t, you could be selling a pill that reverses male-pattern baldness and makes you lose weight without exercise, and they’ll still turn you down flat.
Of course you need to be better than your colleagues to be the best, but also the environment you're working in should help.
If there is demand for the product you're selling, and you can actually offer them an interesting deal, then you have a lot more chance of succeeding in your elite sales person life.
If there's little demand, and the industry has changed and people are more aware, the same old tactics and products are not gonna work anymore. Because these customers also get called by other new sales people with new exciting products and new ways of persuasion.
It's not just about how you make people feel, it's also about the product, company, and market situation, obviously.
The company the author worked for went bankrupt eventually. So I imagine no sales people were doing great at the end.
So there is no golden rule.
It also reminds me of every would-be day trader that posts to /r/wallstreetbets. Many will hit a hot streak after they figure out how the options market works, they start getting fancy and making bigger bets and dreaming about quitting their day job. Suddenly the luck runs out and their accounts hit zero. They thought they had the talent and wisdom to conquer the market, but they were just lucky at the casino for a little while.
If someone offered to sell me that pill, I wouldn't say, "Ah, but you were kind of brusque, I don't think I'll buy it." I would say (well, think, actually), "I don't think I trust you that it's this easy and safe, so I won't buy it."
The key is trust. The insight the author missed is that we more easily trust people who make us feel good, among other things (attraction, social standing, etc.).
> Shelly in Wichita is not going to buy what you’re selling, no matter how good the deal is, if she can clearly hear in your voice how much you hate your job and, by extension, her.
I think this again misses the point. Shelly doesn't necessarily think you hate her, but she has no reason to trust you. If your product was good, and people were better off for buying it, you probably wouldn't hate selling it so much.
We were selling aerial photos of people's neighbourhoods/streets. (This was pre-Google Earth and pre-web).
I was a crap salesperson, but was luckily enough to bump into the best one, another student called Owen. I got chatting to him at one of the periodic parties the company threw and he had this knack for acting (maybe it was genuine?) like he was hanging on your every word, and how you were the most interesting person he'd ever spoken to. This is 30 years ago and I still remember it.
The best salesman I ever met was peddling boat tour tickets. He wore the same suit and flip-flops every day, visibly messy, like he never heard about ironing even as a concept.
On a first look, you'd probably guess he was either a down on his luck businessman or a drunkard, but if you spent 5 minutes observing him sell, you'd think he fits the definition of a sleazy salesman.
Yet damn, that man could sell. Even the customers that ignored everyone would fall for his traps. He did this long enough that he recognised the type of customer almost immediately and could just "vibe shift" to their vibes.
From "Hey guys, you look hungry, have you had lunch yet?" to just "Hey, welcome!" - he'd slowly reel them in and either he'd hook them now, or redirect them to a restaurant/bar/shop he had an affiliate deal with and get some commission.
While none of the things he was peddling were bad, from the local perspective it felt like he was scamming these people and they were poor innocent tourists. But after a few talks with him, figured out it wasn't like that at all - his trick was he'd make them feel like they "know an insider", someone who can recommend them to good stuff and not "touristy" stuff.
And he would be that guy for them - he'd get them local wine, local honey, oils, meats, anything. He'd set them up a dinner or help them rent a car. He'd call up boat owners and get them private cruises. Basically, he'd be their "concierge". The boat tours were just a way to hook new customers in, and he'd both be getting a kickback from the owners and a tip from the customers. He'd basically be making everyone happy, making the tourists experience amazing and bringing a lot of money to small local businesses, while earning a nice comission in the process. Even tho I've later worked with everyone from door-to-dooor all the way to high ranking MAG7 salesbros, this one was the least sleazy of them all.
Unfortunately, the man was a heavy gambler, which would mean he'd lose all his money quite fast and be extra motivated to work again.
It was illegal and the reason for that regulation is to prevent exactly what author was doing.
Especially if they’re semi-talented but perennially “unlucky”. Usually trading on a curated public image or “likability” backed by nothing but positive sounding words and shifting excuses. Unable to build anything sustainable because they piss off every person with the ability to make them rich.
Walk away. Remember them as they were; and write them off.
You might incorrectly think they followed 'how to win friends and influence people' but that's beginner tier.
The best sales people never sell anything. They are only there to be a smile and react to those coming to them. They'll prefer to talk about anything but what they plan to sell.
I remember one guy, years ago, who ended a 45-second year-end cold call with me with a "Come on man, I have a family. At least hear me out!" I responded, "Get a better job then. I have work to do." As a moral human, I feel sort of bad about that response, but then I remember there's a substantial likelihood he was lying to me to keep the call going to score a sale and the grift depends on me being moral.
The way I vindicate myself morally is by knowing I’m not wasting their time this way. People like me are dead ends —— I know that I’m never going to be convinced to buy whatever they’re selling in a million years. By ending the call quickly, I feel like I’m doing them a favor. They can move on to someone who might actually be interested.
Sales isn't difficult. It's just telling people what you have that makes their lives better. The particulars matter - who are these people, what do you have, how it makes their lives better. Dodgy salespeople cheat on the latter two - they have an inferior product and try to convince others it does more than what it should. And then they double down on this skill of BS. The right way to do sales is to have a good product, figure out how to find leads that want it, and figure out how to best explain it.
Consumer sales is not Software Sales. In general - the professionals/engineers/managers I spoke with were really gracious and insightful.
Most sales organizations operate like a factory producing widgets. This is fine. It produces outcomes at the lowest possible cost of sales.
There are times when there is no substitute for elite sales: 1) Getting customer #2-100. 2) Most products which sell for over 200k 3) Complex engagements with multiple decision makers
I worked in early stage startups and sold software to the Global 2000.
How? 1) Never contact someone unless you have very (*very) strong indicators that what you are offering has high value to them and their goals 2) KNOW what you are talking about. Be able to engage in conversations about their technical infrastructure, options, goals and politics. 3) The goal of every call is to add value... NOT to make a sale. Adding value will open doors and people pick up the phone. Trusted peers provide referrals. They provide insight.
A classic failure of early stage founders it to mistake the factory model of sales (efficiency) for the required model of sales (inefficient, research based, strategic).
To site the Cynefin framework (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework) They mistake mistakenly believe that sales is simple and can be structured like a factory.
Most sales people are factory workers. They crank widgets.
Most products don't have sufficient margin to justify hiring expensive talent.
Professional sales is complex, chaotic, political, layered with inter-dependencies, and fought with constraints. It's a great career -- once you get good at it.
It's not a how-to article: it's someone's story. I think they regretted the hardened and transactional mindset.
For folks praising their own SaaS salespeople or whatever, that's not really the type of person we're talking about here. And I daresay you probably just don't see that side of them because they know to hide it from non-sales folks.