[s73ver]

"Reserving the conversation around pricing until after you are in contact with a sales person is often helpful, because these products do have very different capabilities."

Which you can easily list, with the prices next to them.

Look, I have never, ever, ever found it more helpful to talk to a sales person than to see an actual price sheet. Never. If I don't like the price, but it's just outside my budget, I can call you and see what you can do. If it's so far outside of my budget, then talking to you is a waste of both your time and mine.

[zmillman]

Ah man, you've been so lucky (and unlucky).

You know far more about your needs and are able to evaluate how well software would solve them, and the salespeople you've talked to haven't been worth the time....and that's not normal.

You'd be shocked how bad most people are at evaluating software, especially when it's highly technical. Most people don't even know what a reasonable budget is, what their biggest problems are, what would fix them, and what software is actually doing -- so they rely on cheap self-service products or just take marketing speak at face-value and hope for the best.

And a good salesperson is worth their weight in gold. If you're one of those buyers, salespeople should be much closer to an interviewer or consultant for them: approaching sales calls like research to uncover needs you didn't know you had, introducing you to best practices, and tailoring advice to your specific situation. Their goal is to find a mutual fit and stand by the quality of their solution (and should recommend competitors' products if you wouldn't be happy with it)

[vacri]

> And a good salesperson is worth their weight in gold.

Yes, they absolutely are, for both the client and the company. But you have no way of knowing if $randomNewSaas you're looking at has good sales staff or not. A bad sales guy can screw both. Recently we've had an experience with one Name Brand Vendor where the sales guy is promising things that the company doesn't really deliver; for example, we purchased an old bundle at his suggestion and then get sent automated demands to reduce our capacity because we're in excess of what we pay for (even though it's within the capacity of the old bundle).

Good sales staff are excellent value-adders, but far from all sales staff are good.