[StaticRedux]

I understand your point, and you aren't wrong, but you are short-sighted. You may only sell to big clients now, but you are also leaving a lot of money on the table for yourself, not your company, yourself.

You've been selling for 20 years? How many of your customers have you had for longer than 3?

Now I can hear your mind churning, 'but I'm at a different company now! I don't sell the same thing!'. It doesn't matter. Sales is sales. And the best sales people foster relationships for years before they really sell the big bucks. And can go back to those same clients and sell different products and it's easy because those clients know them and trust them.

Ever get that little pang of jealousy wondering why that guy you know in sales plays golf every day with clients and doesn't seem to do much else? It's not because he's just that good. He's not. He might even suck. It's most likely bc he has been building relationships with those clients for years and they would buy a cactus as a new pillow if he asked them to.

This attitude of telling the little guy to piss off bc he isn't your type of client might make for some ok sales now, maybe you even have a shiny BMW, but it doesn't make for long term relationships with people who trust you. Once those people at that big company move on to bigger and better things, you'll be stuck grinding it out with whoever they replace them with.

I take it you work hard. You're certainly passionate. But after 20 years in sales, you shouldn't have to be working hard. Whether you changed companies and products every six months or still work for the same company, you should have been building relationships.

Instead you are content writing off the little guy as a waste of your time. The same senior management you grind it out to sell to now who was a little guy 20 years ago. And the same little guys who will be senior management in 10 - 20 years.

I imagine you'll still be grinding it out every day then also, instead of playing golf like you should be.

[goatherders]

I'm not sure your post was meant for me even if you think it was. I dont write off the little guy, I write off the person that just wants to know about price price price.

My churn rate is low precisely because I take time to learn what they want then provide what they need. I work with clients that are a good fit in both directions and got out of the "anything for a buck" game years ago.

I work hard building my businesses, but I don't have to work hard at sales precisely because of what you said - I've built relationships and skills that make it fun for me to sell. I work about 5 hours a day, travel a ton and play lots of golf. ;)

[confiscate]

agreed. Whether someone cares only about price, is a separate trait from whether that person is a big/little guy

in the very original comment, it said "I do expect to hear about pricing on the first call, otherwise there won't be another call. Disclaimer: I have zero patience for abundant sales processes."

this person isn't asking about price because he/she is "little" and can't afford it. Even if the person is a big guy with a lot of $, he/she will still haggle you on price, because that's his/her worldview.

besides, it's unclear that a little guy with a "zero-patience policy" that fixates on price price price as a principle, will likely become a big guy some day.

Even if they did become a big guy some day, you would still have a lot of problems making money from them.

[rfrey]

I agree with absolutely everything in your (really well written) post when applied to a random salesperson who fits the description - and I'm sure there are many, many, many.

But I don't think goatherders wrote anything to indicate he was in that category. I read his comment as saying he wouldn't sell to anybody who was completely disinterested in a relationship, not that he wouldn't sell to a less senior person.

[gurglz]

This sounds really good in theory, but unfortunately it's just not true.

There are sales reps that play golf with clients. They've been selling to CxOs for years at some of the largest companies like IBM, Oracle, and now Google. They have the relationships because they've worked with the CxO before, selling another massive piece of software. It is not because they immediately shared pricing and cow-towed to whatever the prospect said at the very first meeting when the CxO was a Devops eng or a FTE without budget.

The majority of sales is opportunity cost and focusing your resources on the deals that matter. Working hard and fulfilling every wish of every prospect is a waste of time and the easiest way to fail in sales.