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by tptacek 5409 days ago
The best salespeople I worked with at $LAST_VENDOR_JOB could have given a flying fuck about the product they were selling. None of them understood it. Belief in your product is simply not a requirement for successful sales. It may be for a startup, but not in the general case.

Sales is a skill. I could try to break it down in a neat little bulleted list, but I'm not a good salesperson and so wouldn't be credible.
3 comments
18pfsmt 5409 days ago
The problem I have found is that many supposedly-good sales people seem to set customer expectations too high. After the fact, there is a lot of effort expended on easing customer concerns.

I'm not a good salesperson either, as I will easily give away my concerns about a product I'm not completely sure of, but I've worked for people that are great at closing deals for shoddy products.

At one time, I worked with the sales guys from Akamai-during-the-ipo. It was very interesting to see them operate (and how specifically they wanted our salesforce account configured).

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aspir 5409 days ago
True, single sales can be won and lost by skill alone, but without some passion for either the product, your employer, or your customer, you may end up as a Glengarry Glen Ross style frustrated burnout :)
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iheartmemcache 5409 days ago
> I could try to break it down in a neat little bulleted list,

Well, can you give it a whirl, anyways? I'd love to hear how it came off to you/ what made them different from other vendors who approached you to make them stand out/ etc. I (and other HN'ers) would really appreciate it, I'm sure.

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