[jxcole]

I disagree strongly, even after your edit. Revenue right now does not ipso facto translate to a better or more sustainable business. Google is a great example. They could plaster their front page with advertisements which could, quite possibly, generate more revenue right now. But they know that users having a good experience right now will bring them back tomorrow. So they put off some possible ad revenue in the hopes that their users are more likely to continue using their service.

The same thing could be said of any company. It is possible to drive too hard to make a sale and alienate your customer. Right now you may benefit. But later down the road you will probably develop a bad reputation.

[swombat]

Actually, plastering their home page with ads would most likely cost Google revenue right now, because they will get a far higher conversion rate on their ads once they actually know what it is you're looking for. And once you've searched, you might notice that the page is indeed plastered with ads.

More importantly, we're talking about salespeople hired to scale up a proven business model, not entrepreneurs exploring different ways to make money.

Focusing on the "right now" as an entrepreneur can cause all sorts of issues, but if you hire a salesperson to sell your known product to a known target market based on a known process, they better fucking well be focused on closing the sales right now. It obviously depends on the industry, but I'd say that in most cases in B2B, without the drive of a salesperson trying to close the deal right now, every deal will take twice as long and half the deals will probably never close at all.

[AnonSales]

> we're talking about salespeople hired to scale up a proven business model, not entrepreneurs exploring different ways to make money.

I don't think it was intended, but that's a condescending statement. That's like saying "I'm looking for developers to just write some code, not find ways to do it better." A good salesperson should be looking for different ways to make money for their client, their company, and effectively (profit sharing) themselves.

Additionally, most sales managers are promoted sales people, not necessarily cunning business people. A "known process" rarely exists.

ps, I'm a big fan of your blog and contribution here, so please go easy on me.

[swombat]

I don't mean it as condescending. Sales takes a lot of creativity and skill - but still, if you're hired by, say, Fogcreek software, to sell the Fogbugz product to enterprises, the product is known, the customer base is more or less clear, and the process to get them sold has probably been practiced hundreds of times before you're hired. There will always be unique quirks to every client, but compared to the levels of uncertainty of entrepreneurial sales, you could say that every sale is pretty much the same.

Making a sale still takes a lot of skill and effort - and, even more, it takes tenacity, and drive, and a very strong desire to actually close rather than spend months and months waiting for the client to make up their mind. Sure, you might lose some clients by pushing for the close (though with experience, you know which ones will respond to it), but at least it then frees up your time to pursue other prospects who can be sold more easily.

I don't think that makes salespeople inferior to programmers. These are two different kinds of jobs with two different sets of parameters. Programming is project-based work, where you aim somewhere and you go there and then you're done. Sales is process-based work, where you have an infinite pile of leads to go through (and if the leads run out, you go and generate more), and selling more today doesn't mean you sell have less to do tomorrow. I find the latter much more difficult to do.

To put a final nail in the idea that I look down on sales - both my girlfriend and my ex-girlfriend are salespeople. Not that that's why I dated them, or anything, but it'd be hard to be with them if I looked down on their profession ;-)