[fallous]

It's always a bit disheartening when I see someone from the engineering, product, or marketing sides of the business not understand the most basic of principles that salespeople learn at the beginning of their careers... people mostly make decisions based on needs, and if you don't ask and understand their needs you won't make the sale. Also, the more painful the problem that drives a need the more likely you will make the sale.

I had the benefit of learning this before I ever went to University by working sales jobs while in High School, and boy has it made my life easier not only as a programmer but also in nearly any collaboration with co-workers.

Don't recite features and benefits, that's just lazily hoping the person you're trying to convince will do your job for you. Take the time to ask enough questions to know and understand their needs. If the thing you're pitching can at least fit, and preferably help solve, some of those needs then you have a good chance of getting them to buy in. If, on the other hand, it doesn't address a need they have then you're going to struggle to convince them... and perhaps that may also be a clue that your solution may not actually be the best way to go.

[frant-hartm]

That's why I hate sales people. Give me all the info on your product, ideally, make it easy to compare to others and I will decide myself.

The idea that one can ask me a few questions and give good advice when buying a phone, a car, a house etc.. is just bizarre.

Maybe it is not like that in the general population, but it certainly is within technically-minded people.

[wmal]

Most people don’t operate this way. Choice is painful and induces anxiety. There’s a high chance of getting buyers remorse even if you chose the „objectively best” model.

A good salesperson will make sure the choice process is relatively quick and painless. You will feel good afterwards knowing that all the 125 aspects that differentiate this model from the other ones are not that important. The one you chose runs your favourite apps, integrates well with your car and your home entertainment system.

Understanding this and learning how to sell helps in life, incl. negotiating architectural changes with non technical decision makers.

[squarefoot]

> A good salesperson will make sure the choice process is relatively quick and painless.

The best salesperson isn't the one whose customers are leaving the shop smiling just like a TV advert where buying X or Y will solve every problem in life, but rather the one whose customers leave the shop angry after having purchased this or that product or service, because that is an indicator they were squeezed until just before the point they tell the seller to stick their product somewhere and leave for the competition. Not that I like it, but that is how I see it.

[binary132]

what makes you think that this is the best way to obtain loyal and more customers?

[ramses0]

Prisoners Dilemma vs Iterated Prisoners Dilemma.

Low trust == maximize mechanical power and optimization

Higher trust == invest time, relationship-building and lower individual transaction profit over a larger volume of profit

Few consumer sales interactions fall into the second category.

[binary132]

prisoner’s dilemma is a dilemma for a reason: it optimizes the total outcome badly. maybe this is why the pessimization of the modern business cycle everyone loves to cry about always works out that way — we’re all interacting in a commons where trying to screw everyone else as hard as possible is the rule, not the exception.

[squarefoot]

Depends on the market of course, but scarcity, either natural or artificial, can do wonders.

[konschubert]

This isn’t zero sum.

[pavlov]

I don’t understand why you’re downvoted. It’s absolutely true that most people don’t like making purchasing decisions by privately comparing spec dumps, even though many programmers enjoy that.

[jkestner]

You're telling me some people out there don't create spreadsheets and a scoring system to compare 10 different ceiling fans before purchase?

[kamarg]

Absolutely not. It should be abstracted out enough that it can be applied to all purchases and not just ceiling fans. Otherwise, you're going to be duplicating effort for the next purchase and you don't want to have to repeat yourself.

[jkestner]

I was actually thinking of scaling to a site first, and then expand horizontally to all ceiling-mounted products. Because what's the point if I can't monetize my decision-making system?

[actinium226]

OK but don't you hate it when you're trying to sign up for internet service and they're like "what sorts of things do you do on the computer?"

I know what I need just gimme the 100 MBPs plan!

[lukevdp]

"give all the info on your product"

Exactly except:

If you're a CEO, the info you care about is one set of info.

If you're a user, the info you care about is different.

If you're some other influencer, the info you care about is different again.

Everyone wants different sets of info. Good sales is figuring out what that is and giving it to you.

[itake]

Give me the info by email. I hate it when they try to get me on the phone.

[freedomben]

Absolutely, me too. They push hard for the phone because many of the sales tactics don't work with email because they're based on non-verbal cues and subtle detection/exploitation. For example, many salespeople are trained to closely watch the person's face and identify what lands and what doesn't and dynamically adapt.

They also want to be able to pressure you for "next steps" or the "follow up" meeting.

I get it, a call can be a lot more efficient for a discussion. There are certainly legitimate reasons to prefer a call to an email. But it reminds me a lot of big tech companies seizing to things like "security" as an ~excuse~ justification for doing things that benefit them. I know the motives aren't pure, and that bothers me.

[n_plus_1_acc]

I feel the same. I want to make decisions based on facts, not emotional Manipulation.

[roenxi]

That isn't emotional manipulation. It is what would get called "good communication" or maybe even "empathy" on a slow day. If someone is talking to a salesperson it can't reasonably be seen as manipulation when they explain why said person should buy the thing. That is the point of the conversation.

[walthamstow]

How do you obtain objective facts about a product?

[lucianbr]

If I buy a washing machine, it has a fixed known volume, weight capacity, power consumption, noise level. These are objective facts, no? Do you think we can have different opinions on how many kilos of clothes it can take, and be both right?

They would come from the manufacturer manual or a spec sheet or something like that.

Windows has some objective, known, minimum hardware requirements. Are they open to interpretation?

What kind of products are you buying that make you wonder how to get objective facts about them?

[deely3]

I have feeling that this is quite an oversimplification. OS like Windows is times and times more complex than washing machine.

I don't think that it makes any sense to choose OS by minimum requirements.

[lucianbr]

It was just an example. Did you expect me to list all possible objective facts about windows in a HN comment?

Here is another objective fact about Windows: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41818815

Your feelings however seem to be good arguments?

[binary132]

Why have we developed a system of organizing engineering work that is based on engineers having to sell ideas to their colleagues?

[Loughla]

Because their work impacts other people and therefore requires other people to be on board with it?

Unless you're a 1 person company, nothing you do ever only impacts you.

[kaashif]

The fact that you have to explain this is somewhat concerning.

Usually people say that people skills are as important for having lots of impact as technical skills, but the bar for people skills is really low sometimes I guess.

[binary132]

It’s really weird to me that people have such a hard time imagining a world without “scaled agile” and debate over duplo-scale priorities between product managers and nerds every two weeks. In a sane world, these kinds of decisions would not be a pseudo-democratic negotiation.

[kaashif]

What about the comment you replied to involves "scaled agile"? I may have missed this.

They are simply saying that any system involving multiple people will also involve people convincing other people to do things.

Do you have a system which doesn't involve that? Does it involve cybernetic implants and hive minds?

[bdowling]

Even a 1 person company has customers.

[binary132]

The key word here is “colleagues”.

[rkachowski]

I feel this. The situation would be more obvious if it was framed as "how to make the organization give a shit about the organization's architectural proposals"

[datavirtue]

Economics.

[vundercind]

In a way, but I have a feeling the conquest of work-life by people who don’t understand the directly-productive work the company does is a result of economics operating in the 1980s—present era of unshackled M&A. It’s a regulatory outcome.

[binary132]

are you trying to suggest that Darwinian selection is the most efficient way to organize a collective to achieve a goal?