[inSenCite]

The best sales people I've worked with were incredible strategic thinkers and not really sales people at all.

They built an intimate knowledge of their customer and their industry, built strong connections with the top brass of their client by delivering exceptional work that got those people promoted, and were really good at building autonomous teams that could get the (exceptional) work done with their guidance on the customer/industry/client. These folks would also often deliver very difficult messages to their clients, which often resulted in more business not less.

The sleazy sales people can build decent pipelines/sales numbers but they are not what I would ever label as 'elite'.

[PaulHoule]

Sales are maligned.

There is the guy at the car dealership who specializes in adding an extended service contract for your new car.

Then there's the guy who sells a software development project that lands a well qualified customer (joy to work with) and a good specification which was well estimated and price so you can complete the work profitably. Maybe you know nothing about formalwear but somebody sells you a suit you really feel good in.

[jjulius]

Sales are maligned for good reason. I'd wager I've experienced the "you know nothing about formal wear but somebody sells you a suit you really feel good in" salesperson a handful of times. Now, the number of times I've had someone try to sell me something while clearly not listening to what I have to say and getting uncomfortably pushy about it, well... yikes.

[danabrams]

Two types of sales philosophies: 1. It doesn't matter what you're selling, it's about the sales technique. 2. Develop deep domain and customer expertise.

The former is the scammy type, the latter is the type we love to work with.

But the same is true in any industry. Too many of us in technology are doing the technology equivalent of 1--becoming experts in C++ or React--instead of becoming deep domain and user experts.

[PaulHoule]

In software I like the person knows C++ or React in and out and I like the person who understands the domain, UX and such. I want both on the team.

I despise the guy who sells extended service contracts at the car dealership. I sure as hell don't want that guy selling software work because I won't be able to complete the work profitably and I'll be dealing with angry customers who don't trust me.

[s1artibartfast]

Engineers are awful too. The number of times I have been subjected to needlessly bad product designs far exceeds my negative interactions with sales people. And then there are the products that fail at their one function.

[notahacker]

Not to mention the type of telemarketing salespeople being ragged on here are the equivalent of "software engineers" in bottom bracket outsourcing companies whose principal skills are installing WordPress templates and making excuses...

[yoyohello13]

At least Engineers are trying to create something of value. Salespeople are just trying extract your value.

[s1artibartfast]

Positive sum exchange is value creation.

To take an extreme example: Selling a starving person a meal doesn't just extract the price value, but creates it too.

You might argue that there are better or more efficient was of creating that value, but the fact that it is created is inescapable.

If you want to make a utilitarian value argument against it, you need to compare it to a real world alternative subject to scrutiny that is just as harsh, not a perfect world one.

[underlipton]

Good salespeople are trying to connect customers with solutions that provide them value that they otherwise wouldn't have access to (generally because they weren't aware of it). Obviously, in practice, the line between that and the more negative experiences can be fuzzy and vary by one's perspective, but unless you have someone in-house who's dedicated to searching for new solutions... And then, they turn into a sort of salesperson themselves, with ambiguous allegiances. At least someone from the outside is someone you will always be skeptical about.

[recursive]

If no one was selling, all that engineering wouldn't be "of value".

[some_random]

Engineers can create things that don't have value and salespeople can create value by matching problems with solutions, there are a lot of things we all very happily pay for after all. It's just not that simple.

[sevensor]

Try working at a company that doesn’t know how to do sales, and you’ll learn to appreciate a good salesperson.

[fragmede]

What a bad, reductive point of view. While it's true there are shitty bad salespeople (as there are engineers), try selling anything without doing any selling of the product. Once the company gets to a certain size, having someone work on sales full time instead of getting an engineer who doesn't whan to do that work, work on that part time.

[JumpCrisscross]

Low-recurrence and low-value sales are almost entirely about exploiting information asymmetry. Most peoples’ sales experiences are almost entirely low value. (Low here meaning the client isn’t going to do independent diligence and doesn’t have the capacity and willingness to retaliate if screwed.)

[mrgoldenbrown]

The first type is vastly more common than the second. So I don't think it's unfair to malign sales in general. And if I'm buying a suit I need a skilled tailor to alter it to fit me, not someone to convince me to buy a suit - if I'm in the suit store I already know I want a suit and for what purpose.

[tanewishly]

> The first type is vastly more common than the second.

Depends- you might not even qualify non-type-1s as sales people. Especially the type that's trying to help you get what you need, and listen to you in the process.

[zhughes3]

How does someone become someone who sells the software development project? Is this an architect or sales engineer? I’m confused by how a sales engineer would gain the level of expertise needed to sell the project and specs/implementation.

Do they usually come from an IC developer role?

[fragmede]

While there are successful sales engineers and unsuccessful sales engineers, some of whom come from IC backgrounds, this isn't a comment about causation (or even correlation) between the two. But yes, many sales engineers transition from SWE to sales engineering for various reasons including they just like the work better. It's also true that some sales people learn enough about coding to be dangerous and transition to sales engineering that way.

[fragmede]

While there are successful sales engineers and unsuccessful sales engineers, some of whom come from IC backgrounds, this isn't a comment about causation (or even correlation) between the two. But yes, many sales engineers transition from SWE to sales engineering for various reasons including they just like the work better.

[bluGill]

Note that car dealerships are like that because the dealership cannot offer you the later. You go into the dealer having looked up their cost on Edmunds/kbb/... and are determined to give them zero profit from the sale. Worse you know (right or wrong) what you want to buy and so they can't even provide the service of listening to your needs and getting you in the right car.

In theory you should have better luck by walking in and saying I'll pay MSRP (thus giving them a reasonable profit) if you don't add all that other BS. In practice they won't know how to do that because nobody else does

[belthesar]

Having just went through the process of buying a car, and the amount of work, research and effort needed on my part to ensure that I didn't pay through the nose on a car, this is, in my opinion, squarely in response to the car sales industry almost universally adopting predatory sales tactics.

If I could go into a dealership and trust that everyone in the building wasn't out to get me, and instead wanted to build a longterm relationship with me from sales to service, advertised the actual cost of the vehicle instead of a BS pre-fees, pre-additional markup price, then I wouldn't do that. Perhaps I'm not seeing the whole story, but as I understand it the dealerships changed their behavior first, and the customer _had_ to get more savvy as a result.

You put enough customer predatory sales practices everywhere, and you raise a generation who just doesn't trust sales staff. It doesn't have to be this way though.

I gotta be careful though, I'm dangerously close to getting on my soapbox about how difficult it is to be a sustainable lifestyle business in today's day, and how much I wish a return to that.

[ajb]

Okay, I've worked at a company that had that kind of sales. It is indeed very impressive to see. But I think that worked because there were only a small number of vendors who could potentially deliver for these (giant) customers in the first place. Otherwise the immense investment to attempt to land one of these customers would have too low a chance of paying off.

Although they have the same title I think it's a different job to when there are a lot of options for the customer.

[bushbaba]

Generally done for large deal sizes. there can be 100 vendors but when you spend 50 mil+/year on a vendor the strategy matters.

[bonestamp2]

> The sleazy sales people can build decent pipelines/sales numbers but they are not what I would ever label as 'elite'.

Absolutely. I have had the pleasure of working with a few elite sales people and none of them were sleazy. They were all extremely confident on the inside, but present as humble and even a little vulnerable on the outside. This is strategic as it builds trust, but I think it was also genuine for the most part -- they really wanted their customers to be happy and they wanted their customers to know that.

They dress nicely, but again in a humble way. They're not quite as polished looking as the "slick" sales people, and this too is part of their strategy. They can pull out a post it note or notebook and sketch a rudimentary diagram they've drawn a thousand times, and every time it looks like they just thought of this idea and are drawing it with wavy lines for the first time. I'm not sure if this one is intentional, but they all do it, and it always looks like they don't know how to draw straight lines.

I actually ran into someone like this at lens crafters recently. They were quite young, early to mid 20s I'd say, but after a few minutes of them telling me about the various lens options, I stopped and said, "You're the top salesperson here aren't you?" They gave me a funny look, and asked how I knew. "Just a guess" I said -- but in reality, I had seen all of their human dark-patterns before. Most people wouldn't even know they were being sold to, in fact, they would probably think the opposite... that the salesperson didn't care if they bought anything from them as long as they got the right solution from somebody in the end. Some of them will literally even say that. Of course, this only works when it is 100% believable and you don't identify it as part of their sales strategy.

[reaperman]

How does a salesperson deliver exceptional work? In every place I’ve worked, outside of independent contracting, the sales person didn’t do the trench work.

[lojack]

> In every place I’ve worked, outside of independent contracting, the sales person didn’t do the trench work.

Have you ever worked at a place where the sales people promised features that didn't exist? A bad sales person can ensure you're in the trenches doing work that is urgent but not important. A good sales person anticipates requirements, identifies when they're not currently available, and proactively works with the right people to get the important features prioritized strategically.

The sales people talk to the customers, so from a certain perspective they're the ones in the trenches and talking to customers while you're in the back office plugging away at a keyboard.

[myself248]

By meticulously, accurately, and skeptically gathering ALL the requirements from the customer and bringing them to the engineers.

It sounds inane, but it's appalling how often that doesn't happen, and how it irretrievably dooms a project before it starts.

[sangnoir]

This is software sales, which has long cycles, ongoing relationships and is a tiny sliver of the "hires salesmen" industry. For commoditized markets like phone plans, cable TV / ISPs, paper, or roof repairs after a hurricane, the ones who get the most sales are the ones without scruples.

[JumpCrisscross]

> For commoditized markets like phone plans, cable TV / ISPs, paper, or roof repairs after a hurricane, the ones who get the most sales are the ones without scruples

You’re describing low value, low recurrence sales. Those are numbers, not relationship, games, with high churn at that.

[sangnoir]

I think low recurrence is the bigger factor for sleaziness: roof replacement aren't low value, same goes for the archetype for sleazy sales tactics: car salesman.

[JumpCrisscross]

> roof replacement aren't low value, same goes for the archetype for sleazy sales tactics: car salesman

They’re low value, comparatively speaking. High-value sales starts where your client can afford to do their own diligence and retaliate if you screw them; that’s typically around the $10+ million level.

[eitally]

I've worked adjacent to technical consultants for a decade, and in tech sales leadership for the past few, and there's a lot of misleading information in this thread.

For one, there's a huge gulf between product sales and services sales. In product sales roles you'll almost never find people who are strategic advisors to their clients. Why would they be -- they'll selling products? On the other hand, in roles responsible for selling services (which may also include products, from a single or multiple vendors), you'll be far more likely to see strategic thinkers focused on business transformation or business outcomes.

That said, there are also very good reasons why even at big consulting shops (Deloitte, Accenture, BCG, EY, etc) the roles of Client Partner or Client Account Lead (the person on the hook for client revenue) is the one responsible for client relationships and client contracting, but is usually not the one providing strategy or technology advice. That comes cross-functionally.

In small tech product companies -- especially where the product isn't just plug & play -- my experience is that the sales rep is responsible for contracting and business relationships, but it's the technical pre-sales architects & the post-sales service delivery manager + architects who are providing the most value. It's exceptionally difficult to hire rockstars senior architects and always will be. It's one of the most in-demand roles in tech.

[mrweasel]

We had a sales guy that the rest of the office hated, but whom I absolutely loved. He'd sell the craziest shit. E.g. him and I attempted to replace a customers Kubernetes stack with Azure websites and CosmosDB, saving them two years of hosting the first month (We failed because the client didn't feel like we where being serious).

At one point he sold a project that would lead to his termination and it was the most brilliant sale I've ever seen. A customer wanted monitoring and a 24/7 "operation center", but one which didn't have access to any systems. We'd channel alerts from the customer into our on-call, which would then phone the customers staff and tell them that "YO! X is broken" and hang up. The price was insane, is was free money, but the customer was excited and felt like they got a great deal.

[DavidPeiffer]

What lead to his termination? Was the on-call team not thrilled with having to (even minimally) deal with issues from the systems of another company?

[mrweasel]

That was a major part of it. I never completely understood why, but for some reason the majority of the staff really hated that project. I though it was a brilliant move. The problem may have been that people attempted to over-engineer the project and handle scenarios that wasn't in scope, setting unrealistic goal resulting in a lot of pretty dumb and boring work.

Another part was that was yet another service which we technically didn't offer, which he sold. He was always very upfront about the fact that he knew that a lot of the stuff he sold was not actually something we offered or necessarily knew how to do. That pissed of a lot of people, but in hindsight, five years later: He sold the right things and we should embraced those sales/potential sale, because the local market has moved in the direction he was going.

[kayodelycaon]

> a lot of the stuff he sold was not actually something we offered or necessarily knew how to do

This may not be the situation but I’m willing to bet he created an insane amount of chaos for everyone else by doing this. Existing projects constantly getting delayed or cancelled because he sold something that wasn’t planned for.

At my last job, we had a department who delegated all of their quarterly goals to the development team. They made us responsible for accomplishing their goals on top of everything else we were doing.

They delayed critical projects for years for marginal gains.

[selcuka]

> In every place I’ve worked, outside of independent contracting, the sales person didn’t do the trench work.

Because they were not "elite salespeople"? Jokes aside, I guess the best salesperson is the one whose title is not "Sales".

[amscanne]

My archetype of a good sales person is the successful realtor. Realtors tend to “eat what they can kill”, so you can see the skills power law clearly. They are selling themselves more than houses, but there’s a lot to learn from that.

Some people love their realtors, although they do very little for their outlandish commissions. They do however, guide you through the process and give you transactional advice. Like any sales person, they generally have an interest in the transaction closing but they are only trusted if they come off as acting in your interest. That trust can ultimately help the transaction close — this is the line that I think good sales people walk.

[otabdeveloper4]

> although they do very little for their outlandish commissions

Realtors exist because buyers and sellers usually don't trust each other enough to talk directly.

It's stupid and inefficient, but here we are.

[davidcalloway]

I think you value their work too little. I worked as a realtor for a time and admittedly not a good one.

A good realtor has knowledge of current values in the local market, issues to look for throughout the transaction, which services will be needed and who can be trusted to provide those services.

There is often an element of buffering communication between buyer and seller, but it's not just a trust problem. Due to their different interests and perspectives, they will tend to communicate in ways that could offend the other party inadvertantly. A good realtor is skilled in smoothing this over and being more objective.

As an aside, the term realtor is trademarked and is something on top of real estate agent, but for the American public the realtor association has been so successful that almost every agent joins.

At the time I did this work, the requirements for licensing were indeed too lax in my state and therefore a commensurate number of lower quality agents. Which of course feeds the impression that agents are useless, because it was more true.

My understanding is that licensing the has since tightened.

None of that detracts from the fact that a good agent does quite a bit of work to build up knowledge, and to assist through a huge transaction that most people will seldom make and therefore more likely mess up.

Unfortunately this work is also often spent doing things that never lead to a transaction, such as multiple showings to buyers prior to finding a fit, or preparing listings that ultimately fail to sell for whatever reason. These costs need to be accounted for somehow, so we end up thinking only of the services rendered in our dealings.

I realize I have even more to say but I gotta stop sometime...

[astura]

>A good realtor has knowledge of current values in the local market, issues to look for throughout the transaction, which services will be needed and who can be trusted to provide those services.

Even if a "good" Realtor actually knows these things (and they don't, even though most think they do), you can't trust anything they say because they have misaligned incentives from you. So what service am I paying for, again?

And if only .001% of Realtors are "good", what does it even matter? You're not likely to be able to find a "good" one anyway. And if I do how do I verify they are "good?" You can't. And you straight up can't change your mind about who you are working with midway through the process, you sign a contract.

If I want home buying/selling services I should be able to pay a fixed fee (either per service or per hour) and get those services on the open market (and pay for them even if I don't close). Them demanding 6% of the value of my house is straight criminal. As is, the buyers agent works for the seller, because that's who is paying them.

>My understanding is that licensing the has since tightened

You're wrong. Even if they have tightened, any dingus can still get a real estate license.

Real estate agents are the house version of used car salesman.

[bluGill]

Incentives should be aligned because you will use that agent again if they do a good job for you. Not all realize this, but repeat moves (every 5-10 years) and referrals are how good agents make their money and both mean that they need to be trustworthy.

[arwineap]

> And you straight up can't change your mind about who you are working with midway through the process, you sign a contract.

You don't have to, those contracts are optional. They will threaten to not represent you, but if you are a well qualified buyer, this is something you can force without much risk.

The more well qualified buyers refuse, the more normalized working for clients without contracts will be

[abduhl]

>> These costs need to be accounted for somehow.

Why?

Realtors have for years committed antitrust violations to the detriment of home buyers and sellers and helped push home values up for no reason because they act in their own interest instead of their client’s. A realtor’s ultimate goal is to close the deal at any price, not get you a good deal. They are beholden to the sell side. They were a key reason for the housing crash of 2008. They offer very little value in 2025, and the value they do offer is sourced from their monopoly practices. They are strictly rent seekers (no pun intended).

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I think they provide a quite useful service.

As a seller, they can handle all the visits for you - no need to take calls from potential buyers, arrange times with them to show them the house, etc. This becomes almost indispensable if you live far away from the house you're selling.

As a buyer, they also provide convenience - sometimes I've seen 3 or 4 different apartments in two hours, which would almost certainly be impossible if I needed to contact and arrange time slots with 4 different sellers. They also filter properties with unrealistic prices - I have seen many owners who have massive bias, having grown in the house, etc., and will charge like 100K over reasonable prices. A good realtor would probably not even show you that home or warn you beforehand so you don't waste your time.

In my country, they also help with the bureaucracy associated with actually performing the purchase, which is far from trivial - although this can vary per country, I guess.

[bingaweek]

They exist because they've embedded themselves in the process and are hard to get rid of. If you want to buy a specific house it's already set up for you to find a realtor and the homeowner has already agreed to pay them a fat stack of cash. I needed a realtor to send an email, he dragged his feet then went on vacation, and I ended up overpaying to beat offers that showed up later. Rent seekers.

[mrweasel]

> Some people love their realtors

I'm sort of concerned that some people have "their realtor". I've sold a few houses, realtors are companies I contract to sell my house and they can be fired.

[amscanne]

Yeah, but it’s “your realtor” through that transaction, unless they are fired. Regardless, most successful realtors have repeat clients, for buying and selling (even if it’s years between transactions).

[edgarvaldes]

I once worked for a company that sold industry cleaning supplies in the food processing vertical. The amount of industry knowledge that salespeople required to simply be able to offer one product over another was staggering. The best salespeople knew the industry, the end products, the supply chain, the internal processes, the potential improvements, and could present it in a way that was clear to operators, technical to supervisors, and commercially viable to decision makers.

[liontwist]

By finding people who will actually benefit from the product and setting their expectations appropriately.

[6510]

Precisely! Rather than sell a lot my nr 1 priority was to have enjoyable conversations. nr 2 is to explain the company.

I aced it but at the time it didn't seem like elite sales, not to anyone, not even to me. I just felt this is how it should be done.

Then I ran into a manager 3 years after I quit. He said, I don't know how you've done it but we still get clients from your work, a lot of them.

Apparently, when people [actually] need something they look at some business directory. If they then see a name they know and remember having an enjoyable conversation where they've learned all the ins and outs from someone who didn't even try to sell them anything... who do you think they are going to call?

I was able to do thousands of calls per day because I wasn't trying to force anything and the process was enjoyable.

If there is one trick to share here: Make people talk, listen to them, pay close attention to the speed at which they talk and the duration of their pauses then gradually try to match it. If someone is super energetic and talks really fast I unload the material on them slightly faster, make a joke and thank them for their time. If they talk slow feed them one sentence at a time and have them confirm they got it.

I'm pretty sure people were quite confused by my not trying to sell them anything. this is what we do, this is what we offer, thanks for listening, enjoy your day I already know they aren't buying. I could definitely add a 3 minute grind to the end but why? Waste energy annoying people? Better get to the next customer.

[Spooky23]

A lot of places skate with shitty salespeople. If nobody is moving the product, that trench is a grave.

[seventytwo]

That only works as a sales strategy with savvy customers.

If you’re cold-selling people on a shitty widget they don’t need, you’re going to have to be a sleazeball.

[walrus01]

In the telecom industry/ISP infrastructure business, the very best sales people are much more like business intelligence/market research people. They know where everyone's infrastructure is in a given region, for fiber cable routes, right of way, POPs, and what carrier is riding on top of which one. Knowing who owns and operates the underlying dark fiber route, DWDM systems, regen huts and similar on a multi state region is what gives them the power to be so effective.

Being able to operate from a position of confidence and assurance on "who has what, where" is a very powerful tool. Then, when communicating with potential customers (particularly where it's one ISP entering into a relationship with another ISP), they can offer the correct product for what the customer is looking for. Or, if they can't, they can quickly say "sorry no we can't do that, we don't have any of our own stuff there, and we can't get there by an NNI".

[dstroot]

This. This is elite sales.

[netcan]

Yeah... "elite" tends to mean different things at different levels.

There are definitely "salesmen" with long term industry credibility, relationships and such. Probably reads as more of a "businessman" than salesman, regardless of how the bread is buttered.

That said, I think this is fundamentally different from a Salesman who can join, start or lead a sales team and start putting up sales numbers.

It's inglorious work, ultimately. Not a tone of respect for the salesman.

That said... in terms of performance... there are totally different levels here. For some businesses, this can be a key hire of the highest order. Equivalent to ceo, cto and such... potentially.

Also, worse salesmen in trashier sectors tend to be more visible. A lame pressure sales guy will just seem more salesman. They'll also work colder pipelines and leads, annoy more people.

That bias makes salesmen's reputation even worse.

[red-iron-pine]

> That said... in terms of performance... there are totally different levels here. For some businesses, this can be a key hire of the highest order. Equivalent to ceo, cto and such... potentially.

Absolutely. Used to do Sales Engineering, and the different Account Execs were light years apart, even when you looked at the top performers. Definite 80/20 rule here.

[batushka5]

No no no, endulging in fancy diners with industry, running around with gifts and selling from gorrila size vendor catalog is job well done, but not ELITE. Cold sales are KING.

[red-iron-pine]

New leads are where it's at

[re5i5tor]

This. The elite salesperson is great at understanding and solving problems, not BS.