[amoorthy]

As a co-founder (tech background but haven't coded in a while), I got comfortable with sales best when I hired a sales coach. There are so many things to learn in sales and a coach is often the fastest way to assess your inherent weaknesses and address them head on.

I paid $2k/mth about 10 yrs ago; at the time I felt scared to spend so much but once I realized it was an investment in me, and I put in the time to learn, I can safely say it continues to pay off even now. I quite enjoy sales now. Not saying I'm good at it but certainly a far way from "I hate sales and would much rather code".

[cosmic_cheese]

Do you think that sales is among the many realms where freely available quality instructional material has become ubiquitous in the past decade? Not that it would ever work as a full stand-in for a paid coach, but it might be enough to bridge the gap for some of us.

[amoorthy]

Yes I think possible. 1. sales aptitude assessment tools like Objective Management Group (the one I took) help you identify core weaknesses that are critical to understand and work on. 2. Recording your sales calls (assuming you're on the phone) and then asking AI to critique it and coach you, with the above assessment as context, could be very helpful.

If you're disciplined I think the above approach may be a pretty good stand-in for a real coach. Or at least help you evaluate a coach better should you choose to pony up for one later.

[storystarling]

I'd be careful sending raw audio to public APIs given the sensitive commercial info. A local pipeline with Whisper and Llama 3 is viable now and solves the privacy issue. It also keeps the long-term inference costs much lower.

[wordpad]

Llama 3 is far from cutting edge now and the value from quality analytics would far surpass risk adjusted odds of your info leaking.

[pryelluw]

Its like acting. Some people can do it without acting coaches. But it’s best if you invest in them.

[PostOnce]

How did you find a sales coach, how did you determine which was the one for you / any good at their job?

[amoorthy]

Mine was a referral from the VP of sales (the coach was his dad and many of the reps in our team had been coached by him). Fwiw, his name is Rick Roberge. I think he still coaches. He's can be a bit antagonistic but he's very good at what he does and I'm glad I hired him.

[jmholla]

How many months did you do it for until you felt comfortable on your own?

[amoorthy]

My coach has a max timeline of 6 months so you are forced to swim on your own. I felt like I had the hang of it after about 4 months so stopped about then.

(sorry for delayed reply; I don't think HN notifies you of replies?)