[dsr_]

Several good points: sales critters don't know their own product, need to research things that they ought to have memorized, and use lousy social-engineering tactics that feel as greasy as a batch of frozen fries cooked in cold oil.

It took me eleven go-rounds with a sales critter for a CDN/DDOS network to establish what I told him in the first phone call: there is no way that they will accept liability for disclosure of my clients' confidential data. He kept calling me by my first name, once every two sentences, asking me if we could make a deal if only we could get past this tiny technical objection, and assuring me that his manager would be able to help. The manager was just as useless.

I used to do sales engineering. The most important long-term function of a pre-sales engineer is to know the field so well that they can recommend something that will work for the prospective client, even if that's not something available from the engineer's company. Trying to sell something that doesn't work is a bad deal for everyone.