
The Business Guy vs. the Programmer - irrlichthn
http://www.irrlicht3d.org/pivot/entry.php?id=1430
======
elmuchoprez
I think you're describing a sales guy versus a programmer. In my experience,
"businesses guys" are actually professional bullshit detectors. It's one of
the reasons you want them in on the actual contract negotiations. A skilled
business guy has an amazing way of boiling things down, spotting
inconsistencies, and seeing where relationships are likely to fall apart.

Sales guys on the other hand are professional bullshit machines. They heavily
rely on being able to read your tone and state of mind so that they can tailor
the message to whatever they think will resound with you the most. And that's
way easier to do on the phone.

~~~
Fede_V
This is my own biased impression, but with rare exceptions, almost every
article I've read in mainstream business publications (like Harvard Business
Review, etc) has had a ratio of content to bullshit that was astonishing.

Articles about 'enterprise communication' or 'bold leadership' or 'delighting
customers' might have a simple message that takes about up about a paragraph
and are then dressed up in a huge amount of un-necessary business speak or
'folksy' stories that illustrate the concept.

I'm sure this is just observer bias, but from someone in a technical field,
it's astonishing how shallow the concepts are.

~~~
exelius
HBR is notoriously full of bullshit (just like many guys from Harvard). The
thing to understand about business schools is that they're still academia:
most of the professors have no clue how the world really works outside a
university. About the only ones with real-world experience are the finance
professors, and big banking is its own special world. It's fine though,
because their job is to teach.

At the end of the day though, business schools teach you all sorts of things
you'll never use again: they tend to be heavy on statistics and calculus. The
key is that you don't necessarily have to know how to do them yourself, just
that there is a good methodology for solving these problems and what skills to
look for in people you hire to actually do the grunt work for you. I don't
remember how to do a linear regression myself, but I know how to read the
output of one and the right questions to ask to make sure I understand exactly
what it's telling me.

~~~
Fede_V
Again, my impression is that the main 'value added' that things like a
business school gives you is the credentials and the network of alumni.

In terms of tangible things that you learn, if you want to study calculus and
statistics, you can pick those up from 1st year classes at any decent
technical university.

I'd also argue against your example of 'professors outside of the real world'.
At any top tier University, professors will be world experts on their
particular area of expertise, and will be able to apply it to real world
problems, and I'd be happy to provide as many examples as you'd like in
technical fields that I'm familiar with.

~~~
exelius
I totally agree; most of what you get out of a top business school is the fact
that it's a feeder program into high-paying jobs in corporate America. Your
classmates will also have these jobs, so you become a group of rich, powerful
people who all know each other. You do learn some content that is useful (i.e.
you may learn statistics in community college but not necessarily how to apply
it to a manufacturing operation) but yeah, the network is the biggest benefit.
It's why I don't feel that an MBA is worth your time unless you go to a top 10
school -- you can get the education anywhere, it's about the people.

Professors can and do apply their research to real world problems, but their
"solutions" are often idealized and make a lot of assumptions that don't
always pan out. They're not dumb by any means, but coming up with a solution
and implementing a solution are two very different things.

------
preinheimer
I'm a programmer, and I also own WonderProxy
([https://wonderproxy.com/](https://wonderproxy.com/)) and Yes.

I had someone from a rather large company email me, all super interested, get
them started on a trial then they'll pay like tomorrow. They just need to get
started ASAP!!!!!!ones!!!! That turned into needing to talk to some business
guy, who absolutely needed to talk to me on the phone, so he could ask me for
our address and a phone number, which I emailed to him.

I deal with this sort of thing probably once a month. The larger and older a
company it is, the more likely I'm going to need to jump through some hoops,
rather than have them use our nicely automated purchase process. Filling our
vendor forms, agreeing to their anti-bribery policy, giving them a "direct"
email rather than support@, agreeing to net-60 rather than net-30 or pre-
payment of service.

Is it awesome, no. But I do it. Joel Spolsky's customer service tip #6
([http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html))
comes in handy. Pretend you've got a puppet, and you just need to make the
puppet say something that will make the customer happy. It's not you, it's the
puppet.

Because I've managed enough of these situations, we've built up a sufficient
pool of customers that we have enough money to hire (part-time) someone more
comfortable dealing with these tricky customers. Now I deal with them less,
and more of them sign up. It's a fantastic circle really :).

~~~
preinheimer
To continue.

I think part of the issue has to do with the importance of the people
involved. Chances are someone decided to use our product at a company, and
managed to convince a rather important person (RIP) that it was a good idea.
But the person who wants to use our product isn't the person we hear from, nor
is it the rather important person. It's someone who Reports To The RIP
(RTTRIP). RIP didn't spend a lot of time explaining to RTTRIP why they needed
us, what we do, or anything, it was probably a brief voicemail or email "go
buy some WonderProxy for the programmers, they need it ASAP".

So there's RTTRIP, a little bit of information about what their company needs,
not a lot of power, and a slew of restrictions on how to make corporate
purchases. What's the easiest next step? Give us a call! It's fast, they can
explain to the RIP "I called them twice yesterday" if there's any flak for it
not being done already, and heck, maybe those folks at WonderProxy can help
them figure out what they're supposed to be buying anyways. RTTRIP doesn't
expect to be speaking to a RIP at WonderProxy, they expect to be speaking to
either a sales person who would love to set up sales calls, conference calls,
heck, maybe even send over a brochure and some new pens! or possibly someone
else who reports to a rather important person.

Instead, over here at WonderProxy _we're the ones_ who screwed everything up.
Rather than have a sales person answer the phone, or even someone who reports
to someone important... We've got the fraking co-founder answering the phone.

~~~
thesoonerdev
RIP and RTT? Why am I not surprised that you developed a product called
WonderProxy? :-)

~~~
mitchty
I have a hard time not thinking Routing Information Protocol, and Round Trip
Time when I see those TLAs (Three Letter Acronym).

------
jfasi
> I don't know if I maybe lost a few nice business opportunities because of my
> attitude regarding this, but maybe at least I had more time programming new
> features for my customers that way.

This is an _awful_ attitude to have.

Firstly, business is the art of reaching mutually beneficial agreements with
people. Part of what makes a good business person a good business person is an
ability to navigate the potentially frustrating waters of professional
communication. Consider the exchange the author laid out. He repeats the same
thing over and over again (give me details please), assuming the other person
will pick up on the passive aggressive repetition and begin to do things on
his terms. Instead of accommodating this person's communication style, he
blows them off. Notice this: he blows off the opportunity not on its
substance, but on his impression of its messenger. If the guy wants a phone
call, roll your eyes privately, give him a phone call, and blow him off ten
minutes in if the opportunity doesn't seem worthwhile.

Secondly, there's this idea that time spent programming is the most
productive, and anything that subtracts from your precious programming time is
a waste of time. This is a tricky point, and I'm going to head off all the
impassioned comments stating that programming actually is sacred by saying:
sometimes the biggest gains can be made through design and development, but
sometimes not. Witness all imperfect products that represent successful
businesses because their leadership knew when to devote attention to
development and when to pull off and devote attention to business.

If he were a programmer being paid for his programming time, it would be
absolutely the case that any time spent not programming was a waste. However,
the post clearly states that he's in charge of the product, and yet he seems
to have budgeted little time and apparently no attention to furthering the
product. If doing product work is such a waste of his time, it would be in his
best interest to bring on someone who will do that full time for him, allowing
him to focus on programming full time.

~~~
pyalot2
I'm pretty sure it's meant hyperbolic. But we've all had this , it doesn't end
with a phone call either.

If somebody who wants something from you can't summarize in a few written
sentences what they want from you, it's exceedingly likely no amount of
writing or talking is gonna remedy that. If you engage clients like that,
you'll end up being very, very sorry.

~~~
jfasi
I agree with you when it comes to _clients_. Clients want to hire you to do a
specific piece of work, and in that case vague, open-ended agreements are
indeed poison. When it comes to partnerships, however, the mutually beneficial
agreement might not be immediately obvious. It's entirely possible that a "get
to know you" sort of conversation will be necessary, will turn out to be very
fruitful, and would be impossible to have over email. Also keep in mind,
they're vetting you as much as you're vetting them. They want to get a feel
for you as a potential partner, and if you behave like the author from the
get-go, it's likely not in their best interests to not work with you.

To my second point, if you say you're in charge of product development, it's
your _job_ to dive into these sorts of conversations on the off chance they
might develop into meaningful partnerships. I can be annoying and frustrating,
and it certainly can seem wasteful to someone with an engineer's mindset, but
that's why it's a job and not a hobby. Expecting people to come to you with
perfectly-fitting opportunities gift wrapped in exactly the communication
style you use will keep you from ever achieving anything.

~~~
kreeben
So the most grownup thing to do would be to just agree to meet the guy, yes? I
can agree with that. But why not answer a few questions like, are you
prospecting for people to hire? Are you looking for a partnership? What kind
of partnership? What software are you interested in? I have tons, see. No,
nothing, you can give me nothing? Alright, bye.

------
vicbrooker
I haven't seen anyone mention this, but the guy doing the email is almost
certainly paid (or at least seen as successful) when he organises a face-to-
face meeting. There's a fundamental imbalance of incentives here: the Sales
Guy wants to get paid for taking time to sit down and negotiate, and the
Programmer wants to get paid for running his business.

I think the major inefficiency is here: "My time is very limited, maybe you
could first tell me roughly what this would be about?"

I would personally ask if they're most interested in
features/option/pricepoint A,B or C. If it's not clear on the context I would
ask a direct question for the three topics he would like to talk about.

Anything that steers the conversation towards what you want: whether this
partnership is something you're interested in. At least this ways there's
actually some motivation for him to actually tell you what's in it for your
business.

[edit] the end was cut off for some reason

~~~
ivix
There's a good insight here that bears repeating:

Sales guy is paid to talk on the phone.

Programmer is paid to program.

So you can treat talking on the phone as a reward/incentive for good behaviour
by sales guy. "I'll be happy to talk with you on the phone if you can first
summarise your proposal".

~~~
hagbardgroup
In bad sales orgs, the sales people may also be held to a contact quota that
does not take into account their close ratio. He may be just trying to pad his
contact numbers.

~~~
vicbrooker
...or shotgunning, and trying a lot of weak leads at once.

------
yabatopia
I don't think it has much to do with business guy (or salesman or marketeer)
vs. programmer. I notice a lot of people are afraid of phone calls and try to
avoid them as much as possible. Handling phone calls in a professional way is
a skill you should learn, it's really a competitive advantage. Don't let your
insecurity to answer the phone and talk to someone ruin a potential deal.

Schedule time for phone calls, just like you schedule mails, so you don't get
interrupted all the time and have some time to prepare for it.

~~~
josefresco
I upvoted this as I think it's one of the best comments on this subject.
Technologists are phone averse because at their core they are socially
uncomfortable. To categorize someone who uses a phone as a "sales buy" or
"business guy" is simply a convenient excuse. Plenty of people, even
programmers are productive AND use the telephone. Not everyone who wants to
talk with you is some sort of unproductive salesman.

Email is not a perfect communication tool. I deal with clients and all too
often receive or send an email that is misconstrued or taken completely the
wrong way. Get on the phone and within minutes of speaking he issue is usually
either completely debunked, or worked out.

I too avoid the phone, but find when I do pick it up and talk with my clients,
or leads or other business people that it's incredibly productive and useful.
It's also an advantage as many people will type one thing, but be unable to
say that same thing when speaking on the telephone or meeting in person. I've
have clients who were unhappy and started down the road of aggressive emails,
who after a quick chat on the telephone completely backed down.

The telephone is also a great place to say things that you simply don't want
on a written record. It's one thing to tell someone in person what you
actually think of X, Y or Z, it's a completely other thing to write it an
email where the person reading can't see your face/posture or hear the tone of
your voice.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Technologists are phone averse because at their core they are socially
> uncomfortable._

This might be true for some of us, but I doubt it's true for the majority, or
that it is the root of the problem.

I like phone calls. They are a quick way to do run some back&forths, to reach
an understanding very fast. But most of the times, phone calls are waste of
time. I can handle 6 IM conversations and dozen of mail threads at the same
time, without the loss of attention to any particular one. But a single phone
call blocks me completely. It takes 100% of my focus, even though most of the
times the conversation doesn't require more than 10%. It _literally_ makes me
stressed, my hands shaking from impatience. That, and all the usual context-
switch-related arguments.

> _Not everyone who wants to talk with you is some sort of unproductive
> salesman._

Not at all; phone calls are very productive _for them_. If your product has a
real value, then you should be able to explain it in an e-mail, and I will be
able to evaluate the proposal. But if someone really needs to talk with me on
the phone, it's an indication that he/she can't or doesn't want to engage in
an honest exchange of value, but want to trick me, manipulate me, lie to me to
get me into buying something.

In other words, if they don't want to talk with me through my channel of
choice, I tend to assume they're cheats and their product is worthless.

------
GVIrish
I've run into this before and basically what it comes down to is that these
are people coming in with a sales mindset and don't understand (or choose not
to understand) that time = money for some people and they're not going to
spend their time listening to someone's pitch unless they have some indicator
it's not a waste of their time. They seem to think, "If I can only get him on
the phone..." but totally fail to communicate why someone should get on the
phone with them. Recruiters do this a lot too. "Let's talk about this
opportunity I have with a client." Not when I don't know who you are, who the
client is, and whether the job has any of the attributes I'm looking for.

You may have indeed missed out on some business opportunities but maybe those
weren't the ones you wanted anyway. If someone can't articulate why you should
be interested in a simple email, a lot of the time it means they don't have
much of value to offer you.

~~~
oddevan
Agreed. The OP's point seems to be that he's asking for a high-level overview
of what Phone Call Guy wants to talk about, but Phone Call Guy is pushing for
a phone call. There's at best a mutual disrespect, and at worst Phone Call guy
is being solely disrespectful since OP said (multiple times) that he wanted to
get an idea of things before the phone call.

------
bdg
My local programmer community is infested with these guys.

My co-worker and I held a programming meetup in our office, some programmers
came, but also we had the luck of drawing the attention of a few of these
guys. Within the same 120 second span he both asked me to: 1\. Quit the
company and come work for him. 2\. Hire him at our own company. 3\. Told me
that I would pay him $120k+ to come up with business ideas.

But I don't think this trait is unique to business guys. I've had a programmer
send me an email inviting himself over to my home. I declined the gracious
offer.

I don't go out to programmer meetups any more, and I avoid making contact at
conferences.

------
exelius
I consider myself both a business guy and a programmer. But I'm probably
different from most of the people here on HN in that I see myself as a
business guy first and a programmer second. My day job is very business-
focused (albeit with a technology bent to it) and I hack as a hobby; I've
never been a professional developer. I do find that rolling up my sleeves and
taking on a small part of a project is a good way to get the guys who work for
me to see me as more than a PHB barking orders.

I don't feel the skill sets are mutually exclusive: these days, a good
business person should have a deep understanding of the technology. A lot of
the approach you take to problems is the same as well: when doing a financial
analysis of a company, I often treat the company like a complex system.
Business units are modules, projects are data objects and budgets are your
resource constraints. Enterprise architecture (i.e. how a business is
structured) is the same skill set as technical architecture, only you
understand a bit more about motivating people.

Honestly, finding both in one person is rare though. Too many business people
go the PHB route and intentionally are ignorant about the details so they can
be "big picture guys". Too many programmers just tunnel-vision on technical
problems without understanding or caring why things like metrics and reporting
are important. Business guys are terrified of being too specialized and
technical guys don't want to be "that guy" who doesn't understand anything.
It's a hard niche to put yourself in though.

------
Alex3917
The reason people push for phone calls is because the other person is more
likely to say yes on the phone. The only goal of the initial email is to give
the other person not enough information to say no, so that they have to take
the phone call.

------
colemorrison
Upvote because of the part about email. Email forces the communicator to focus
their damn thoughts and not spew on for hours. It's courteous and time saving
if done right.

------
binarymax
One thing not to overlook - is the very real possibility that they cannot put
anything in writing until something has been discussed verbally.

It may sound strange, but it is possible they cannot tell you what they want
in a cold email - because the lawyers said they couldn't.

Cap the initial conversation at 15 minutes. If they cannot explain it to you
in that amount of time, then walk. Worst case is you've lost 15 minutes. Best
case is you've got another customer.

~~~
SilasX
That sounds ridiculous. There has to be _something_ they can tell you, at
_some_ level of abstraction that goes beyond the level of "we should talk"
that was conveyed in the example, at least if your business plan is remotely
coherent.

------
danieltillett
These sort of conversations only happen when the "business" person is looking
to sell you something not buy. After many years I have learnt to ignore them.

~~~
VLM
Or they are terrified of having anything in writing.

Perhaps they're planning to dump some employees and replace them with you, or
dump their current provider IF you work out at the meeting. That's the
absolute best case.

Worst case is you can expect loads of BS about the undocumented verbal meeting
"well, at the (carefully undocumented) meeting you agreed verbally to 25% off
regular price and (insert list of features) all available within 72 hours, so
..."

~~~
nyrina
Man, I have those in my own company. The sales guy that walks up to your desk
and starts chatting about 20 minutes about a potential future customer.

Then a few days goes by and the customer buys our product and it very clearly
states in the contract that 15 things will be done by yesterday even though it
will take a good 100 hours to fix and the customer doesn't have to pay a dime,
because it's "evolving the product".

------
megaman22
This. A thousand times this. Dealing with the sales and marketing people in my
own company is the same way. Sales Guy sends me an email. Two minutes later,
he walks over to ask me if I got that thing he sent me, ala Peter Potamus.

~~~
jackmaney
Sadly, this isn't just sales people. In a former job, I had a manager who was
also an active developer do this. I've never found myself quite so infuriated
with another person at work as I was with him.

------
jackmaney
Something not brought up thus far in the comments is the asynchronous nature
of email. That's why it's often a vastly superior communications medium to
phone conversations or talking face-to-face. I can respond to an email when
it's most convenient for _me_ , and I have some time to carefully plan out
what I want to say. Not so for phone conversations.

Throughout my career, I've been dragged into literally hundreds of meetings
over issues that could have been sorted out with email chains with far less
time and effort.

------
lazyjones
This doesn't look very much like communication with a "business guy" to me.
Successful "business guys" tend to waste little time and get straight to the
point, just like (good, non-autistic) programmers. Perhaps he was thinking of
marketing/sales people, who tend to believe that they can somehow cheat or
force their way into a better position to sell something by withholding
information or by being obnoxious and insisting. They are often not very good
"business people" ...

------
dwd
It comes down to trust.

They don't know your product and they don't know you. Maybe if they meet you
or engage with you on the phone they'll get to know you and gain some trust in
you and therefore your product.

It sucks to have to do that. Especially if the meeting boils down to showing
them some example websites they could have found on your portfolio page,
rather than taking four hours out of your day to visit them at their office.
But it's the trust thing that gets you the job.

------
mesozoic
Business is a skill you can learn. It's not something you have to suck at just
because you're also good at talking to computers. Remember humans are like
very inefficient computers that you need to learn to communicate with to get
anything done.

~~~
duiker101
Maybe it's just that I am a programmer too but in this situation the one that
need to learn communication to me seems the business side. If someone told you
how they want to communicate with you after YOU requested to communicate, you
should comply. There is no requirement for the programmer here to waste his
times in endless meeting that result in nothing. Sales people might have time
for that and that's because it's what they do. Programmers have other stuff to
do.

~~~
jason_tko
The standard for communication for new business relationships is ideally face
to face, and if that's not possible, then a phone call.

Good sales people also do not waste their time in endless meetings that result
in nothing.

------
seanccox
You need to hire someone like Tom Smykowski, from 'Office Space':

"I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to."

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV7u1VBhWCE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV7u1VBhWCE)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Isn't that what managers are supposed to be doing? But instead someone told
them that they are bosses, not the servants...

------
TeMPOraL
Golden quote:

 _" It's like these people don't understand that email is also a form of
communication. You can communicate everything via email, no need to do some
phone conversations or even real world meetings. In my opinion, phone calls
are for details. They cost a lot of time, and should be reserved for talking
about details."_

For me it's not only about business, it's about life in general. If it's not
urgent ("my train leaves in 20 minutes, I need X") or important (something bad
happened, etc.), I'd really much prefer to talk about it over e-mail or IM. I
can handle 6 simultanous IM conversations while also reading some stuff,
without significant loss of attention per conversation. But I get bored out of
my mind when talking over the phone or VOIP about trivialities. The
conversation eats, like, 10% of my cognitive resources, and the other 90%
would like to not feel they're being wasted.

------
ThePhysicist
The problem with most sales people is that their salary is based on (often)
pretty useless metrics such as the number of people they reached out to, the
number of calls they made, the number of meetings they had, etc. So it's not
really surprising that they start optimizing for these things by writing
pointless e-mails and having nonsense meetings without thinking too much about
the potential business value.

That said, I've had the luck to work with some really brilliant technical
sales people in the past, and if they know what they're doing they can be a
huge boon to your company.

------
chrismcb
It sounds to me like the "programmer" failed to pay attention to "the business
guy." The programmer says "maybe you could first tell me roughly what this
would be about" yet the business guy already said "we want to do a partnership
with your company because of your nice product Z" The programmer said "phone
calls are for details" while the business guy said "When do you have time for
a meeting, so I can talk to you in detail"

So what exactly is the problem? This guy wants to set up a meeting to discuss
the details of a business partnership. And the programmer blew him off
because... because he wants to build his company?

While I agree that face-face meetings and phone calls are expensive time wise,
I would argue that the initial meeting of a partnership or potential big
client is probably more important. Sure you may want to try to screen out bad
meetings from good meetings, but you don't do that with a "what do you want to
talk about?" Maybe something more along the lines of "I'm sorry but I'm
extremely busy right now trying to get the next release out. Perhaps if you
could tell me some more highlights on the potential partnership I can see
about possibly squeezing a meeting in there." You don't really want to be rude
to potential partners and clients, well not if you want to build your business

------
morgante
Yes, you are a terrible business guy. You're letting your mindset (business
guys = BS) and personal preferences (anti-phone) cloud your judgement. I'm a
developer foremost but I've overcome my fear of the phone and understand that
success requires meeting people around you halfway, on your terms.

Nothing in this exchange was BS. All they were trying to do was get you on the
phone, and then you immediately jumped to aggression ("You already told me
that."). Perhaps that's not your preferred medium, but it is theirs. And, for
the record, there might be very legitimate reasons for them wanting to keep
this initial conversation on the phone (ex. they're thinking of ditching a
contract).

Of course, it's generally a bad idea to take a meeting without any agenda at
all. But it's important to emphasize your cooperativeness something like this:
"If you can send me a brief outline of the agenda, I'd be happy to take your
call." It lets you get a better sense of what's going on without pushing them
away.

Also, by irrationally acting out ("No, you didn't even fucking tell me what
you want to talk about.") you're likely losing significant opportunities. If
someone wanted to, say, acquire your company the first step would be a phone
call exactly like this one to make sure you're not insane.

~~~
SilasX
I don't see how that's any defense of the salesperson:

>All they were trying to do was get you on the phone, and then you immediately
jumped to aggression ("You already told me that.").

They refused to answer a question or even acknowledge they were doing so. How
is that not itself hostile, or at least disrespectful?

>And, for the record, there might be very legitimate reasons for them wanting
to keep this initial conversation on the phone (ex. they're thinking of
ditching a contract).

That doesn't mean you can convey _nothing_ about what the conversation would
be about; there has to be some level of abstraction at which you can talk.

>Of course, it's generally a bad idea to take a meeting without any agenda at
all. But it's important to emphasize your cooperativeness something like this:
"If you can send me a brief outline of the agenda, I'd be happy to take your
call." It lets you get a better sense of what's going on without pushing them
away.

But he did that! He just didn't use some of the particular terms you used. If
someone isn't going to answer "what is this about", why are they going to be
any more forthcoming with a request for an outline of the agenda? They'll just
reply, "oh, the agenda is to talk about an opportunity for your product...".

>If someone wanted to, say, acquire your company the first step would be a
phone call exactly like this one to make sure you're not insane.

They want to buy a venture in which the leader drops everything to take any
random call from someone with no idea of the purpose? Sure, it works to _rule
out_ potential acquisitions...

------
zhte415
(Semi) 'Business' person here, mainly working on things that interact with
both technology and physical production.

On making contact, usually via email (with exception of self face-to-face
introductions) I'd suggest a telephone call or face-to-face meet in an
environment the other person is comfortable with (which may involve a drive or
flight at my expense). Let them make the call.

The key is that I'm usually interested in something the other party does,
rather than a specific product, and that breeds long term understanding and
agreement, rather than developing a silo over either product or person. This
seems aligned to the motivation of a lot of seed and VC funding.

I hugely encourage all on HN to listen / read about DiSC which I've found
hugely useful interacting with different types of people. Two resources:
Wikipedia - Background [1] Manager Tools - Explanatory Podcasts [2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DISC_assessment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DISC_assessment)
[2] [http://www.manager-tools.com/disc-model-summary](http://www.manager-
tools.com/disc-model-summary)

------
jason_tko
Frustrating article to read. Take the freaking call already. The act of taking
a call does not commit you to anything, and gives you options on all the
potential opportunities they want to discuss.

If they're contacting you, the onus is on them to explain what they want, and
you simply have to listen. If at any point you think "Holy crap - this
contract could quadruple my sales", that's an option on a great opportunity,
and all you had to do was sit there and listen.

Alternatively, if you decide "This seems like a waste of time" either in the
first, second or any number of calls in, you can politely excuse yourself from
the conversation.

The attitude of "I'm a programmer who cannot process bullshit sales talk such
as phone calls" is also destructive to all of the potential relationships you
could have formed throughout the life of your business.

If you're allergic to any kind of phone call, you're going to lose a huge
amount of sales and opportunities. That's how people communicate in business
contexts - especially people who don't know each other.

------
snowwrestler
Everyone is busy. It might take one hour and 1,000 words to compose an email
that will accurately cover the proposal and obvious concerns and objections.
This could be handled a lot faster (for both parties) on a phone call, because
conversations can branch rapidly.

So if someone is talking about a mutually beneficial relationship (partnership
or customer), it's not really fair to expect them to draft a giant customized
pitch email. And let's be honest, does anyone really want to read a giant
pitch email??

Well why not just send a short email? Because many good ideas sound bad at
first mention--or at least, have obvious potential objections. Paul Graham has
written about this extensively. A conversation is the fastest and most
effective way to explore an idea quickly to see if it has merit.

If you're a programmer, it's not worth it. But if you're a programmer running
a business, it might be. If nothing else it may be a data point to help
evaluate product to market fit.

------
mrmincent
I would have previously sided with the programmer as yes, email is more
efficient and you can explain things in detail, but since starting a job where
I'm involved in product demos for sales people, I am getting an understanding
of the importance of phone calls and face to face.

It is much easier for them to develop a rapport with you if they can talk
about the weekend or to joke in a way that they might not be able to put into
writing. It is also much easier to ask "dumb" questions on the phone to clear
up misunderstandings than to put potentially embarrassing questions in email.

They are not just buying your product, they are making a decision inside their
organisation which could come back to bite them, so they want to have a chat
and get to know you to make sure that they are going to be ok. They are the
ones taking the responsibility for your product in their organisation so damn
straight you talk to them and get to know them.

------
megaman22
Also, if you're somebody like me, who has poor auditory memory but fantastic
visual memory, a phone call is very ineffective. In one ear, out the other.

I've also worked with a programmer who was completely deaf; obviously he
preferred to use IM or email over phones...

------
raverbashing
Talking to someone on the phone is needed.

If you're uncomfortable talk through skype/use a headset. Holding the thing to
your ear is really around 50% of the pain of talking on the phone.

And remember, it's your time to make your demands as well. And if the customer
has X requests, and needs A, B, C, this is part of the cost they're paying as
well.

"Yes, the price listed on the website is X per month, but since you need this
it's going to be Y". Believe me, unless Y >> X they'll not even think about
accepting your new price (although they might haggle a bit).

------
tashoecraft
The most important part about building a product is actually selling it, not
building features that you are unsure people are using. Just because you
aren't comfortable talking on the phone and believe your time is more valuable
then someone who is actually willing to pay you money for your project shows
how you're headed in the wrong direction. You need to refocus your mindset
away from business people vs. programmers, and more towards how if you want to
be successful selling a product then you need to listen to your customers.

------
dzink
Why face to face?

1\. So they can read your reaction while they are talking and see if anything
they said resonates, needs explanation, or requires adjustment. The result
would be an agreement from you. It works well for negotiations, design
discussions and sales.

2\. Because the information may be privileged and/or sensitive and/or
offensive if put in written form.

3\. Because a management book tells them to get "face time"

4\. Because email is just slow / not checked often.

5\. Because they need a timely answer or have to juggle between multiple
people.

~~~
wreegab
You forgot:

6\. Because this doesn't leave the interlocutor time (as in hours, days) to
ponder and reflect carefully.

Email is my favorite way of communicating because it's how I can think
carefully.

------
tsewlliw
I like the independence achieved here, down to not having to deal with people
with conflicting communication styles.

------
robobro
Scrolling through HN has made me think about this often myself. Very nice
article.

------
michaelochurch
Calling a meeting without a previously published agenda is a power play. If
there's a position of power, it's a microaggression, because no-agenda
meetings often involve very bad news. If there's no position of power, it's an
assertion of status (I'm so important that you'll take time out of your day
"just to chat".) And the OP has the power, in this case, so he's pushing back
against the bullshit and refusing the no-agenda meeting.

I'm going to be the ambassador for the programmer tribe here.

We don't hate "business guys" and we don't "just want to code, not wanting to
be part of the business". Those stereotypes are untrue.

We don't want to be part of the business _as a subordinate_. If you mentor us
in the bigger picture, most of us like that. If we're protege to the CEO, damn
right we're going to do a good job. If you treat us as fire-and-forget adjunct
capacity, we get grumpy and do a shitty job. There are a few programmers who
really want to be in the ivory tower (maybe 5%) but most would be happy to
work for the business, as an equal/protege, and built out another useful skill
set.

Second, we don't actually hate _all_ business guys. Their roles are really
important. (Well, some of them.) We hate the attitude and the undeserved
higher status they seem to get.

For example, shitty programmers get fired (without severance) while shitty
business guys get to keep $250k+ salaries; if they fail, they get to move
around 2 or 3 times and, if they don't work out anywhere, they _still_ get 3-6
months of severance. Second, if you compare pay to intellectual firepower,
programmers are underpaid relative to business people by about a factor of 3.
(Someone who has the firepower to make $150k as a software engineer is smarter
than most non-technical VPs, who make $500k including stock options.)

Our issue is with the inequity and the attitude. Good business people are
awesome. They're just (sadly) rare and hard to find. Part of that is "our"
fault as engineers; we're not great judges of character.

------
Kiro
One day business guys will be a dying breed and companies will be run by
programmers only. And after that... singularity.

------
fit2rule
There is nothing worse than being in a relationship where you do all the work,
give it to someone else, and they reap all the rewards. This happens, time and
again - not just in our industry, but in the broader world at large as well.
In some cases it called "abuse", in other cases its "just normal business
behaviour".

But I've started to notice more and more that there are big divides between
"good developers" and "business people" and that these big divides are,
fundamentally, prejudiced. "He is a tech guy, he doesn't 'do' business", or
"that person is a business 'type', they don't 'do' tech" = prejudice,
intolerance, and bigotry, plain and simple. It works both ways - "we tech
people" do it, and "so do they".

Its got to stop. In fact the only time something positive ever gets done in
society is when this prejudice is actively thwarted from taking over the
social conditions in which one is working.

