
Why Everyone is in Sales - sahillavingia
http://www.jasonshen.com/2011/why-everyone-is-in-sales/
======
joebadmo
As much as I kind of despise sales and salesmanship, I'm slowly realizing that
it's an essential skill to getting the things you want in life.

A friend of mind helped me rework my resume recently, and the fundamental
point she finally got through my skull after a few hours was that the point of
the resume is to demonstrate my potential value to the prospective employer.
Which is part of what patio11 is saying on here all the time (in addition to:
find the place where you can provide the most value).

It's something I've always sucked at, and I've been trying to figure out why.
I think it's something a lot of nerds hold in common.

Partly it's modesty. I don't like to self-promote (to use the term in a
neutral way, including a simple demonstration of potential value), because I
just don't like to talk about myself.

Partly it's humility. The more I learn, the more I learn how much I don't
know. The more people I meet, the more I realize how awesome people are. Self-
promotion in this context feels false.

Partly it's some weird version of misplaced pride. I don't feel like I should
have to self-promote. My actions, ideas, and accomplishments should speak for
themselves. Similarly, I feel like I shouldn't have to find a place where I
can provide value; it should find me. These are both wrong and stupid
sentiments, of course.

I think this is really hard for some of us. These feelings make us allergic to
sales, in both directions. But it seems like people like patio11 have found a
sort of middle path between unrewarded toil and shameless blow-hardiness. This
post feels a bit to me like someone on the other side of the divide trying to
reach out to me, and while I appreciate the effort, I still feel instinctively
suspicious. I think what I need is more from people who started on my side of
the divide and found a good place in the middle about how they got there.

~~~
jonnathanson
As a fellow smart, hard-working, nerdy introvert, let me add another bullet
point (or perhaps a sub-point under "humility"): personal ethics.

I grew up with a serious aversion to bullshit in all of its forms. Especially
when it verged on outright lying. All too often, I'd seen hucksterish, self-
promoting coworkers tell bald-faced lies about their work, their
accomplishments, their positions, etc., and get massively rewarded for doing
so. I couldn't bring myself to do it. Consciously, I knew that bullshitting
about myself -- even just a tiny bit -- was a successful career ascension
tactic. And I knew that _not_ doing so was, perhaps, actively slowing me down.
But damn it, it just felt so fake and slimy and wrong.

Eventually -- and it's taken me more years to learn this fact than I feel
comfortable admitting -- I realized that bullshit is not binary. There isn't
some black-or-white dichotomy between "lying" and "telling the truth." In
between lies an entire spectrum, and some of that spectrum is safe to play in.
Even encouraged.

It's possible to sell yourself with only a drop of bullshit. Sort of like a
fine layer of rhetorical polish. It's not about fabricating accomplishments
out of whole cloth, but rather, about talking your real accomplishments up,
and describing them in just the right way. For a lot of people, finding that
level of just-the-right-amount-of-bullshit comes very naturally. For others,
like myself, it's a skill that needs to be learned.

~~~
joebadmo
Great point, and as an illustration of the same mentality, I find something
inside myself recoil at the thought of compromising even a little on bullshit.

And I totally agree with you that it often seems like bullshitting talent and
skills get people a lot farther in any field than actual value. Which is
infuriatingly unfair.

I think the struggle is to figure out how to hit the same pschological targets
that bullshitters do, without bullshitting. And the answer I'm sort of
converging on is, again, to demonstrate your true value.

Even this, I think, is something that comes naturally to some and not others.
I keep bringing up patio11 because he in no way sets of my bullshit detectors,
but manages to demonstrate his value. The feeling I get is that it's something
he has a talent for.

~~~
jasonshen
I think at some point you have to move away from the idea of "bullshit". Human
beings are basically incapable of making fully rational decisions where all
options are weighed and the cost benefit analysis is complete.

There is no way to be totally "pure". If you make the world's greatest device
and no one knows about it, no one will benefit. The moment you tell anyone
about it, you are "selling" and how you choose to portray the device, it's
features/benefits, how often and forcefully you endorse the device is all part
of sales.

Salesmanship IS demonstration of value. Patio11 would be able to sell
hackers/developers on something better than a used car salesman, but the verse
is true regarding the sale of used cars to regular people.

~~~
joebadmo
Listen, Jason, please don't take this as an attack. You seem like a nice,
earnest guy who in many ways is really trying to help.

But your inability to distinguish between bullshit and demonstration of value
is abhorrent to me. If you make an amazing product and never tell anyone about
it, you're keeping it a secret. If you honestly demonstrate its value to a
demographic who can truly benefit from it, that's good marketing and
communication. If you lie or exaggerate to people about what your product can
do, that's bullshit. These are on a spectrum.

I'm going to be blunt here. Pretty much everything on your site, from the
branding, to the copy, to the actual blog post itself, which I find mostly
insubstantial, sets off alarms. Your basic premise -- that transactions should
be mutually beneficial and sales is communication of that mutual benefit -- is
not particularly insightful or well-represented. The ratio of self-promotion
to content is disconcerting. The presented 'attitude' is off-putting and seems
forced.

The fact that you can't distinguish between what patio11 does and what an
archetypal used car salesman just makes me think you're a bullshitter.

But maybe I'm not your target demographic. That's fine. Don't let me stop you.
If it works, it works. But know that that's the kind of stuff that makes me
allergic to self-promotion in the first place. I don't want to present myself
this way, I don't want to _be_ this way, even if that's what it takes to
succeed. And the fact that it works hurts my soul.

Again, I'm not attacking you, and I'm not trying to be negative. I'm trying to
be honest about how I perceive your site. (If you don't think I'm your target
demographic, please safely ignore me.) I'm also trying, in my own way, to come
to terms with a form of salesmanship that doesn't make me hate myself.

~~~
jasonshen
Haven't taken any offense and appreciate the honest dialogue. I haven't said
anything or implied anything about lying and I think we agree that these
behaviors are on a spectrum.

The point of the post was actually to just underline the importance of sales
in our lives - and that everyone needs to sell in order to succeed. Many
others have made this point before, which is fine. I believe that "honestly
demonstrating its value to a demographic" is a form of selling and that
improving the ability to sell will help achieve goals.

I appreciate your feedback. I know that some find my style distasteful and
acknowledge that not everyone sees things this way. I will say that U have
targeted this series toward people who are closer to the patio11 than used car
salesman and this thread will help me adjust my future posts to get my message
across better.

~~~
joebadmo
Hey, I have to say that as much as I don't like about your presentation, I
admire your willingness to engage and your openness to criticism.

If you'd like any specific help, like notes on how your site and writing looks
from my side of things, please don't hesitate to let me know. And I'm always
open to feedback on my own site and writing (though you might not be my target
audience, but, then again, I don't really know who is). Maybe we can even come
to a mutually beneficial transaction.

------
nathanlrivera
A recent article in the New York Times called "Generation Sell" also talks
about this issue: [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/the-
entrepr...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/the-
entrepreneurial-generation.html?pagewanted=all)

"Well, we’re all in showbiz now, walking on eggshells, relentlessly tending
our customer base. We’re all selling something today, because even if we
aren’t literally selling something (though thanks to the Internet as well as
the entrepreneurial ideal, more and more of us are), we’re always selling
ourselves. We use social media to create a product — to create a brand — and
the product is us. We treat ourselves like little businesses, something to be
managed and promoted."

~~~
Lambent_Cactus
Relevant and prescient: <http://xkcd.com/137/>

------
Lost_BiomedE
I tend to think it is part of the business cycle as much as anything. Trends
and viewpoints on this change, and we are currently in an extreme. In other
periods, it may be looked down upon unless you are both very good at it and
have substance backing it up. Essentially, the other party can't realize the
extent that you are doing it.

