
Hey Sales Guy - Stop Pissing Off The Engineers - k1w1
http://blog.aha.io/index.php?p=1000
======
corry
This article seems to be one big exercise in "false dichotomy" \- the world is
EITHER "sales guys are always right" or "engineers are always right"; the
world is EITHER "engineers need sales guys more" or vice versa; the world is
EITHER "the sales guy is right about feature x" or "the engineer is right
about feature x".

Startups and customer development (a la Steve Blank or PG) is messy by nature.
That's the whole art of a startup - balancing your own vision for the
technology with the market demand and other forces. Both hands are needed to
wash each other.

So even a small startup should have a robust Product Management
function/group/team that has a leg both in the Customer's world and the
Engineer's world.

What's odd about this post is that the company is apparently _targeted at_
Product Managers... but reads like its from a world in which the brilliant-
and-precious engineers only ever deal directly with horrible sales ogres. If I
was a product manager in the market for a tool like this, I would hope my
software vendor had a more nuanced view of how customer/technology teams
should interact.

My $0.02!

~~~
mtrimpe
The article is also the first of it's kind I've seen that gives salespeople
comprehensible and actionable advice on how to improve.

If they're salespeople worth their salt they'll be able to help leverage this
newfound understanding to better sell their feature requests.

I do agree that ideally this nuggets of wisdom would not have been hidden in
such a ranty article though.

P.S. Their equivalent post aimed at product managers is at
[http://blog.aha.io/index.php/hey-product-managers-stop-
pissi...](http://blog.aha.io/index.php/hey-product-managers-stop-pissing-off-
the-engineers/)

~~~
notahacker
If salespeople are worth their salt and working for a software company, this
isn't "newfound understanding".

On the contrary, they've learned the hard way _never_ to count on a deal
closing because of a particular feature and never to promise something will be
coming in the next cycle if they've got to deal with that customer again.
They're well aware prospective customers might have reasons for not buying
other than feature requests because _their job performance is as dependent on
being able to identify what customers actually mean as developers '
performance is dependent on ability to write code_.

If they're worth their salt they're not skewed by optimism around one deal
(unless they're in _really_ high-ticket sales, in which case they've probably
got dedicated engineers allocated to that deal anyway) and having talked to
far more clients and prospective clients than all the engineers and product
managers put together are probably actually in a far better position to
prioritise features in terms of potential revenue to be earned/lost by the
company. Needless to say, the engineers and PM have far more grasp of the
difficulty of implementing the feature. That's why they need to compare notes.

------
Strilanc
> However, the reality is that sales needs engineering more than engineering
> needs sales. Sales people come and go but engineers build what matters.

and then sales people make it possible to make money off of that thing...? I'm
not seeing how engineering doesn't need sales just as much. It's as if the
author just said:

>~ However, the reality is that farmers need well diggers more than well
diggers need farmers. Well diggers come and go but farmers grow what matters.

No farmers: everybody starves. No well diggers: everybody dies of thirst.
Acting like one is 'more essential' is the wrong distinction to make. (How
about: cost to replace, return on investment, comparative advantage?)

~~~
k1w1
We think that the traditional enterprise sales model is dead. And we don't
necessarily think that your analogy is always true – see self-pick farms where
end users come and choose the produce that they want. There are numerous
examples of this as well now in the world of software — see Atlassian,
37signals, Palantir as good examples. Maybe it's just that we should not think
about these disciplines so differently. We could probably all agree on that.

~~~
dataisfun
The whole Palantir no sales people mantra is kind of not true. You don't sell
7 or 8 figure deals without a sales cycle/process.

Also, yes, there are some businesses where aggressive sales aren't that
important. But most companies want to move up into the larger deal size at
some point...at which point you definitely need a sales person. So let's cut
the BS about sales people being less or more important than any other function
in the company. It's so tiring.

~~~
k1w1
What Palantir is doing (at least in the way they talk about it publicly) seems
to be more about the mentality than anything else. If you consider that
everyone in the company who touches the customer is responsible for selling
then you can change the culture of how you sell.

For example, I see customer support as the most important aspect of sales now
for SaaS companies. It is likely to be the first, and one of the most common,
touch points for any customer. So getting the customer support team to realize
they are selling too is crucial to success.

------
niuzeta
to me the article is rather narrow-sighted rant of an engineer with _presumed_
inner-thoughts and inner-workings of a _typical sales guy._ Interestingly, the
same argument could be said by a sales guy to an engineer that _even if you do
your magic your work will be worthless if you don 't know how to sell_, which
is one of the most repeated-to-the-point-of-truism at HN: let people know what
you're doing and why it's important.

I agree with the first paragraph where a sales person needs to know more about
engineering than he _presumably_ does. The other part which I would like to
add is that an engineer (or a competent one, at least) needs to know how his
product is sold, marketed, and presented as a sold commodity.

Am I the only one to read the typical stereotype of _arrogant prig engineer_
characteristic between the line? A kind which a sales person would think of.

~~~
bitops
I thought the same thing as I started reading through the article - this
attitude is endemic to anyone who thinks that what they do is the most
important function and that the business couldn't survive without them.

The truth is that you need _all_ parts of the business to succeed, working
well together.

That said, I think there are stages in the progression. In the beginning, you
can't sell anything if you don't have a product. But once you have a
reasonably good product, you need good marketing and sales to have people
become aware of it.

I worked closely with the marketing department in my last job and it
definitely made me see how big an impact a good team can have. They did a lot
of creative work to sell the product.

------
greenail
I can pretty much guarantee the author doesn't know what sales people actually
do. Assumptions lacking experience makes this article a waste of time. I'd
suggest he tries to figure out how hard it is to get someone to actually talk
on the phone, much less make a large purchase, and he would change his tone.

What engineers generally don't understand is how hard it is to get people
interested, qualify out prospects who are a waste of time, make your stuff a
top priority, and most importantly build trust. Engineers only see a very
small part of sales. Unfortunately what they see is the gaps in the product,
and the customer's requirements that may not match theirs. Most people hate
sales, keep that in mind when you consider how hard of a job it is. With
biases like this, it is a miracle a sales team can deliver.

~~~
k1w1
Ha! the irony here is just too much. The author of the post is not an
engineer, and just spent the last two months talking to more than a hundred
customers during our private beta (and loved it).

I am not the author of the post, but I am an engineer, and I've worked with
sales teams ranging from large enterprise sales, to SaaS inside sales, and I
know just like you that it is hard, hard, hard. But I also know, just like the
author of the post, that everyone trying to close a deal thinks that their
deal is the only one the matters. Getting to club, or meeting your quota is a
strong motivator - and one that many engineering teams are oblivious too. I
would imagine that many line engineers don't even realize what a big part of a
typical salesperson's compensation is performance based.

------
mathattack
My observation on sales in general, and this applies especially to software:

\- If you can only sell when your product has every feature, and the cheapest
price, then you're not really selling. You're taking orders.

\- The sales job creates value by convincing customers to pay up for added
value in the product, or accept less value (or benefits or features) if they
want to pay less.

\- There are two types of salespeople who find a way to add a lot of value.

1 - Those who are in so deep with their customers that they are almost
indistinguishable from their own employees. You know you have it when they're
invited to join their customer's company softball team, or the customer's
security guard waves them through with a smile. The insight they bring back is
priceless, and they allow you to preempt most competition.

2 - Those who are fully knowledgable and networked within their company, and
can efficiently bring the full power of the organization to bear on the
customer problems, making credible promises to the client.

Either 1 or 2 can add a lot of value. It's 1 in 1000 that has both, so that's
too much to ask for. The author of the article seems to be asking for #2. I'd
suggest that #1 is incredibly valuable too.

~~~
HPLovecraft
this.

------
Swannie
I read this mostly as "sales guy, stop being like all the other sales guys,
none of you ever get it! You lazy asses! Do your job, which, by the way,
includes making our lives in product management and engineering easier".

Sales has (a lot) more than it's fair share of dominant, persistent and driven
people. They ask for a lot. Not because they are lazy, but because they've
found they often get it. If you can't deal with that, maybe you shouldn't be a
product manager.

A good product manager understands sales is pushing a boulder up a mountain.
They should be patient and supporting. Good ones will direct a sales guy to an
existing road map, the feature request/voting process, the exceptions process
(for huge deals) for getting features into the next release (which usually
means "bring more money to the table"), pre-recorded sessions with other
customers/prospects that explain what the product _can_ do in that area (often
the sales guys didn't know). All product managers, good or bad, should be
protecting the engineers from the worst offenders, and sharing the successes
of all sales with their developers. We like to know when you win with our
products.

------
evan_
Meanwhile, the marketing person recognizes that his or her target market is
engineers and writes a glib "rah-rah, engineers are better!" piece precisely
formulated to get on Hacker News.

------
josh2600
Once upon a time I was a pretty hardcore salesperson. Now I just yell at
people until they buy things, but I digress...

The key to being successful as a salesperson is the same as the keys to being
successful in life:

* Be Humble

* Be Understanding

* Be Patient but with clear deadlines

I see salespeople brag, I see folks explaining why the client is wrong, and I
see plenty of phony patience but what I rarely see is kindness. You know what
always worked for me? "How was your weekend?"

Most salespeople want to rattle off a feature list until they're blue in the
face, the best ones only ever say what matters. The best ones don't waste your
time by making sure they don't waste their time. How do you wrap up a meeting?
Is it 'call me when you're ready?' or is it 'This is what I can do for your
business and I think it has real benefit. Would a week be alright for you to
evaluate this technology?'. Is it rude to put a timelimit? Actually, it's
quite the opposite. Open-ended sales cycles are terrible; endless calls and
avoidance, it just isn't fun. The polite thing to do is to bring the
relationship to a head; it's hard but it's the right thing to do. Even if you
don't win the deal, you'll walk away with class, and in a year you just might
come back and win (hardly a rare occurrence in sales).

Most people are bad at sales because they dislike confrontation, but sales is
hardly a confrontation if you set expectations correctly. The problem arises
when people conceal that they're in sales, or that they have timelines, or
that they want to do business with you. Get all that crap out in the open
immediately and you'll waste a lot less time.

Here are two pieces of advice I've learned over the years that I've found
invaluable in technical sales:

* Don't ever talk about engineering timelines with customers. If it's not released it doesn't exist.

* The only features you need to build are the ones your customers are screaming for; never listen to a salesperson, listen to their customers. Make the salespeople bring you customer examples. Sell something people want.

Edit: I should note that setting expectations is also important for Engineers,
but I tend to think of software development as being like a large cooperative
painting. If you want it to be beautiful it's done when it's done. There's
definitely some accountability on the development side and I don't mean to
minimize it but it's important to understand mutual respect. If you have one
takeaway from any of my posts on HN it's that you should treat everyone with
respect whenever possible.

