

Why coders avoid salespeople - nishankkhanna
http://www.brightjourney.com/q/developers-techies-avoid-salespeople

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dylz
If I get a call or they want to do it over a call, I refuse and do not use the
product -- period.

When dealing with anyone in sales, I need EVERYTHING fully documented, on
paper, preferably crypto-signed. Because every sales person lies.

Some dumb anecdotes:

I use Gandi.net - they have never called me once, everything just works, I've
never had to use support, panel has everything self-service. Even supports
DNSSEC.

Internet.bs - they have never called me once, everything just works, I've
never had to use support, panel has everything self-service.

Godaddy called me 4 times upon registration to advertise shitty, worthless
products like "email hosting". Not a single salesperson I ran into knew
ANYTHING whatsoever about the product.

Register.com refuses to give up EPP code without a minimum 1 hour sales pitch
by phone. They can go shove their phone up their asshole. The "give me EPP
code" link in their panel just says "we will consider your request and maybe
give you it in a few days, after you've gotten a call from Retentions" \--
"You recently requested an auth code to transfer ... Your request has been
processed and at this time it has been declined"

Network Solutions: Nonstop spam, telemarketing, email spam. 193+ emails from
them. No, seriously.[0]

It's pretty obvious why some companies are well rated in certain demographics.

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/gCp00Cu.png](http://i.imgur.com/gCp00Cu.png)

------
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.

------
beat
Read _Crossing the Chasm._ Twice.

