
Go Into Sales - thesyndicate
http://bhargreaves.com/2010/07/sales/
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tptacek
This sounds exactly right to me, and indeed a lot of my engineering friends
who decided they wanted to start companies have sought out sales roles as
practice.

An obvious way to transition from engineering to sales is via the "sales
engineering" role at enterprise software companies, which, for complicated
products, is the tech guy who tag-teams with the account manager and does the
product pitching. SE pays about 80% of what high-end dev pays (and nothing
resembling what sales account management can pay) and comes with virtually no
execution risk.

The downside of SE is that it's a tar pit --- you'll never transition from SE
to sales in the same company --- and after doing it for a few months you'll
quickly learn an important but disheartening lesson: that a rock-solid
technical pitch and a rapport with your target market is only 10% of the sales
execution mix, and the other 90% is black magic --- a good chunk of which
involves being shameless and irritating.

Then again, being shameless and irritating may be part of What It Takes to
make a startup break through.

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superchink
I just switched from a more technical position to this type of role for this
exact reason. Your 10% comment is only partially true, though. I think it
depends on both the product, industry, as well as the client; some sales are
inherently more driven by technical expertise & experience.

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tptacek
I disagree; I've been involved in products whose sales involve the sizes of
TCAMs on a Cat6K and the particulars of BGP regex filters, and while it was
vital to have someone who could address those questions involved in the sale,
and while the decision on the sale was being made by people who know what
those things mean, it was pure sales execution that turned the engagement from
a science project to a "nice to have" to a "must have" to a purchase order.

~~~
superchink
I don't think we're necessarily disagreeing. I'm not saying technical details
are going to make a sale (almost ever), but if one of the members of the sales
team (note that I'm classifying the "sales engineer" as a salesman) can grant
credibility & real world experience to the lofty promises that the typical
salesman makes, it adds a level of differentiation that can—in some
instances—make or break a sale.

Also, to clarify, it also really depends on the nature of the industry, the
product, and even what we're considering technical details.

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ojbyrne
My current company has me in a cube with a room full of salespeople. I find
just listening to them talk on the phone to be great experience (the company
installs solar panels). Things I have noticed:

\- very knowledgeable about the product

\- work to apply that knowledge to the individual's problems

\- establish a friendly rapport, be courteous and respectful. One of the most
common phrases I hear them start a call with is "Is this a good time to talk?"

\- it's a lot of work to be prepared, keep up to date with the customers, and
the sales "environment" (in our case things like government regulations and
grants, media, other stuff.

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tptacek
If you're in a room full of people making phone calls, be aware that you're
might be hearing "inside salespeople" --- ie, highly-compensated telemarketers
--- and that inside salespeople are usually used to queue up engagements for
account managers who actually do the real selling.

~~~
ojbyrne
It's a small company - they do both. Its a small room so I know what they do
fairly intimately.

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ceredona
This article is spot on.

Startups do two things: they build product and they sell it (get people to use
it).

A lot of non-technical aspiring entrepreneurs miss this point. They think that
you build a product and you do "business stuff". They fail to realize that
"business stuff" invariably boils down to one thing: sales (at least in the
early days of the company).

I think the two most desired skills in a tech startup is the ability to
program and the ability to sell.

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leftnode
I'm glad I learned sales experience in college. Like most programmers, I have
a tendency to be introverted and avoid people to just do my work.

However, in college I forced myself to take two very outward jobs: Resident
Adviser and Personal Trainer. RA's help incoming freshman become acclimated
with college life, and I found it a very rewarding job (plus I got a
practically free apartment).

I've always been interested in fitness, so I became a personal trainer at the
local Bally Total Fitness. Because I was knowledgeable about my product (me)
and could pitch well, I became the #1 personal trainer in sales in Dallas in a
month. I was pretty proud of that accomplishment, and it taught me a
tremendous amount about sales and interacting with people.

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jleader
Since sales pays so well, won't those "golden handcuffs" make it that much
harder to quit your job to do a startup?

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codva
It might. However, large companies have an uncanny ability to screw their
sales force. If you do really well they will reward you with a higher quota,
and they'll divide your territory in half. I've seen it happen way too many
times. Plus tech sales tends to be unstable. One year you make $200K selling
something that is in demand, the next year it's out of style and you get
canned for missing quota. In 1998-2001 I was selling Sun servers. It was a
pretty damn nice way to make a living. In 2002 you couldn't give a Sun server
away. So the odds of somebody staying content in tech sales is fairly low. The
desire or need to change usually hits ever few years.

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bmr
I couldn't agree more. And don't think your personality isn't a fit. Several
of my less outgoing (and in one case, downright awkward) roommates from
college entered sales and came out more engaging and gregarious than I could
have ever imagined them.

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j_baker
That's because introversion vs extraversion is a rather poor way to judge a
person's sales skills. I've met extraverts who couldn't sell water in a desert
and introverts who could sell ice to an Eskimo. Believe me, there are people
out there who just aren't good at sales. Sure they can learn, but chances are
their time is better spent learning to code and figuring out how to recognize
a good salesperson to partner with.

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Maven911
I have always been confused by the sales engineer (presales) versus sales
people, can someone enlighten me on what exactly are their roles - more
specifically why the distinction ?

Here is what I know, at a place where I used to work selling expensive IPTV
solutions (which was a limited market of big carriers - so I don't expect the
sales people to be doing cold calls all day long), sales was apparently the
place to be in terms of salary. The presales people were the more technical
guys/gals who would get the customer requirements, help in the RFP, make
presentations. And the sales people...well I dunno..I never understood why the
presales people couldn't also be the full-fledged sales people closing the
deals...I don't see the value-add...are the "sales" people there just to have
smooth talkers who can close deals while pre-sales get the technical concerns
out of the way ??

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lsc
I've been considering this myself for a while. What's the best way for a nerd
with no sales knowledge (well, i can sell things off a webpage just fine, at
least if they are cheaper than the competition, but that's a rather different
thing.) to get into sales?

should I leverage my existing skills and get a sales or pre-sales Engineer job
selling some overpriced "enterprise storage" or network kit? or should I show
up at a used car dealership and ask for a job?

I bet I could at least get past the interview; I'm tall and white and can fake
confidence fairly well for a nerd. I don't know how long I'd last on the used
car lot, though.

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known
Excellent advice. Going into sales will make you understand why everybody is
not buying Toyota cars.

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oconnore
A more useful article would be titled, "Make sure you are really good at
public speaking."

I'm not convinced working a sales job is necessary for most people to sell a
product to investors, and I'm entirely convinced a sales job won't help you
sell a product online through a web interface.

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tbrooks
Sales skills are different than public speaking skills.

I'm deathly afraid of speaking in front of people, but I'd like to think I'm a
pretty good salesperson.

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thaumaturgy
Meanwhile, I've discovered that I really enjoy speaking to an audience -- love
the sound of my own voice, I guess -- but I _hate_ selling, even when I
believe in the product, and even when it's _my_ product!

