
An answer to the “Sell Me This Pen” interview challange - svermigo
http://senatorclub.co/best-answer-to-sell-me-this-pen-i-have-ever-seen/
======
huffmsa
Fuck selling pens.

Give him the pen, then sell his mailing address to a paper manufacture.

Then cap his refills at 1 per 3 months, but for a low monthly subscription
offer to give him all the ink he wants, and all the new pen models as they
rollout.

Hard selling of ubiquitous consumables in highly competitive markets has no
place in the SaaS world.

~~~
salesguy222
Unlimited ink? How do I ask for a shipment- through a form or a human? What
happens when I request to much ink or pens? Do you conveniently forget to
place my order?

How hard is it to cancel? What does the price tiering look like? When you are
acquired, will I still receive my shipments?

All of these are arguments for why the "subscription market" is absolutely
bogus

~~~
huffmsa
Which is why every major operating system (except iOS) in the world is now
free, has free upgrades and updates and if it wipes your system, well tough,
that's in the EULA.

Cancel? You can't, you can only revert your account to the unpaid plan.

We also reserve the right to take our pens back whenever we want.

Now, we could setup a special "enterprise-level" plan for you, with onsite
production, dedicated management, and pen and ink manufacturing which you'd
own after you paid off the terms, but that'll be a bit pricey.

~~~
salesguy222
The only solution to all of this is libre/gratis hardware, software, hard
work, and delayed gratifcation ^.^

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speps
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DMJo55d...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DMJo55d2yPAJ:senatorclub.co/best-
answer-to-sell-me-this-pen-i-have-ever-seen/)

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thekevan
That's a terrible answer and to be honest, I don't particularly believe this
actually happened.

I was once asked to sell a pen to an interviewer and the first thing I asked
them about was their pen use. After that, I pointed to things on the pen and
told them about the benefits of it and why it was a good choice. he stopped me
and said he heard enough because I established need, and then translated real
features of the product into benefits of the customer.

~~~
ebbv
On top of all of that, it's titled "The Best .. I've Ever Seen" and it's his
own anecdote. That's up there with Trump's "I have the best brain." crap.
Terrible.

~~~
coldtea
> _it 's titled "The Best .. I've Ever Seen" and it's his own anecdote_

Obviously "the best (his) ever seen" would be "his own anecdote". How else
could it be?

~~~
ebbv
What? First of all, ignoring the semantic argument of whether saying you've
"seen" your own anecdote is proper; if you refer to yourself as the best ever
for anything you better be world champion class at that thing or you're either
a liar or really ignorant.

Based on the anecdote, the author one of the last two.

------
ghubbard
> Actually. You know what? Just this week I shipped ten new boxes of these
> pens to Elon Musk’s office.

An example of sales people having no issue with casually slipping in outright
lies?

~~~
alfra
Elon Musk sells luxury cars to people who are aware of climate change and also
love technology. He uses that money to build more and cheaper cars, moving
towards mainstream, because existing car manufacturers didn't really move
toward electric. Elon Musk solves a problem for his buyers. It's frustrating
to see his name used in a sales pitch that is driven by a "Vitamins" approach
rather than a "Painkiller" approach. Fighting climate change isn't optional.

------
Kiro
Pretty sure the most common answer to "When was the last time you used a pen?"
is "I don't remember.". Then what?

~~~
kbart
Then you don't get to write a blog post on how awesome and smart you are.

~~~
throwanem
Sure you do. Only the details change.

------
faragon
The page is not loading. 25 years ago, a response could be: you don't need a
pen, you need a 3000 USD IBM-compatible PC! :-)

~~~
taneq
I was kind of hoping for a response where they talked the pen up a bit, gave
the interviewer the pen, then used the gained social capital to get the
interviewer to listen to their real pitch (ie. why you should hire me.)

------
onion2k
This is a lovely anecdote, but it's largely irrelevant to modern sales.
There's no margin in consumer goods to sell directly any more. The cost of
each sale would be too high[1]. If it was an enterprise product the person
buying only really cares whether it works better than the competitor product
and how much it costs, so a personal approach is a waste of time (beyond
getting the customer to talk to you in the first place).

[1] Every sale would end with "What a brilliant pen. You've made it sound
incredible. But I won't buy it right now; I'll check the price on Amazon when
I get home."

~~~
mseebach
The fundamentals of sales are the same whether you're selling pens or $10m
enterprise widgets -- you need to understand the customer and the product and
how to fit the two together. It also applies in marketing, a closely related
field -- you have to understand the needs of abstract groups of customers, and
how pitch your product to those groups.

The pen is just a simple object to arrange a quick role play around.

------
Two9A
Looks like Senator Club's Wordpress wasn't expecting to get hit quite so hard.
I don't suppose anyone has the text/transcript of this to hand?

~~~
drops
[http://archive.is/UJ2fK](http://archive.is/UJ2fK)

~~~
i336_
This archive link retains the images and formatting properly

------
edpichler
Cool but... I read the entire article expecting a really good answer.

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tzs
When they ask this question, what kind of pen is it? The author's pitch
compares against a cheap Bic (which I imagine is something like this [1]), so
I assume it is usually something fancier and/or more expensive, but are we
talking a Uni-ball micro roller [2] level of fancier, or a Montblanc
Meisterstück Moon Pearl LeGrand Rollerball [3] level of fancier?

PS: so, what pens do other HN readers use? I used to use the Uni-ball micro
roller pens, but I've since switched to the Pilot G2 gel roller with the ultra
fine (0.38mm) tip. I switched for the ultra fine tip, which makes superscripts
and subscripts easier. There are Uni-balls with ultra fine tips, but last time
I bought a few boxes of pens they were harder to find.

For pencils, I use a Uni-ball Kuro Toga [4]. It has a clever mechanism that
slightly rotates the lead every time you put tip to paper, so that it wears
evenly from all sides, keeping the look and feel uniform throughout your
writing. Here's a video showing how it works [5].

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/BIC-Cristal-Stic-Medium-
Point/dp/B000...](https://www.amazon.com/BIC-Cristal-Stic-Medium-
Point/dp/B000F2RGSW/)

[2]
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006IE8R/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006IE8R/)

[3] [https://www.amazon.com/Montblanc-111694-Pearl-LeGrand-
Roller...](https://www.amazon.com/Montblanc-111694-Pearl-LeGrand-
Rollerball/dp/B01N4F4482/)

[4] [https://www.amazon.com/uni-ball-KuruToga-Mechanical-
Pencil-0...](https://www.amazon.com/uni-ball-KuruToga-Mechanical-
Pencil-0-5mm/dp/B0026ICM1E)

[5]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80k7Jl1o8Lc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80k7Jl1o8Lc)

~~~
antisthenes
I use a Zebra 402 0.7mm

Compared to kids these days, I used to write a _lot_ in high school and
college and the only memorable pen in terms of comfort, color and thickness
that stood out was the Zebra. I write much less now and mostly use it for
quick notes and back of envelope schematics.

My #2 choice would be a Parker Jotter ballpoint, which is quite similar in
form and weight.

I absolutely hate gelpoints and any other sort of gel pens.

------
shubhamjain
Seriously? All he managed to sell was the aesthetics feel. It's like selling
email marketing software solely for the design. How about selling a pen by
pitching the frustrations it solves? Pens get lost. Pens stop working
randomly. Pens finish without much of a warning. If you're using it after a
while, you have to rummage for a paper to scribble before you use it.

It's hard to recall any pen which solves any of these. So, in the end, selling
a pen becomes a marketing problem, not a sales problem.

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
I have a clear fountain pen. It solves most of the issues. It can still get
lost, but because it's more expensive than a disposable I'm more careful with
it. If it stops working it's probably clogged, the nib is easy enough to wipe
off to clear the clog. If it's really bad an alcohol swab might be needed.
It's clear, I can see the ink level. The "scribble before use" thing is
because ink on the ball dries out. Not so much an issue when there's no ball.

And of course there's the classic issue of people stealing your pen, but most
people don't know the technique to write with a fountain pen so it rarely gets
borrowed.

------
have_faith
> Sell me this pen

You don't need a new pen, sorry for wasting your time.

------
vain
The page asks for a captcha. Here is a copy
[http://archive.is/UJ2fK](http://archive.is/UJ2fK)

------
akitaonrails
Coincidentally I wrote about this same subject this week. But I went a step
further than that. It's not about the pen.

[http://www.akitaonrails.com/2017/06/01/conference-talks-
inte...](http://www.akitaonrails.com/2017/06/01/conference-talks-interviews-
and-the-pen)

------
microcolonel
This is a limp answer, he seems to be selling _another pen_ , not the one in
his hands. After all, if it's really important what pen you use to sign
contracts, why would the one on the desk suffice? Why not get a beautiful
bimetal nib fountain pen with navy ink?

~~~
yetihehe
> This is a limp answer, he seems to be selling another pen, not the one in
> his hands.

This answer is not enough "out of the box".

> Why not get a beautiful bimetal nib fountain pen with navy ink?

This answer is too much "out of the box" for most CEO's.

~~~
microcolonel
That's what I mean, he starts by saying that it matters what type of pen is
used, which is why I say "why not", as in, if you're going to tell me I need
an _important person 's pen_, why stop at the pen I already have?

------
alfra
Sales, then and now, 10-minutes exercise comparing two links. How we approach
sales in innovation and startups has changed a lot recently, but not for
everyone. Enter the "sell me this pen" as seen in "Wolf of Wallstreet". It's a
sales classic. You inspire desire in your customer in your sales pitch, and
quickly he wants to buy, at any price. I frequently talk to startups about
sales, but coming from a product management perspective.

The closest thing to selling in strategic product management is "solution
selling". As the name suggests, it's about identifying a problem the customer
actually has, then understanding how big the problem is. So when talking to
the sales people at startups, we talk about pricing, job-to-be-done, and unmet
needs of the customers. What kind of product do you have, in the eyes of your
customers? Is it a nice thing to have once the customer learns about its
existence, a "Vitamin"? Or is it something the customer really needs, a
solution to an existing problem, something the customer already needed before
he learned that there is a solution to the problem, is it a "Painkiller"?

If your product is still a Vitamin, it will be hard to sell, you will see a
lot customer churn, customers quitting soon, instead of staying for the long
run, and no recommending of your product to other people in the industry. To
transform your product from a Vitamin to a Painkiller, you need to understand
your customer's pain point. That's very close to S-P-I, "situation",
"problem", "implication" in the SPIN-selling system that we use in solution
selling.

Do this little test: Read a very short description about Vitamin vs
Painkiller, and then read through a sales pitch (which is described as "the
best" by its author) and note which parts are addressing a need for a
Painkiller, and which address the wish for a Vitamin.

\- Intro Vitamin vs Painkiller:
[https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230736](https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230736)

\- "Sell me this pen" sales pitch: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/best-
answer-sell-me-pen-i-hav...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/best-answer-sell-
me-pen-i-have-ever-seen-prashant-dedhia)

When you compare those two, you will see that the "sell me this pen" pitch is
based on a Vitamin product. Most pens are Vitamin products to most customers,
no matter how brilliant your sales pitch is. You can't use sales skills to fix
a lack of product management.

~~~
mseebach
The examples given for "vitamin" and "painkiller" are poor, or at lease not
describing differences in products, but in marketing strategy. Also, the idea
that "vitamins" are poor product is betrayed by the success of many, many
madly successful "vitamin" products, not least including literal vitamins.

The product-load-feature that is described in the entrepreneur.com article as
a "vitamin" mere seems poorly marketed. Keeping your e-business platform up-
to-date with your products is very much something that can raise revenue or
lower costs (or, if not, it's not actually a product at all, vitamin or not).
On the other example, the healthcare payments solution, why would you _not_
expect the provider of the existing invoicing solution to "just" enable some
sort of upfront payment to lower bed debts, if this is really a problem?

(Also, dismissing business ideas on the basis that someone else would already
be doing it if it's actually a problem seems to be a great way to never be
successful in business)

~~~
alfra
When you look at how the actual vitamins are marketed in many countries, you
discover it's not so rare people claim it is actually a painkiller:
[http://www.economist.com/news/business/21665064-despite-
scan...](http://www.economist.com/news/business/21665064-despite-scandals-and-
scepticism-americas-supplement-industry-looks-healthy-miracle-healers)

~~~
candiodari
Well, if you compare with what used to pass for health scams, it's quite a
good deal :

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Radithor_bottle_(25799475...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Radithor_bottle_\(25799475341\).jpg)

These were outlawed when, after being marketed as improving male libido,
someone drank 1400 of these and died. But he did not die before getting a
horribly disfigured jaw that actually fell out before the eyes of the doctor.
He was buried in a lead lined coffin, after an agonizing death.

I must say I am a bit worried about "poly-unsaturated fats", which I must say
I'd be amazed if they weren't bad for you (they result in a great many
secondary chemicals, and if just one of those is dangerous, ...), but I doubt
they'll make anyone's jaw fall off before slowly and painfully killing them.

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caniscrator
Link not working. Responds with 500 (Internal Server Error).

~~~
CarolineW
Read the other comments here - there are multiple links to cached versions.

