In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work

The best sales people I've worked with were incredible strategic thinkers and not really sales people at all.

They built an intimate knowledge of their customer and their industry, built strong connections with the top brass of their client by delivering exceptional work that got those people promoted, and were really good at building autonomous teams that could get the (exceptional) work done with their guidance on the customer/industry/client. These folks would also often deliver very difficult messages to their clients, which often resulted in more business not less.

The sleazy sales people can build decent pipelines/sales numbers but they are not what I would ever label as 'elite'.

The real secret to having a successful sales career is to work at a company that sells a market leading product. This trumps 99% of anything you can do as an individual.

I have seen complete noobs have good sales careers at AWS

> The better you are at selling, the more debased your life becomes, as everything is reduced to a transaction, a leveraging of the smallest edge

I think that's the essence of having a sales mindset if I had to explain it. It's really hard to convey what it means and I think only those that worked close with people with this talent would have a chance to know what this really means. Sales is an art on top of a very technical game, where you have an unlimited number of secret knobs to balance. It's like seeing chefs or f1 drivers performing at their best, and as such it's not just about grit, you also need talent on top.

> We were victims. Therefore, we had license to take whatever measures were necessary. Once this worldview sets in, it’s very difficult to break out of, not least because it often feels so perfectly just.

One of many nuggets of wisdom in this excellent text.

Entertaining piece, the writing is very good. But the author was honest enough to tell us he had no problem lying at anytime when working as a salesman, so I take this article as a work of fiction (although I am sure that part, or perhaps most of it, is true).

> I know a good salesman when I see one. I was, briefly, the No. 1 telemarketer in the United States.

Oh neat, how?

> Unlike many of my less successful colleagues, I quickly learned to take yes for an answer; though we were legally required to read a long list of mandatory disclosures to all our sales, I noticed that this often broke the spell and gave people an opening to back out or “wait and ask the wife about it.” As soon as I heard a yes, I said, “Great choice!” and transferred them to confirmation. My manager occasionally came by and reminded me that it was technically illegal to skip my disclosures, but he made commission off my commission, and his tone made it clear that I could do as I pleased as long as I kept putting up numbers.

[…]

> I was one of the first to go, technically for not making my required disclosures—about cancellation fees, international rates, all that fine print nobody ever bothered to recite—on a sale.

So, he and his boss did crime together for a while and then eventually their scam stopped working and he got fired.

It’s weird to meet people who look for the short-term gain in every single situation.

Especially if they’re semi-talented but perennially “unlucky”. Usually trading on a curated public image or “likability” backed by nothing but positive sounding words and shifting excuses. Unable to build anything sustainable because they piss off every person with the ability to make them rich.

Walk away. Remember them as they were; and write them off.

“…and you won’t like their secret”

And y’all just keep scrolling through the ads for that secret that’ll explain to you what to be angry about. Some shit will never stop working.

There is an absolute flood of internet articles that tell basically the same anecdote "the best salesman I ever met is not a salesman", or simple variations. Most of them have this talkative, knowledgeable salesman character.

Can someone from the industry tell me if this is some kind of ritual of passage? Maybe a prank on new authors? It doesn't make any sense to me. All these articles are the same trick repeated over and over.

> Suddenly, the economy looks more like an infinite series of tiny frauds than a harmonious ecosystem.

This hits hard.

I enjoyed reading that far more than I expected, even if I did keep glancing at the scroll bar and wondering if the juice would be worth the squeeze. The meta-commentary at the end (maybe this Slate article will finally seal a book deal) felt faintly reminiscent of the end of the Stephen King "Dark Tower" novels.

This piece obviously puts sales in a bad light. If you had asked me what a salesman is like in my early 20s, I would have described them much as this article expresses.

But in my career in Silicon Valley I really came to respect good salespeople. I often had roles where I was debugging customer-reported issues, and good salespeople make everything smoother.

I came to a conclusion that there are two types of sales transactions: one that is a one-time transaction and one that is an ongoing transaction.

The one-time salespeople were just like this article: they are just trying to close a sale knowing that they don't ever have to deal with you again. If they lie, they don't have to deal with the consequences. So their incentive is to spew any kind of nonsense or lies or manipulation to close the deal.

The other type of sales guys depending on building relationships. with engineers on both sides, with management, with purchasing and billing people, with everyone. When I was working on customer bugs, having a great sales guy representing the account made everything much easier. They could get the customers to loan hardware, assign more resources, get documentation, negotiate for time, etc. I respected these great sales guys because they had real skills and talent in these spheres that I didn't.

This was the most interesting part IMO. There is definitively some truth to it:

“In ways large and small, we live in a world shaped by telemarketing. When’s the last time you answered a call from an unknown number? How many tweets do you encounter without bots in the replies? Have you seen how many spam emails your parents receive? I chuckle to think how mad people used to get when we called during dinner—when do you have privacy now? Even your sleep app is hawking your data to companies trying to sell you melatonin gummies. Are these intrusions any less intrusive because they’re silent?

Worse yet, decades of wage stagnation and the emergence of the gig economy have generalized the anxiety and pressure that used to be the exclusive domain of sales sweatshops; now we’re all pitching all the time, unironically using phrases like “building my personal brand,” indefatigably selling versions of ourselves via social media posts that fool no one, soliciting eyeballs, donations, subscriptions, views and clicks, for our Twitch streams, OnlyFans, Substacks, stand-up shows, GoFundMes, podcasts, NFTs, sending emails to our agent like, “Another piece in Slate, hmm, wonder if there’s a book in this one?” Manufactured precarity and the Hobbesian competition of all against all, combined with the public insistence on moral rectitude, have us all scrambling for grievances so we can justify doing what we must—even presidents and billionaires insist they are victims now. We’re all trapped in the back-office cubicle pod, our desperation rebranded as hustle, bitter entrepreneurs of abjection competing for the same dwindling pool of broke rubes.”

The author draws broad conclusions about sales from just three cherry-picked examples from high-pressure, ethically questionable contexts (jail, telemarketing scams, aggressive panhandling) and creates a false dichotomy of being ethically compromised or unsuccessful in sales.

My father has a business that sells physical products. We had a salesman that was soo good, that customers used to call us asking us to take back our product because they actually had no use for it. They bought it because he convinced them that it was good for them. The salesman passed away long back. Rest in peace.

I came in hoping for inspiration, got punched in the face by reality instead.

It's a good read, just know what you are in for.

Ah slate.com, always delivering.

I’ll never get those 7 minutes back.

For what it's worth, this article has given me ample moral justification for the disdain I show for cold-callers and relationship-based sellers alike (though typically I'll be openly hostile only to the first group): I don't owe them anything, even people I work with over a period of years. As long as they're trying to sell me something, I have the thing they want and not the other way around. What's truly astonishing to me is that so many people I work with don't see the con and think their "relationship manager" actually cares about them and is genuinely trying to get them a good deal. No, they're trying to sell you underbody coating and should be treated accordingly.

I remember one guy, years ago, who ended a 45-second year-end cold call with me with a "Come on man, I have a family. At least hear me out!" I responded, "Get a better job then. I have work to do." As a moral human, I feel sort of bad about that response, but then I remember there's a substantial likelihood he was lying to me to keep the call going to score a sale and the grift depends on me being moral.

That was a long and tedious article. It describes how to adopt a hardened & transactional mindset. UGH.

Consumer sales is not Software Sales. In general - the professionals/engineers/managers I spoke with were really gracious and insightful.

Most sales organizations operate like a factory producing widgets. This is fine. It produces outcomes at the lowest possible cost of sales.

There are times when there is no substitute for elite sales: 1) Getting customer #2-100. 2) Most products which sell for over 200k 3) Complex engagements with multiple decision makers

I worked in early stage startups and sold software to the Global 2000.

How? 1) Never contact someone unless you have very (*very) strong indicators that what you are offering has high value to them and their goals 2) KNOW what you are talking about. Be able to engage in conversations about their technical infrastructure, options, goals and politics. 3) The goal of every call is to add value... NOT to make a sale. Adding value will open doors and people pick up the phone. Trusted peers provide referrals. They provide insight.

A classic failure of early stage founders it to mistake the factory model of sales (efficiency) for the required model of sales (inefficient, research based, strategic).

To site the Cynefin framework (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework) They mistake mistakenly believe that sales is simple and can be structured like a factory.

Most sales people are factory workers. They crank widgets.

Most products don't have sufficient margin to justify hiring expensive talent.

Professional sales is complex, chaotic, political, layered with inter-dependencies, and fought with constraints. It's a great career -- once you get good at it.

Let me save u 10 minutes and get to the punchline.

"Eventually, it clicked, and I learned one of the bedrock principles of salesmanship: Whether you’re peddling long distance over the phone, Bibles door to door, or your own political candidacy on live national TV, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling—it matters how you make people feel. If you make them feel good, they’ll say yes. If you don’t, you could be selling a pill that reverses male-pattern baldness and makes you lose weight without exercise, and they’ll still turn you down flat."

I have no joke known some sales people so good ive legitimately seen one sell icebags during a snowstorm. To be fair, it was for a cooler inside and who is going outside to collect ice lol?

You might incorrectly think they followed 'how to win friends and influence people' but that's beginner tier.

The best sales people never sell anything. They are only there to be a smile and react to those coming to them. They'll prefer to talk about anything but what they plan to sell.

  > it doesn’t matter what you’re selling—it matters how you make people feel. If you make them feel good, they’ll say yes. If you don’t, you could be selling a pill that reverses male-pattern baldness and makes you lose weight without exercise, and they’ll still turn you down flat.

The old adage is as true as ever. People do not remember what you did or what you said. People remember how you made them feel.

Telemarketing is mostly just sleazy upselling. And the _sleazy_ feeling is why most people avoid selling and salesmen, but it might just be sleazy from your perpsective.

The best salesman I ever met was peddling boat tour tickets. He wore the same suit and flip-flops every day, visibly messy, like he never heard about ironing even as a concept.

On a first look, you'd probably guess he was either a down on his luck businessman or a drunkard, but if you spent 5 minutes observing him sell, you'd think he fits the definition of a sleazy salesman.

Yet damn, that man could sell. Even the customers that ignored everyone would fall for his traps. He did this long enough that he recognised the type of customer almost immediately and could just "vibe shift" to their vibes.

From "Hey guys, you look hungry, have you had lunch yet?" to just "Hey, welcome!" - he'd slowly reel them in and either he'd hook them now, or redirect them to a restaurant/bar/shop he had an affiliate deal with and get some commission.

While none of the things he was peddling were bad, from the local perspective it felt like he was scamming these people and they were poor innocent tourists. But after a few talks with him, figured out it wasn't like that at all - his trick was he'd make them feel like they "know an insider", someone who can recommend them to good stuff and not "touristy" stuff.

And he would be that guy for them - he'd get them local wine, local honey, oils, meats, anything. He'd set them up a dinner or help them rent a car. He'd call up boat owners and get them private cruises. Basically, he'd be their "concierge". The boat tours were just a way to hook new customers in, and he'd both be getting a kickback from the owners and a tip from the customers. He'd basically be making everyone happy, making the tourists experience amazing and bringing a lot of money to small local businesses, while earning a nice comission in the process. Even tho I've later worked with everyone from door-to-dooor all the way to high ranking MAG7 salesbros, this one was the least sleazy of them all.

Unfortunately, the man was a heavy gambler, which would mean he'd lose all his money quite fast and be extra motivated to work again.

> it was technically illegal to skip my disclosures

It was illegal and the reason for that regulation is to prevent exactly what author was doing.

It's interesting how this phenomenon is completely nonexistent in Europe. On none of my EU phone numbers, in 15 years, i have ever received a telemarketing call apart from about 1-2 calls a year from phone company itself who usually tries to push some new tariff plan on me. Why?

Fantastic.

I’ve sold SaaS for three different companies.

B2B accounting, Procurement SaaS, and Senior living SaaS (niche, I know).

My only rule:

1. Have a good product.

> You thought that your success was a product of your gifts, but the success itself was a gift, a gift of randomness, of luck

This is important to remember, and also: those gifts themselves are yours due to luck. That’s why we call them “gifts”.

Random salesman movie association: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glengarry_Glen_Ross_(film)

When sales people post that picture of a saleperson with a round wheel and the "customers" too busy on the side of the road to switch from the square wheel as too justify something for themselves.

I found this to be relatively cynical. Not every type of salesperson is like the types explored in this article.

When I was in sales we were taught to disqualify prospects, precisely because we had to find those 5-10% for whom we could resolve business pain or provide value.

Most businesses don’t benefit from signing up customers bound to be unhappy. It costs money to sell to them in the first place. Typically your ideal customer profile (ICP) is going to be someone who is going to love your product and have a lot of money to spend on it with the need to buy a lot of it. We wouldn’t waste precious time trying to scam people who weren’t that.

So really I felt this article was mostly talking about the author’s lived experience of sleazy sales: telemarketers and panhandlers and inmates.

I think some of that philosophical exploration was extended much too far into societal changes like going from an agrarian to an industrial society.

The author seems to consider the role of sales to be like the great scam of modern society.

But the reality is, products that salespeople were selling like the cotton gin or the steam engine were absolutely things that buyers wanted and benefited from.

Another example was a friend of mine who worked for Apple retail. For some people retail is soul crushing, and you’d be correct to point out that many people are completely insufferable to deal with.

But the story I got from them was that, for the most part, selling at Apple (especially 10 years ago when their products were arguably more exciting) involved a lot of time spent with customers who were having a whole lot of fun buying stuff for themselves.

If only the author got to witness an elite salesperson selling things that people really like.

elites in sales are a myth. it's a manufactured playground.

at least 50 % of customers were primed out of any natural fuck.

( natural/organic meaning intrinsic or emerging desires that are not anchored in any psycho-social perception/manipulation, after the fact of a more or less evolved consciousness/awareness of self )

and a great amount of your customers was fake to make you fucking love your job and feel that success.

> elite salespeople

Syntax error.

I remember those days of four hour telemarketing shifts. And there was an older woman with a silky smooth voice where I worked too

This post is relevant for commoditised industries (e.g. insurance) where you aren't selling on value but on cost.

Great article, which reminded me of my brief flirting time with sales while I was in college and working retail jobs. Anyone who has worked retail probably knows there are the same level of sales involved, though its pretty low stakes. I'd sell extended warranties on laptops and other equipment at CompUSA. My manager on a few instances refused to let a laptop out the door without talking to the customer 3-4 different times, and sometimes they even relented. One time a large man began getting very angry with me for not selling him the laptop and looked like he was about to punch me in the face. Even though I was sometimes decent at it, I really hated how slimy it was for very measly commissions. I could see the appeal to some people, but I never wanted that to be my life. It was constantly stressful and demoralizing and at the end of the day you're just trying to extract more money from folks by whatever means necessary.

For folks praising their own SaaS salespeople or whatever, that's not really the type of person we're talking about here. And I daresay you probably just don't see that side of them because they know to hide it from non-sales folks.

It sounds like he’s talking about interviewing for swe jobs.

In a past life I sold Kirby vacuum cleaners.

You began your lead generation process by making cold calls, starting with your family and friends before expanding outward.

Securing an appointment with a potential customer allowed you to demonstrate the product directly in their home or office. A key part of the sales presentation in people’s homes involved vacuuming the customer’s mattress using a black cloth, secured with an elastic band, instead of the usual vacuum bag. As the demonstration progressed, the accumulated debris—dirt, dust, and dead skin—would inevitably overwhelm the elastic band, causing the black cloth to burst off and release a cloud of white dust into the air. This shocking and unpleasant visual often left customers both disgusted and embarrassed, making it easier to close the $800 vacuum cleaner sale.

Horrible business. Product was pretty good though.

This guy didn’t make an explicit comparison to tech in describing his scummy history in telemarketing and how it’s a clear expression of our cultural values…but it’s an easy one to make—ad slop, algorithmic feeds, deceptive product websites, etc. We’re really no different as an industry, are we?

This made me laugh:

> Firms working the lightning-rod grift sent effete dandies to sell farmers on lightning rods for their house, barn, even their outhouse and doghouse, with no money required upfront, but when it was time to collect payment, the salesman was replaced by two or three hulking roughnecks.

And this:

> The majority of the leads hung up in the first three seconds; others stayed on the phone only long enough to detail the sexual acts they’d performed on my mother the previous night.

Interesting line:

> Eventually, it clicked, and I learned one of the bedrock principles of salesmanship: Whether you’re peddling long distance over the phone, Bibles door to door, or your own political candidacy on live national TV, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling—it matters how you make people feel. If you make them feel good, they’ll say yes.

This really is a cynical take and is probably reinforcing how many view salespeople. "Oh I could be good at sales, but I have morals."

Sales isn't difficult. It's just telling people what you have that makes their lives better. The particulars matter - who are these people, what do you have, how it makes their lives better. Dodgy salespeople cheat on the latter two - they have an inferior product and try to convince others it does more than what it should. And then they double down on this skill of BS. The right way to do sales is to have a good product, figure out how to find leads that want it, and figure out how to best explain it.

In the early 90s, I had a job door to door selling in America. This was a 3 month holiday job post-uni, part of the BUNAC scheme.

We were selling aerial photos of people's neighbourhoods/streets. (This was pre-Google Earth and pre-web).

I was a crap salesperson, but was luckily enough to bump into the best one, another student called Owen. I got chatting to him at one of the periodic parties the company threw and he had this knack for acting (maybe it was genuine?) like he was hanging on your every word, and how you were the most interesting person he'd ever spoken to. This is 30 years ago and I still remember it.

"to working the graveyard shift at a 24-hour adult video store (fired for being “too horny”)"

I really don't think this is why he was fired.

Great piece..TLDR is this: 'Everything is luck'

Yup.

Things have to fall in place - even in the example of Nebraska lightning rod scam, people had to move out of sod houses to framed ones for the demand to be there. You are just a cog in the wheel. The economy, regulations, market fad or flavour of the month, competitor missteps, timing all these make "great salesmen".

Elite salespeople don't write articles like this for Slate, even when Slate meant something.

Oh my, please don't glorify bs-itters. They are time and patience thieves.

Tin Men.

A great film.

Amazing piece. Full of gems like this sentence:

It was the Y2K-adjacent midpoint between the door-to-door salesmen of the boomer era and the present-day dystopia of A.I.–enhanced robocalling — the last few years before American credulity (and disposable income) was decisively strip-mined by post–9/11 disillusionment, the emergence of the internet, an economy that seemed to lurch from crisis to crisis, and, well, petty cheats like me, the bedrock of this nation.

#1: An inmate who preaches "criminal wisdom" of questionable quality, like "want to know how to disable a burglar alarm with aluminum foil?"

#2: A telemarketing old lady with a "warm voice and metronomic cadence".

#3: An NYC beggar who "walks up to a table, falls to his knees, interlaces his hands as if in prayer, and begs, at the top of his lungs, Please please please, money, please I need a dollar!"

Trump is the best salesman in history.

I don't mean it as a compliment. But it is a fact.

There are no wages without sales.

That's honestly one of the best pieces of writing I've read in my life.

Can't recommend it enough.

Send it to all your friends. Everyone should read it.

Can someone summarize this insane wall of text?