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Why is sales as a profession so looked down upon?
- Thread starter Deleted member 17092
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Seems like your company's GoTo Market strategy is rather streamlined. Your CEO is the salesperson in this case. This is not uncommon either.
Your OP made it sound like you don't like it, and followup replies sound like you really don't like it and just do it for the money.
OP
OP
I work a solid 40, why is it a problem that a solid chunk of that is crafting emails?
Basically this thread is an illumination of the problem I'm talking about.
OP
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OP
User Banned (3 Days): Hostility.
Yeah, basically y'all are a bunch of lying cunts.
Salespeople remind our primal selves that we are yoke to a capitalist system that we can never escape, and thus we rage against them as a representative of all that is wrong with the modern age.
Well, sorta. You gotta do what you gotta do, so don't worry about it too much.
Edit: I actually do think there's some truth to this hypothesis, but I mean, unpacking it would take a lot of work so....
I kid, I kid
Edit: I actually do think there's some truth to this hypothesis, but I mean, unpacking it would take a lot of work so....
OP
OP
As someone who has had to provide a product that a sales person has promised, I hate sales people at my company for takingt out of their asses and promising things that can't be delivered. And because sales folks are viewed as revenue generators instead of fuck-ups, the delivery team receives the verbal abuse for a botched execution instead of the sales prick who promised something that wasn't possible.
Problem was that sales people were sold to us like they're a product not a nice group of buddies
OP
OP
It's basically this--and it's a problem that can be run into with essentially any level of salesperson. At one company I worked for, a massive contract was signed adding a major high-profile customer and a whole mess of very profitable looking work orders. The salesperson responsible received a healthy bonus, congratulations by name at a company-wide meeting, etc.
Flash forward two years, and the poor saps responsible for trying to build what was included in the contract were a year into constant panic mode as the contract was selling a combination of nonsensical things, things that didn't function as described, and software that was supposed to work in oddly-defined ways. The implementation and development staff were miserable. The salesperson had long since transferred to another company, having been able to cite landing this client as a major accomplishment. As I found out later, it ultimately turned into an expensive money-sink for the company and the customer immediately pivoted from their long implementation on our software to an implementation process heading out.
Another company I worked for had the CEO as the chief salesperson. He loved to go out and sell customers on exciting new products.
He didn't love to tell people he'd done it. We occasionally got customers asking us when in the next two weeks we could install a module he'd promised three months ago, only to find he'd neglected to tell anyone about it and thus it never existed.
No job is judged by their best examples; it's always a combination of the general thrust of the work (in this case convincing people they want to spend money on a thing they might not have otherwise) and the average person's experience. There are a lot of ways to have a bad experience with a salesperson, and a decent number of those end up ruining somebody else's day, not theirs; it doesn't mean I'm calling for their heads or anything but it's unsurprising the overall view is on the negative side of neutral.
Do you guys have sales engineers? Usually sales engineers are there to reel in the sales folks from overpromising. Doesn't always happen!
The pressure to close business is very high.
I actually had both of guys combined together as my old company provided software for Pharma companies. Rule number one was always: Yes, the product can do that.
Didn't half make the design stage interesting.
And at the OP: I've met some interesting sales people, I'll ditto what's been said already but although they're pleasant enough to be around for a chat, they don't have the type of personality I'd really choose to hang around with as personal friends.
My dad's the Director of Sales for a pretty decently sized company in a big industry. I love my dad, but if he wasn't my dad, and I had to deal with his 'work persona' all the time, I'd probably hate his fucking guts to be honest.
I also know others in sales, and my boss seems more like a salesman than what his actual job is.
Basically, I think people look down on them because they tend to be disingenuous, habitual liars who think they are slicker than every motherfucker in the room, but really, they are easy as hell to see through and that especially pisses them off (because their whole purpose is to try and be as opaque as they can be).
This is all speaking anecdotally of course. And personally, from a non-professional, individual perspective, I don't want to be "sold to", I want to do my own independent research and go in having the leverage of knowledge in my court. Not the court of the guy trying to peddle me something that I may-or-may not want or need.
I also know others in sales, and my boss seems more like a salesman than what his actual job is.
Basically, I think people look down on them because they tend to be disingenuous, habitual liars who think they are slicker than every motherfucker in the room, but really, they are easy as hell to see through and that especially pisses them off (because their whole purpose is to try and be as opaque as they can be).
This is all speaking anecdotally of course. And personally, from a non-professional, individual perspective, I don't want to be "sold to", I want to do my own independent research and go in having the leverage of knowledge in my court. Not the court of the guy trying to peddle me something that I may-or-may not want or need.
To clarify, I wasn't saying or implying that startups don't do any selling. What you're talking about are Product people that are selling a product, not a Sales team selling a product. There's significant differences between the two even though their goals are similar. You wouldn't hire a Sales person over someone that worked on the product first and could help sell second, which is the point I was making.
The salespeople I do analytics for are great people and I have no qualms about them as people. But when I was in college I was a department store appliance salesman. Getting rejected, the ridiculous competition for customers, and the uncertainty of your paycheck really sucked. I would never go back.
I'm an internal sales manager and my entire job is wrangling salespeople. I love (almost) all my salespeople and their job is super rough.
That said, the environment and nature of sales is toxic as fuck. It's my job to keep them from selling anything their brains can come up with to keep the other departments from dying. They're good people, it's just that it's the nature of sales to over-pitch. They celebrate big wins because it means commission for them, but for everyone else it just means more work at the same salary. I don't blame any of em, at all, but understand that the angst from other departments is pretty justified, even if, yes, sales people are bringing in the sales the company needs to pay their paycheck.
The best salespeople are super aware of the product, its limitations, and what the team is capable of doing. Those are the ones that are well liked by the other departments.
That said, the environment and nature of sales is toxic as fuck. It's my job to keep them from selling anything their brains can come up with to keep the other departments from dying. They're good people, it's just that it's the nature of sales to over-pitch. They celebrate big wins because it means commission for them, but for everyone else it just means more work at the same salary. I don't blame any of em, at all, but understand that the angst from other departments is pretty justified, even if, yes, sales people are bringing in the sales the company needs to pay their paycheck.
The best salespeople are super aware of the product, its limitations, and what the team is capable of doing. Those are the ones that are well liked by the other departments.
You asked and Era answered. They're not exactly unreasonable answers. If you want to justify your job to people you're going to have to try harder than "I write lots of emails and make lots of money" or "I'm the one responsible for your paychecks". Many people in this thread have addressed your questions with first-hand personal experiences that sound perfectly reasonable. Perhaps you'd like to respond to those directly instead of getting defensive and calling everyone lying cunts(?).
And maybe if you'd started off the thread with something like "I play one critical role in making the company money" rather than your "You all have paychecks because of my 100 emails a day", people would have sympathized a little more with you.
Era is just making threads based on ETL positions available at Target
waiting for the ones on Asset Protection, Logistics, and Guest Experience
waiting for the ones on Asset Protection, Logistics, and Guest Experience
you are a good person OP, regardless of what some burn posts here say; your posts here and at the Old Place show that.
it requires a certain mentality and personality to be good at it; some people just aren't cut out for it, people like me. generally the pushier or more aggressive a salesperson is, the faster i run away and stop giving that place my business.
i'm glad you excel at something you enjoy, not everyone can say that.
it requires a certain mentality and personality to be good at it; some people just aren't cut out for it, people like me. generally the pushier or more aggressive a salesperson is, the faster i run away and stop giving that place my business.
i'm glad you excel at something you enjoy, not everyone can say that.
Sales is actually changing a lot. Mostly due to the internet.
Before the internet, salespeople had information asymmetry. They knew the prices, features, and so on. Now buyers can do their research.
Biggest area affected is car sales. You can know get prices on used cars very easy. It's why services like CarMax can compete with traditional salespeople.
Sales today is more about a consultative process.
Basically. That's why I described that part. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense not having a sales department and how we make money. But my point was that they aren't necessary and sales doesn't pay our salary. Our product sells itself, and its obvious what business they are designed for because we create it with the "sale" in mind ab initio. The CEO just has to make sure they know about it, and it's not even a "sales pitch".
It's not the emails. They are joking that my job is BS because I'm not rolling out emails like you. I think you are just coming off as arrogant, saying your profession pays others' salaries when it's really not true. It can be true, especially in cars (not Tesla though), but I would argue sales is useless in many fields and marketing can be a powerful profit driver, like in tech.
I just mean the way you describe your work, you make it sound like it's hard, in which case it's not fun. Idk, I associate that kind of attitude with shitty work like if I have to do busy-work I will complain about how tough it is. The parts of work I enjoy, like I said, are just my hobby and I do it for free for myself so it's funny I get paid for it.
I hear you OP. I only work to make money and I might as well make as much as I can. Sales is the only job I'm qualified for where I can work a decent amount of hours and make that kind of money. I sold new construction homes for the last 4 years, for a company that's notorious for being on the lower end of the pay scale. Yet, I made almost 4 times the money I made as a branch manager for a top 10 bank managing 2 locations. The two branches I managed were both open on weekends, short staffed, and only closed 4 days per year. I wasn't allowed to give overtime, so I was at one branch or the other 7 days a week for at least 3 weeks per month, and working 5 or 6 days on the off week.
I'll take having no employees, no management headache, way better hours, and almost quadruple the pay any day of the week. If someone wants to look down on me, or someone that knows what I used to do is embarrassed for me, that's their problem.
My family doesn't want for anything, I actually get to spend time with my kids, and I don't have to wear a tie to work.
I'll take having no employees, no management headache, way better hours, and almost quadruple the pay any day of the week. If someone wants to look down on me, or someone that knows what I used to do is embarrassed for me, that's their problem.
My family doesn't want for anything, I actually get to spend time with my kids, and I don't have to wear a tie to work.
"Why does everyone think I'm horrible?" asked the horrible person, horribly.
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Fuck you with this drive by nonsense.
I'm bailing on this thread as it's filled with bullshit non-civil examples of why I made the thread in the first place.
The emails themselves are the process, but him closing 2 million dollars per year is hella impressive. Not many salespeople can say that.
His OP may have comes off as braggy, but his sentiment is correct. Salespeople do have a poor reputation societally compared to their importance overall as a business unit.
Oh I get that. But I still believe that these positions attract a certain kind of personality, just like things like doctors and lawyers. And speaking from personal experience, those personalities have tended to be amorphous personalities/chameleons, 'story-telling' habitual liars and they tend to think very highly of themselves.
These traits aren't very admirable for me personally.
It's weird as fuck, because I know my dad is a pretty big, pretty important figure in his company. But then I see him at home and I know how he really is, and everytime I hear him in his "work persona" it's always so jarring. It makes me laugh nowadays, but when I was younger I didn't really understand it.
yeah and I tried to say firstly that it's because the types of salespeople that the general population are exposed to are the worst kind; cars, insurance, telemarketing, and their cable provider.
Each has different issues that are distasteful. But there are many high level sales-positions that are not shady/intrusive/annoying and people are not really exposed to that. One post brought up pharma sales, which are probably the highest paid sales positions, and they aren't assholes really, I mean they don't lie or stretch any info to close sales - but it's a stereotype that the people going into those roles are your D-bag football stars from HS lol.
All your replies are overly aggressive and off putting. Seeing other people on both sides explain their points in a well reasoned manner and then there's you. Maybe you should take some lessons from the master salesmen I look up to ...megachurch pastors.
Honestly, try a hell of a lot less arrogance and dismissal of other people's contributions next time.
Now this is how you put it without being insulting. You should work in sales ;p
Sales is the sort of profession that only exists as a symptom of capitalism. It's people being paid money to lubricate movement of capital. Salespeople don't produce anything or contribute anything to society, they just grease the wheels.
Salespeople, investors, lobbyists, those house flipper people. "Money first" types. They're all part of that big category of people that I just find fundamentally untrustworthy.
Salespeople, investors, lobbyists, those house flipper people. "Money first" types. They're all part of that big category of people that I just find fundamentally untrustworthy.
I gotta say mate.
Your sales pitch suck.
Your product must sell itself or you'd be starving.
Yes, but my job is rather broad. I'm not inside sales like the OP. I grow existing accounts, so less prospecting. Prospecting means getting leads in our business. My leads are my clients, which I already know.
This is incorrect. Commerce has been around way before capitalism. Merchants and trade is not something new to capitalism.
This. There is a reason sales people are synonymous with "the people who bullshit you and make the sale"
It is what it is, its a dirty job and OP does it. lol
I wouldn't go this far since wheel grease is important. Just not "without me there is no cart" important
To be honest, I think a lot of people in health care do actually think Pharma Reps are super assholes... Like, think about it. As Doc's, it's super nice when you get that all expenses paid conference invite but it's also a very ethically grey area... and Pham reps are always playing in that field.
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