Yes, many sales people or even whole sales teams are effectively dead weight, but a highly-skilled sales team is a godsend both to the company and the economy.
We should all be wishing for more effective sales teams — the world would be a better place.
Most people have never experienced a good sales team, so I’m guessing this sounds like total fiction.
how are they required at all? why can't a company publish its products and services on its website and customers can take it or leave it? why do we need commission-paid schmoozers in-between, who make multiples of what rank-and-file workers earn? The workers create value, and are paid the least. That's the definition of perversion.
I’m going to take your comments at face value. I encourage you to find a good salesperson and shadow them for a day or two.
> why can't a company publish its products and services on its website and customers can take it or leave it?
Do you assume most people actually read product info? If they do, so you assume they understand it? The answer to both of those is a resounding “no” (especially in areas that change rapidly like tech and medicine), even if it doesn’t apply to you. For some potential customers this is due to lack of time, and for others it’s simply lack of ability.
A good sales person is finding and connecting their product or service with customers who will find value with their product or service. “Build a better mouse trap, and the world will beat a path to your door” has largely been shown to be untrue.
> why do we need commission-paid schmoozers in-between, who make multiples of what rank-and-file workers earn?
There is a lot to unpack here.
Commission-based pay can be debated, but I assure you that any system that yielded better results consistently would become the new standard fairly quickly. It is what it is.
The amount sales people earn is generally based on two things — their relative value to the company and the market for sales people. Losing one key salesperson to a competitor can mean the end of a lot of small businesses.
The “schmoozer” comment can simply be addressed by saying that some people are more likely to pay for a product or service from someone they know or like. This might be a rational criterion in some cases, irrational in others, but it’s very real.
> The workers create value, and are paid the least.
Workers do create some value for sure. Matchmaking the customer to the product or service also has value. You may not personally believe that, but the market seems to.
The relative amounts of pay are largely market driven, imho.
> Sales
Yes, many sales people or even whole sales teams are effectively dead weight, but a highly-skilled sales team is a godsend both to the company and the economy.
We should all be wishing for more effective sales teams — the world would be a better place.
Most people have never experienced a good sales team, so I’m guessing this sounds like total fiction.
how are they required at all? why can't a company publish its products and services on its website and customers can take it or leave it? why do we need commission-paid schmoozers in-between, who make multiples of what rank-and-file workers earn? The workers create value, and are paid the least. That's the definition of perversion.
> how are they required at all?
I’m going to take your comments at face value. I encourage you to find a good salesperson and shadow them for a day or two.
> why can't a company publish its products and services on its website and customers can take it or leave it?
Do you assume most people actually read product info? If they do, so you assume they understand it? The answer to both of those is a resounding “no” (especially in areas that change rapidly like tech and medicine), even if it doesn’t apply to you. For some potential customers this is due to lack of time, and for others it’s simply lack of ability.
A good sales person is finding and connecting their product or service with customers who will find value with their product or service. “Build a better mouse trap, and the world will beat a path to your door” has largely been shown to be untrue.
> why do we need commission-paid schmoozers in-between, who make multiples of what rank-and-file workers earn?
There is a lot to unpack here.
Commission-based pay can be debated, but I assure you that any system that yielded better results consistently would become the new standard fairly quickly. It is what it is.
The amount sales people earn is generally based on two things — their relative value to the company and the market for sales people. Losing one key salesperson to a competitor can mean the end of a lot of small businesses.
The “schmoozer” comment can simply be addressed by saying that some people are more likely to pay for a product or service from someone they know or like. This might be a rational criterion in some cases, irrational in others, but it’s very real.
> The workers create value, and are paid the least.
Workers do create some value for sure. Matchmaking the customer to the product or service also has value. You may not personally believe that, but the market seems to.
The relative amounts of pay are largely market driven, imho.
1 reply →