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  3. Salesman - why don't they get it?

Salesman - why don't they get it?

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  • L Lost User

    Vark111 wrote:

    Sales - making pond scum everywhere

    Ever tried it? Ever tried selling? Easy is it? Be very gratefull there are people who CAN do it, a LOT better than you, who generate YOUR salary. Be a bit gratefull eh? We arent all made the same, cant all do the same jobs, but that doesnt make you a higher for, of life.

    ============================== Nothing to say.

    P Offline
    P Offline
    Peter Mulholland
    wrote on last edited by
    #15

    Oooo. touchy! If I was to guess that you work in sales, would I be wrong?

    Pete

    L 1 Reply Last reply
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    • L Lost User

      Vark111 wrote:

      Sales - making pond scum everywhere

      Ever tried it? Ever tried selling? Easy is it? Be very gratefull there are people who CAN do it, a LOT better than you, who generate YOUR salary. Be a bit gratefull eh? We arent all made the same, cant all do the same jobs, but that doesnt make you a higher for, of life.

      ============================== Nothing to say.

      V Offline
      V Offline
      Vark111
      wrote on last edited by
      #16

      In fact I have. Wasn't the greatest at it, but could hold my own. Decided to leave after a while because to be honest, I'm not a "people person" and that's a fairly big requirement to be a spectacular sales person. I have the utmost respect for my sales-oriented brethren, but if they try to sell something that doesn't exist I will call them pond scum to their face and they accept it with a smile while calling me nerd back to my face. It's called friendly banter. Maybe you should try it someday with one of your friends.

      L 1 Reply Last reply
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      • D daleofcourse

        Our company has been working on a system that provides a web front end to databases held on our server that's accessible over the internet, we've used it successfully internally and now the sales guys are trying to sell it to external clients and today's big buzzword is "Cloud Computing". It's not cloud computing, it doesn't run in a cloud, we don't offer cloud services, it doesn't even look like a cloud, yet because it's accessible via the web the sales guy keeps sending me select definitions of cloud computing that our system tenuously falls into; no matter what I say he's dead set on selling it as a cloud computing service/platform. :doh: Anyone else had a product that their sales dept completely got the wrong end of the stick with???

        P Offline
        P Offline
        peterchen
        wrote on last edited by
        #17

        As long as he sells it, he could sell it as omnipotent multidimensional ashtray from Betelgeutse 3. Only if he sells functionality that isn't in that ashtray you can be pissed. Just make sure you have solid specs that state what you do, and what are the limits, and make sure the customer buys based on the spec, not on the cloud your sales guy produces. --- One might ask, of course, whether adding buzzwords will increase sales.

        FILETIME to time_t
        | FoldWithUs! | sighist | WhoIncludes - Analyzing C++ include file hierarchy

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        • A Anthony Mushrow

          I suppose you don't like it when people say similar things about lawyers. These things are said in jest you know, there's no need to get all uppity about it.

          -SK Genius

          Vehicle Simulation Demo - New and Improved!

          L Offline
          L Offline
          Lost User
          wrote on last edited by
          #18

          SK Genius wrote:

          These things are said in jest you know

          I dont see a joke icon, a smily face. I just see developers thinking they are better than sales people.

          ============================== Nothing to say.

          1 Reply Last reply
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          • P Peter Mulholland

            Oooo. touchy! If I was to guess that you work in sales, would I be wrong?

            Pete

            L Offline
            L Offline
            Lost User
            wrote on last edited by
            #19

            Yeah, a mile out. I am a Windows kernel dev, therefore even more superior to you normal devs. :) I just respect everyones ability and contribution to a firm. As a dev I will bend over backwards to get any fancy feature they want in the product, no fights, no problem, because it makes it sell better and makes us all more money.

            ============================== Nothing to say.

            P 1 Reply Last reply
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            • A Anthony Mushrow

              I suppose you don't like it when people say similar things about lawyers. These things are said in jest you know, there's no need to get all uppity about it.

              -SK Genius

              Vehicle Simulation Demo - New and Improved!

              C Offline
              C Offline
              Chris Meech
              wrote on last edited by
              #20

              SK Genius wrote:

              These things are said in jest you know, there's no need to get all uppity start acting like a troll about it.

              FTFY. :)

              Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra] posting about Crystal Reports here is like discussing gay marriage on a catholic church’s website.[Nishant Sivakumar]

              L 1 Reply Last reply
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              • V Vark111

                In fact I have. Wasn't the greatest at it, but could hold my own. Decided to leave after a while because to be honest, I'm not a "people person" and that's a fairly big requirement to be a spectacular sales person. I have the utmost respect for my sales-oriented brethren, but if they try to sell something that doesn't exist I will call them pond scum to their face and they accept it with a smile while calling me nerd back to my face. It's called friendly banter. Maybe you should try it someday with one of your friends.

                L Offline
                L Offline
                Lost User
                wrote on last edited by
                #21

                OK. Well said. You meant it in jest. Perhaps making it a little more obvious next time might help. :) Oh, and dont worry about friendly banter with mates, us British invented it! :)

                ============================== Nothing to say.

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                • N Nagy Vilmos

                  0. Buy a baseball bat. 1. Hit the salesman with the baseball bat. 2. If salesman not dead, repeat #1. It is the only accepted way to deal with sales.


                  Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done. Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett

                  J Offline
                  J Offline
                  Jim Crafton
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #22

                  Nagy Vilmos wrote:

                  It is the only accepted way to deal with sales.

                  Naw, sales are OK. You need sales. It's the salesmen that are the PITA! :)

                  ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow

                  1 Reply Last reply
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                  • P peterchen

                    As long as he sells it, he could sell it as omnipotent multidimensional ashtray from Betelgeutse 3. Only if he sells functionality that isn't in that ashtray you can be pissed. Just make sure you have solid specs that state what you do, and what are the limits, and make sure the customer buys based on the spec, not on the cloud your sales guy produces. --- One might ask, of course, whether adding buzzwords will increase sales.

                    FILETIME to time_t
                    | FoldWithUs! | sighist | WhoIncludes - Analyzing C++ include file hierarchy

                    J Offline
                    J Offline
                    Jim Crafton
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #23

                    peterchen wrote:

                    omnipotent multidimensional ashtray from Betelgeutse 3.

                    Damnit you weren't supposed to tell! Didn't you have to sign the NDA in return for bypassing the anal-probe? Shushh! :rolleyes:

                    ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow

                    N 1 Reply Last reply
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                    • J Jim Crafton

                      peterchen wrote:

                      omnipotent multidimensional ashtray from Betelgeutse 3.

                      Damnit you weren't supposed to tell! Didn't you have to sign the NDA in return for bypassing the anal-probe? Shushh! :rolleyes:

                      ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow

                      N Offline
                      N Offline
                      Nagy Vilmos
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #24

                      Maybe Peter didn't want to bypass the probe...


                      Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done. Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett

                      1 Reply Last reply
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                      • C Chris Losinger

                        salesmen aren't in the business of enforcing pedantic definitions of obscure tech; they're in the business of getting people to hand them cash: by whatever means necessary.

                        image processing toolkits | batch image processing

                        V Offline
                        V Offline
                        Vark111
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #25

                        I disagree to a certain extent. Selling something as a "cloud service" has the implication that it can be 1) scaled on demand and 2) for relatively low infrastructure investment per unit of scaling. A simple DB available over the web satisfies neither one of those basic "cloud service" implications.

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • L Lost User

                          Yeah, a mile out. I am a Windows kernel dev, therefore even more superior to you normal devs. :) I just respect everyones ability and contribution to a firm. As a dev I will bend over backwards to get any fancy feature they want in the product, no fights, no problem, because it makes it sell better and makes us all more money.

                          ============================== Nothing to say.

                          P Offline
                          P Offline
                          Peter Mulholland
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #26

                          Yeah right! I'm sitting here picturing new Fancy Features being added to the windows kernel without any fights, no problem because a sales guy asks for it. ROTF:laugh: [edit]Countered the 1 vote, cause I don't think it was deserved[/edit]

                          Pete

                          L 1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • C Chris Meech

                            SK Genius wrote:

                            These things are said in jest you know, there's no need to get all uppity start acting like a troll about it.

                            FTFY. :)

                            Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra] posting about Crystal Reports here is like discussing gay marriage on a catholic church’s website.[Nishant Sivakumar]

                            L Offline
                            L Offline
                            Lost User
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #27

                            Get real, you think I would post that just for a reaction? I actually meant it you know.

                            ============================== Nothing to say.

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • N Nagy Vilmos

                              0. Buy a baseball bat. 1. Hit the salesman with the baseball bat. 2. If salesman not dead, repeat #1. It is the only accepted way to deal with sales.


                              Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done. Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett

                              T Offline
                              T Offline
                              thrakazog
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #28

                              I'd add step 0.5: Tell salesman the bat is part of cloud computing.

                              L 1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • P Peter Mulholland

                                Yeah right! I'm sitting here picturing new Fancy Features being added to the windows kernel without any fights, no problem because a sales guy asks for it. ROTF:laugh: [edit]Countered the 1 vote, cause I don't think it was deserved[/edit]

                                Pete

                                L Offline
                                L Offline
                                Lost User
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #29

                                Peter Mulholland wrote:

                                Yeah right! I'm sitting here picturing new Fancy Features being added to the windows kernel without any fights, no problem because a sales guy asks for it. ROTF:laugh:

                                It happens. You would not ve surprised at the subtlety and pwer you can put into kernel code. :)

                                ============================== Nothing to say.

                                1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • D daleofcourse

                                  Our company has been working on a system that provides a web front end to databases held on our server that's accessible over the internet, we've used it successfully internally and now the sales guys are trying to sell it to external clients and today's big buzzword is "Cloud Computing". It's not cloud computing, it doesn't run in a cloud, we don't offer cloud services, it doesn't even look like a cloud, yet because it's accessible via the web the sales guy keeps sending me select definitions of cloud computing that our system tenuously falls into; no matter what I say he's dead set on selling it as a cloud computing service/platform. :doh: Anyone else had a product that their sales dept completely got the wrong end of the stick with???

                                  M Offline
                                  M Offline
                                  Matt Gullett
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #30

                                  I'm going to have to disagree here. Cloud computing means something specific to us tech types, but in reality means something quite different to consumers and users. Apple positioned "the cloud" in a way consumers understand - "get my stuff wherever I am". We tech types try to wrap specific implementations around the term and that just isn't what "cloud computing" is all about. If the product provides a web front end, to a consumer, that could easily be considered "working in the cloud". The reality is that most web apps qualify as cloud computing systems from a consumer perspective. Whether or not the back end is distributed across N data centers and dynamically allocates system resources, etc. consumers don't care. Within the tech community, the term means one thing. Outside of our little universe, it means something else. If it enables a company to make a sale because the buzz word catches the clients/consumers attention - more power to it. The real hope for cloud computing may not be realized by your implementation, but in truth, that would be impossible with any cloud computing platform today. Consumers and clients are more and more treating the concept of the cloud as meaning ubiquitous access - PC, SmartPhone, tablet, direct brain access without risk of loss or theft. There really is no system that can meet that ideal.

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                                  0
                                  • M Matt Gullett

                                    I'm going to have to disagree here. Cloud computing means something specific to us tech types, but in reality means something quite different to consumers and users. Apple positioned "the cloud" in a way consumers understand - "get my stuff wherever I am". We tech types try to wrap specific implementations around the term and that just isn't what "cloud computing" is all about. If the product provides a web front end, to a consumer, that could easily be considered "working in the cloud". The reality is that most web apps qualify as cloud computing systems from a consumer perspective. Whether or not the back end is distributed across N data centers and dynamically allocates system resources, etc. consumers don't care. Within the tech community, the term means one thing. Outside of our little universe, it means something else. If it enables a company to make a sale because the buzz word catches the clients/consumers attention - more power to it. The real hope for cloud computing may not be realized by your implementation, but in truth, that would be impossible with any cloud computing platform today. Consumers and clients are more and more treating the concept of the cloud as meaning ubiquitous access - PC, SmartPhone, tablet, direct brain access without risk of loss or theft. There really is no system that can meet that ideal.

                                    C Offline
                                    C Offline
                                    Chris Meech
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #31

                                    Matt Gullett wrote:

                                    the concept of the cloud as meaning ubiquitous access - PC, SmartPhone, tablet, direct brain access without risk of loss or theft. There really is no system that can meet that ideal.

                                    Reminds me of "reusable software", "write once, run everywhere", etc. Sometimes true and sometimes not so true. :)

                                    Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra] posting about Crystal Reports here is like discussing gay marriage on a catholic church’s website.[Nishant Sivakumar]

                                    1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • M Matt Gullett

                                      I'm going to have to disagree here. Cloud computing means something specific to us tech types, but in reality means something quite different to consumers and users. Apple positioned "the cloud" in a way consumers understand - "get my stuff wherever I am". We tech types try to wrap specific implementations around the term and that just isn't what "cloud computing" is all about. If the product provides a web front end, to a consumer, that could easily be considered "working in the cloud". The reality is that most web apps qualify as cloud computing systems from a consumer perspective. Whether or not the back end is distributed across N data centers and dynamically allocates system resources, etc. consumers don't care. Within the tech community, the term means one thing. Outside of our little universe, it means something else. If it enables a company to make a sale because the buzz word catches the clients/consumers attention - more power to it. The real hope for cloud computing may not be realized by your implementation, but in truth, that would be impossible with any cloud computing platform today. Consumers and clients are more and more treating the concept of the cloud as meaning ubiquitous access - PC, SmartPhone, tablet, direct brain access without risk of loss or theft. There really is no system that can meet that ideal.

                                      D Offline
                                      D Offline
                                      daleofcourse
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #32

                                      I think you're right in this case, though it does feel like a generic term that's being abused; I'm trying to think of other tech terms that have become mainstream and gone on to mean something different from what they originally described, I'm sure there's a few.

                                      D 1 Reply Last reply
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                                      • D daleofcourse

                                        I think you're right in this case, though it does feel like a generic term that's being abused; I'm trying to think of other tech terms that have become mainstream and gone on to mean something different from what they originally described, I'm sure there's a few.

                                        D Offline
                                        D Offline
                                        Dan Neely
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #33

                                        It's not a tech term, although many techies would dance for joy if it happened to certain unnamed companies repeatedly, but the mass moron meaning of decimate is roughly the opposite of the latin meaning.

                                        Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius

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                                        • T thrakazog

                                          I'd add step 0.5: Tell salesman the bat is part of cloud computing.

                                          L Offline
                                          L Offline
                                          Lost User
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #34

                                          thrakazog wrote:

                                          Tell salesman the bat is part of cloud computing.

                                          Odly you just reminded me of the scene from Big Lebowski with John Goodman smashing up a nice sporty car screaming "This is what happens when you [NOT KSS] a stranger in the [NOT KSS]!"

                                          Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.

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