this article feels clueless. The actual driver of sales esp in AI and enterprise tech in general has nothing to do with these academic theories
One of the ways you know if you're really practicing this is if you actively disqualify potential customers after the first call.
Not them disqualifying you, but you actively saying, "Hey, not sure we are the right solution for you. Seems like you're trying to achieve X, but we're really better fit if you're trying to achieve Y."
This is in lieu of trying to convince them that you're a good fit for X, or that they should actually really be wanting to achieve Y.
Quick disqualification is sort of a counter-intuitive idea for a lot of throughput maximizing engineers. Shouldn't we want to optimize every lead?
Perhaps, but I think the better frame is optimizing productive seller-minutes. And time spent on deals that should die (and probably will die, eventually) is definitely not optimized.
I believe (I have done very little sales, so mostly as a buyer) that while all three (buyer-pull, seller-push, Cialdini-style mentioned in a comment below) can work, the best result comes from buyer-pull when you have empathy for the customer.
You try to understand the needs of the buyer, and see if what you are selling aligns with those needs. This is needed for effective buyer-pull, because they might not understand what they really need, or how what you are offering might fulfill those needs.
Is there any data that you can share beyond anecdotal claims? For starters would love to see following
- Close-rate differences between push vs. pull strategies.
- Win rates for deals where urgency was “created” vs. “aligned with existing urgency.”
The article details the seller-push (i.e. bad) theory, but doesn't go very far with the buyer-pull - presumably this is where one would get value out of the coaching sessions offered at the bottom of the piece?
The dichotomy seems real but hard to actually do anything with if you're in sales. I've done some penny-ante sales work in my past life in what I would call buyer-pull situations. It's great! People find you and they want to spend money, so all you have to do is not discourage them.
But once you get past "I'm selling something so manifestly useful that people find me to pay me for it", it sure seems like the things you, the sales rep, have to do to get their dollars skew rapidly toward the "seller-push" side of things. What else works? Folks gotta know about you and they gotta know you can solve their problems, right?
Two background resources useful to know: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome-Driven_Innovation and Christensen's "Jobs to be Done" theory. 2. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/245472.Integrity_Selling... specifically, the taxonomy of customer types
my favourite theory of sales is that of the school of cialdini, which is basically treating the customer as something which can lead to money coming out of it if you supply the right verbal and visual stimulus.
Unironically demonic.
I hate sales people.
This blogpost describes sales strategy as obvious as it is annoying, just like described seller-push. Written in a fashion of trying to sell me something.
Just stop manipulating for a second, ok? But I guess the profession would not exist then.
Whether you like it or not, somebody selling keeps most of us in a job. Mostly I’m a software developer but I’m in a role now that requires selling. The simple truth is that most people need some kind of push to get them to make a decision. Whether that’s a needs based thing as described in “buyer-pull” or a couple of little harmless manipulations doesn’t really matter in the end. As long as the customer got what they wanted it’s mutually beneficial.
And bonus: you get to keep a job sheltered away from the grotty truth of how the money is made that funds your salary.
I see what you’re doing. Going after that anti-sales dollar. That’s a good market. Very smart.
There's no reason to put Physics in the title. There's zero Physics in the article.
It's about Buyer-Pull vs Seller-Push theories of sales.
Edit: The original title was "The Physics of Sales", now the HN title has been updated.
That's a more representative title, so let's use it instead. Thanks!
I’ve seen a few submissions have their titles changed in the last few months. I was led to believe that submissions should not deviate from the original title under any circumstance other than those described on the guidelines.
> Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.
Has this policy been relaxed recently? I never liked it as I find a lot of submissions can be unintentionally misleading when the original title is used.
In this case the title is misleading so the policy still applies
I had always read misleading to mean deceptive. That’s embarrassing.