What Are You Doing Right Now
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@scottalanmiller said:
Right. I pay him to do work and give advice. I don't buy products from him. He can try to sell me more of his own services, yes. But that is the extent of it. He's a consultant.
I just let him install whatever part he needs.
Most of the time he charges less than I'd get it for at Home Depot anyway.
Maybe I am too trusting. But dangit when you need a toilet fixed...
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@BRRABill said:
You yourself said CDW was trustworthy. So if I feel they give me good advice (I NEVER rely on them to do the research fully) and their price is similar to other places, why wouldn't I use them?
Trustworthy to do what they are supposed to do - which is NOT something you want them to do to you. You can trust them to provide a reasonable option that is to their advantage to sell that they think you can be convinced to buy. That is their job and you can trust them to do it.
The problem is that trusting them MEANS that you can't trust their advice. You'd have to NOT trust them to be able to trust their advice. Does that make sense? that they are trustworthy is exactly why you can't get advice from them.
That their prices are similar doesn't matter. Did you need to buy the thing in the first place? that's the question.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Right. I pay him to do work and give advice. I don't buy products from him. He can try to sell me more of his own services, yes. But that is the extent of it. He's a consultant.
I just let him install whatever part he needs.
Most of the time he charges less than I'd get it for at Home Depot anyway.
Maybe I am too trusting. But dangit when you need a toilet fixed...
It it is a screw or caulk or something, whatever. But the critical thing there is that he is a consultant, his income comes from the agreement whereby you pay him to be your "representative", he acts on your behalf. If he does sell things, they are likely very small, very obviously needed and very, very trivial compared to his pay. He is in no meaningful way incentivized by their sale.
A salesman is NOT paid by you but is paid purely through taking advantage of you. They are not your representatives but the vendor's representatives. if they do the right thing "for you" they cannot be trustworthy because they are misrepresenting the party to which they are responsible.
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I'm the lone IT. When it comes to purchasing decision (servers, switches, access points) I just ask our vendor, and whatever he sends me, I learn to manipulate it and use it.
I don't consider it lazy, just utilizing the resources available.
Omg.........
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Have you bought a house and dealt with real estate agents? Each side gets a rep. They are called a buyer's agent and a seller's agent. They play different roles, each one has to, by law, do what is best for their client. If they do not it is a breach of contract.
The IT Pro is the buyer's agent for the business. The salesman is the seller's rep for the vendor. They each have a job to do. If you try to get the seller's rep to act on your behalf you are pressuring them to do something unethical and if they do it, you can't trust them because they would be acting unethically.
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So there are no sales people you think are not trying to "take advantage of you"?
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@johnhooks said:
I'm the lone IT. When it comes to purchasing decision (servers, switches, access points) I just ask our vendor, and whatever he sends me, I learn to manipulate it and use it.
I don't consider it lazy, just utilizing the resources available.
Omg.........
I didn't see that one. Holy cow that is bad. I can't believe that anyone in that thread would be willing to post these opinions publicly. These are "asking to be fired" attitudes. If their businesses knew that they thought this way..... damn.
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My "don't believe the vendor hype" post on the above mentioned thread got no love... bunch of lazy sumbiches. Not to mention "easily led automatons"...
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Now an InFocus sales guy has popped in.
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@BRRABill In my experience, yes, every sales person (particularly ones that work on commission) is trying to take advantage of you.
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@brianlittlejohn said:
@BRRABill In my experience, yes, every sales person (particularly ones that work on commission) is trying to take advantage of you.
I've been lucky to know some nice ones, across all areas.
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@scottalanmiller said:
They play different roles, each one has to, by law, do what is best for their client. If they do not it is a breach of contract.
Fiduciary responsibilities are really serious. I don't think some people get how serious they are. Like, go to court and sue serious.
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@brianlittlejohn said:
@BRRABill In my experience, yes, every sales person (particularly ones that work on commission) is trying to take advantage of you.
Well that is all that they are paid to do so....
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@johnhooks said:
@scottalanmiller said:
They play different roles, each one has to, by law, do what is best for their client. If they do not it is a breach of contract.
Fiduciary responsibilities are really serious. I don't think some people get how serious they are. Like, go to court and sue serious.
Exactly. The expectations that people put on sales people are actually often quite unethical.
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@BRRABill said:
@brianlittlejohn said:
@BRRABill In my experience, yes, every sales person (particularly ones that work on commission) is trying to take advantage of you.
I've been lucky to know some nice ones, across all areas.
Has nothing to do with nice. Remember that the nicest, best, most trustworthy, most ethical sales person is the one that will oversell you the most. Because that is their job.
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@BRRABill having done sales, I can tell you that 1) SAM is correct in his assesment that sales' job is to screw you over as much as possible, and 2) your "good" experiences with sales dicks were the result of you enjoying whatever line they fed you. "Nice" and "honest" are 2 very different things. I no longer do sales because of the crushing toll it took on my morals, and the irreparable damage done to my karma. You may have left a sales interaction with me smiling, but I f*cked you on the sale without a doubt.
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I use vendor's all the time to do the footwork. In the end, if they get greedy with markup, I finish the project, but a lot of times if they can do the research and come in under popular sites like Amazon or Newegg, I buy from them. Your CEO doesn't understand anything but $$$.
That's what he's supposed to understand? The first 2 sentences are about saving money (getting it where it's cheaper) and then he bashes the CEO for being concerned about money?
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@RojoLoco That is exactly why I hate buying a car... It doesn't matter what I end up paying for it, I always feel screwed.
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@brianlittlejohn if I had been selling cars, I would have a much larger balance of evil on my soul. I just sold pro audio.
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@RojoLoco I used to install pro audio, I have first hand experience with AV sales people.
