The Motivations of Sales
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So the example I would like explanation for is ... you are a one man computer consultancy. You set up network and servers for people. While at a client, you notice one of their hard drives is failing, and you recommend they replace it.
Are you a salesman, since you stand to benefit?
Are you unethical?
Should you not be trusted?
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
Are you a salesman, since you stand to benefit?
Are you the one doing the replacement? Normally the customer would just replace it. but if you are selling time for you to do the replacement, then sure, you are always a salesman of your services.
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
Are you unethical?
There is nothing unethical about sales. How does this question ever come up? I'm so confused where people find the idea that there is even a chance for something unethical to exist (in the sales process.) Of course if you assume he's lying about you needing a drive, then that would be unethical. Or if he broke the drive to make you need one.
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
Should you not be trusted?
Trusted to act the role of a salesman, of course you should be trusted.
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@scottalanmiller said in The Motivations of Sales:
@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
Are you a salesman, since you stand to benefit?
Are you the one doing the replacement? Normally the customer would just replace it. but if you are selling time for you to do the replacement, then sure, you are always a salesman of your services.
You know a lot of customers hiring IT help that would replace their own drive? I don't.
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I think that a big problem that arises is the concept of trust. People often use the term "trust" to mean "have faith that someone will act in my interest" but nothing in the word implies that. You can trust a brick to... be a brick. You can trust that if you drop it it falls. You can trust that if you stand on it you'll be four inches taller. You can trust that it won't stab you in your sleep. But you can't trust it to be your technology adviser and to tell you when to change your hard drives.
Same with a salesman. You can trust them to be a salesman, to act as their ethical and job obligations expect them to do. As much as you can trust anyone, of course.
Questions around trust with sales are really weird for two basic reasons:
- The thing that people should trust them to do is act as ethical salespeople which is never what they mean, so the use of trust is nonsensical.
- People saying this would never just "trust" some random person to be their advisor, yet ask if salespeople can be trusted as if they are all always either totally trustworthy or not as a group.
Why do we so often single out sales as needing "trust" differently from all other people with whom we interact in life?
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@scottalanmiller said in The Motivations of Sales:
@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
Are you unethical?
There is nothing unethical about sales. How does this question ever come up? I'm so confused where people find the idea that there is even a chance for something unethical to exist (in the sales process.) Of course if you assume he's lying about you needing a drive, then that would be unethical. Or if he broke the drive to make you need one.
Because when most people think of sales, they think unethical. When you go to a mechanic and they say you need XYZ replaced, and you really don't. I mean, that happen ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the time. Are they not sales people there?
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
Because when most people think of sales, they think unethical.
But... WHY? Most people think of unethical with business people, IT folks, doctors, lawyers, etc. Do we talk about them in the same way?
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
When you go to a mechanic and they say you need XYZ replaced, and you really don't. I mean, that happen ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the time. Are they not sales people there?
Of course they are. But the issue is that they are liars, not sales people. Your five year old tells you that they didn't break the TV when you saw them hit it with a hammer. By the implication above, instead of calling them a liar, you'd call them a salesperson?
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For me, the confusion comes where there is someone like me. If I am doing side work, I don't care about making the sales ... I am looking to help my client. Do I make money? Sure. But I'd prefer to make the money 100% honest than make it like every other thread on SW where the customer gets taken advantage of.
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@scottalanmiller said in The Motivations of Sales:
@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
Because when most people think of sales, they think unethical.
But... WHY? Most people think of unethical with business people, IT folks, doctors, lawyers, etc. Do we talk about them in the same way?
No because no one other than you (with the exception of lawyers who everyone hates) thinks any of those other groups are unethical.
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Do you see the difference? People in all walks of life lie. All kinds of people are unethical. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, mechanics, politicians, salesman. But people in all those professions are honest and ethical, too. Associating a generic career or job function with honesty makes no sense. Life doesn't work that way.
By that logic, we would be forced to say we are all unethical scum because so many IT people are exactly that.
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
@scottalanmiller said in The Motivations of Sales:
@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
Because when most people think of sales, they think unethical.
But... WHY? Most people think of unethical with business people, IT folks, doctors, lawyers, etc. Do we talk about them in the same way?
No because no one other than you (with the exception of lawyers who everyone hates) thinks any of those other groups are unethical.
That's not true, and you know it. People randomly distrust all of those people all of the time. And loads of people don't just trust salespeople, many swear by how much they trust them. So your logic doesn't hold. Because in the real world, many of those groups, especially business people, take more general distrust than sales people.
Again using "trust" here makes no sense, it's a bad concept because it doesn't mean what you think. And trusting or distrusting people in a profession makes no sense. You need to trust or distrust individuals, not careers.
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@scottalanmiller said in The Motivations of Sales:
@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
@scottalanmiller said in The Motivations of Sales:
@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
Because when most people think of sales, they think unethical.
But... WHY? Most people think of unethical with business people, IT folks, doctors, lawyers, etc. Do we talk about them in the same way?
No because no one other than you (with the exception of lawyers who everyone hates) thinks any of those other groups are unethical.
That's not true, and you know it. People randomly distrust all of those people all of the time. And loads of people don't just trust salespeople, many swear by how much they trust them. So your logic doesn't hold. Because in the real world, many of those groups, especially business people, take more general distrust than sales people.
Again using "trust" here makes no sense, it's a bad concept because it doesn't mean what you think. And trusting or distrusting people in a profession makes no sense. You need to trust or distrust individuals, not careers.
People trust doctors. YOU don't (and that can be forked to a separate thread) but many do. I know many people who have had their lives saved. They trust.
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
People trust doctors. YOU don't (and that can be forked to a separate thread) but many do.
And many don't. Exactly like salespeople, hence the point. If you think they are different, that's the issue. YOU are seeing one as a unique untrusted entity instead of as normal people. OR you are seeing the other as trustworthy in a completely irrational way.
You don't "trust" or "distrust" any profession. If you do, that's the problem. That's illogical and means you have an issue to deal with. Sure, some professions attract people under less than ethical circumstances and some professions might require doing some things that can be seen as unethical to be allowed to do them. You can make arguments for those professions not being trustworthy because of those shared factors. Sales is not one of those, everyone is a sales person sometime, everyone. So replace ALL of your thoughts of "salespeople" and "trust" with "humanity." Does it still make sense?
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
I know many people who have had their lives saved. They trust.
I know lots of people sold a SAN that they think saves their business and they trust sales people. That people make bad logically correlations isn't in question.
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Getting back to Bill's question.
You are hired to maintain a server.
You don't have authority to replace hardware.
You see a drive fail. What do you do?In a private conversation, someone said they simply inform the customer. If the customer says nothing more you just walk away.
If the customer asks you to handle it - are you now a salesperson? Or are you still a consultant?
Let's move this up a scale... while doing maintenance on the server, part of your contract is to watch performance logs and report when the reaches thresholds that make it appear it's time to upgrade. Assuming they ask you to bring them options...
So are you now sales or are you a hired consultant?
As I'm writing this I'm thinking that we need to have that conversation--- are you hiring me to find the solution for you? My rate is x, etc
But maybe I'm wrong. -
@Dashrender said in The Motivations of Sales:
If the customer asks you to handle it - are you now a salesperson? Or are you still a consultant?
You are both, of course.
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@Dashrender said in The Motivations of Sales:
Let's move this up a scale... while doing maintenance on the server, part of your contract is to watch performance logs and report when the reaches thresholds that make it appear it's time to upgrade. Assuming they ask you to bring them options...
So are you now sales or are you a hired consultant?Both, of course.
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How are those not in conflict?
