Comments on: Death of an IT salesman

By: TheBigE

TheBigE — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 21:05:18 +0000

There have been sales people since the beginning of time and there are door-to-door and B2B sales people in the power, cable and even the publication industry. The world is too complicated and offerings are deep and complicated. Customer need salespeople to assist them in figuring out the best solution. My $0.02.

By: Barb Darrow

Barb Darrow — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:31:01 +0000

this may be my favorite comment ever. I don’t dispute that sales people can provide value, but i would hesitate to equate them with brain surgeons.

By: Barb Darrow

Barb Darrow — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:29:58 +0000

@anders — totally true. I feel IT’s pain.

By: Anders Friis

Anders Friis — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:04:45 +0000

The change is even greater; businesspeople try to bypass IT altogether. If IT is too slow or asks too many questions, the business will go straight to a cloud service and just buy it.
We see it happening already. The question of interfaces or integration will come up later and be dumped into IT’s lap.

By: Tomas Thomasson

Tomas Thomasson — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 07:52:06 +0000

I predict that in a few years people will be able to do their own brain surgery usin a cordless drill; today’s drugs are so advanced so we don’t need any doctors or nurses an can be bought over the Internet.

When our politicians understand this they will happyli be willing to experiment on their selves; hey what could go wrong?

By: Barb Darrow

Barb Darrow — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:14:28 +0000

@graham perry agreed. old models die hard. but they do die (or morph) over time. Hopefully.

By: Graham Perry

Graham Perry — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:35:57 +0000

It still amazes me that large corporations still hang onto legacy tools in my industry (performance testing) without reviewing value for money or performance.

Many of the modern tools offer pay as you go models by using the cloud, cost much less than the annual legacy software support contract and many times more productive and flexible.

As has been said senior management tend to stick to legacy technology whilst younger professionals are more likely to try new software and ways of working. This is also true of startups who can make a lot of progress without being tying up cash & resources in ‘shelf ware’.

By: John Dorey

John Dorey — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 08:53:36 +0000

I still have electricity sales people calling me though, wonder when they are going to stop

By: Chris van Loben Sels

Chris van Loben Sels — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 20:53:31 +0000

It’s a battle!

Over on TechCrunch, Mark Suster makes the point that enterprise sales and implementation are key touchpoints to building an enterprise business.

Expensify’s CEO argues that enterprise sales can still fuel a disruptive enterprise company, but that it’s critical to concentrate on getting your leads from individual users. (We agree.)

At Selligy (http://selligy.com) we think that selling through AppStores wll allow us to focus on users over managers, but we still think that enterprise sales will have a big role. Folks who aren’t grateful to enterprise salespeople are folks who haven’t worked in enterprise very long. (http://sgy.cc/16EZ3QT)

Selligy: How can you tell if someone has enterprise experience? By how they respect sales”: http://sgy.cc/16EZ3QT

TechCrunch: “One of the Biggest Mistakes Enterprise Startups Make”: http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/19/bigmistakeenterprisestartupsmake/

Expensify post about the lead source: http://blog.expensify.com/2011/10/28/ceo-friday-spin-the-flywheel/

Thanks again for a great post.

By: Chris van Loben Sels

Chris van Loben Sels — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 17:45:43 +0000

Totally agree that the enterprise sales model is changing, and for the better.

We can now sell enterprise applications directly to enterprise users. Since we sell directly to users, we can solve user’s day-to-day problems (as opposed to selling governance and reporting applications to managers to solve managers’ problems).

And jokes like “turning BC football players into highly-compensated sales guys” are hilarious (and we even have a sales humor site http://bustedquota.selligy.com).

But generally you can tell someone who doesn’t have that much enterprise experience by how they mock enterprise sales.

Those of us who have been in the business for more than five years laugh at salesguys (heck, so do salesguys) — but we respect them and their craft. If you didn’t just arrive in this business, these guys have helped you pay your bills.

(See our post “How can you tell if someone has deep enterprise experience? By how they respect sales.” http://sgy.cc/16EZ3QT)

Better technology is leading to better products that require less craft to implement, use — and sell. There will still be enterprise sales, but it will focus on where that craft is actually needed.