/biz/ - Business & Finance

yes

People will say no if asked in such a way, but my experience is that it depends. Most people prefer someone who is pleasant and friendly and agreeable even if it is a put on personality and or a little excessive. I've been in the retail world for a while and have learned when someone is being fake nice but at a certain point it just becomes part of their personality with some people. It's kind of sad.

I hate being patronized. I hate fake smiles. It's the sign of a liar or an incompetent.

I typically know 5x as much about a product as the representative a vendor sends me, and I know jack about the product to begin with. Thankfully I have the discretion to tell them to get the fuck out of my office and send me an engineer who will actually be working on the product. They aren't as good at lying, even if they are inclined to do so, and actually know the product. Butter them up with some premium coffee and I can actually get shit done without marketing equivocations. Saves weeks of time pissing back and forth.

Compare marketing.
>Can you do (obscure subset of tasks)?
>Of course! We can do (something vaguely related to that)!
>Round and round with no, I mean this, that's what I said. Stop being overly broad.
>Product can't do what we want
>Spend months waiting for it to get fixed.

to the guy writing the code
>Can you do (obscure subset of tasks)?
>Hmm... We can't do that without rebuilding (such and such) module, but we COULD do that.
>Makes sense. What would that take? How long? How much? ,etc.
>Without getting too specific, we could probably do it in a month. We'd need to partially rework (other module) as well since it depends on (such and such).
>Oh, we don't need (other module) at this time. How long would it take to get things running without that?
>2 weeks. Well maybe 3 weeks because (person)'s working on (other project) for (other company) and he knows that part of the system better than I do.
>I understand. When can you start?
>Product does what we want, and the schedule is actually realistic.

Seriously. Fuck marketing. Fuck insincerity. Being professional doesn't involve being a yes man. If you can't do something, just fucking tell me and stop wasting my time. I don't need stuff yesterday. I want to know when I can expect it so that I can plan around that.

It depends on the person. Some people just (naturally?) respond to overly nice sappy bullshit and some don't.

Age, region, and personality all figure into this.

Also some people, more than anything, want you to kiss their ass. Some of these people care more about getting their ass kissed than getting a good deal.

Also some people are so obsessed with corporate buzzshit that they will not even hear what you are saying un less your are synergizing initiatives dynamically.


Tldr people are different. One of the best sales skills is to know your audience

No

Customers are retarded

They are neutral to being overly nice and will forget it immediately, but they will make a huge deal out of the opposite.

This is especially true for non white customers. They will show their ass if they feel you are "disrespecting" them by not being overly nice

>>1396128
1/10 customers will be bothered by the fakeness. But they don't matter compared to the majority of people who eat it up.

>>1396208
>Also some people are so obsessed with corporate buzzshit that they will not even hear what you are saying un less your are synergizing initiatives dynamically.
>synergizing initiatives dynamically.

Just reading that makes me want to stab someone. I'm so glad I have bosses that say what they mean, mean what they say, and don't pussyfoot around trying to designate blame instead of just working to get shit done.

Been there, done that. Never again.

>>1396128
Depends

>>1396186
You sound like you've got a lot of pent up anger.

>>1396667
I'm not the guy you responded to but...
He's absolutely correct. I heard about a guy with a physics degree who made a killing, like half a mil per year, on commission selling because he could actually talk to clients about the specifications.

>>1396186
>tfw a millennialfag is this jaded and it turns out he has about 2 months experience in whatever it is he's decided he's a super-expert in now

okay sport. Now settle the fuck down and act human

>>1396735
who the fuck are you

>>1396674
I'm not disagreeing with him at all, he just sounds really mad.

>>1398342
Yeah I was mad as fuck yesterday. I'm still pretty damn mad today.

I'm getting shit from the powers on high for refusing to close on my part of a big dollar deal that will easily become 15-20% of this company. I've outlined everything, and fired it off to my boss. Now he's throwing an eclectic shitfit because he has the numbers on his desk that prove that this deal is going to cost his department about 25 million dollars in the first 6 months. All this because some retard on the board got played for a sucker and liked a presentation about a product completely unrelated to what we are actually buying 3 or 4 months ago. Now we are about to purchase a software package they claim they can install right now, but don't actually even have.

At least my ass is completely and utterly covered, and the next 2 people above me have my back because it will directly fuck them over too.

Yes.

I've been in sales for a few years. In my opinion, the greatest aspect of a great salesman is that he is nice, but clearly is pressed for time, like he has other clients he needs to get to if the current clients are taking to long to make a decision. And also that he has no need whatsoever to close the sale, like if the person never buys anything the salesman could care less.

Those 2 qualities make a powerful salesman.

Yes

salesman here, I always talk to customers like I would introduce myself to a hot girl at a bar. Not like a patronizing kindergarten teacher like most people.

>>1396128
it depends. if it's obviously fake then yes. if you're just generally a nice person and have a positive vibe to you, it's usually fine.

just keep it professional. be nice, but you're there to do a job and they know that too.

No
But I get really smug about how it doesn't work on me then they get frustrated