1. Listen to yourself pitch. Ask people you talk to if it's OK to record the pitch and then listen to it repeatedly and take notes. It will be painful, and you'll notice so many things you hate, but you will get better. This is the number one thing that helped me get better.

2. Understand your customer. Really understand them. What are their hopes with buying your product? What are their fears if they make the wrong choice, or no choice at all? The stuff that's really at the core of these questions-- it's deep, personal, often embarrassing stuff people won't just tell you. Getting at this sort of thing is a skill. If you do it well, you'll not only sell better, you'll have a better sales process, and probably a better product.

3. Read Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28815.Influence) by Robert Cialdini. If you're a former engineer, you'll especially love this book. It helps you understand how people tick, including yourself, and some of the techniques your competition are probably using.

Finally, don't be an asshole. It's so easy when you get good at sales to view the sale itself as the goal. It shouldn't be. The goal should be solving the customer's problem. Getting the sale is the first step, but make sure you only get it if you can genuinely help the customer-- if the customer will be thrilled they bought from you a month from now. The world has too many assholes willing to sell people the wrong thing for them. Don't be another one.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867517

Points: 9

# Comments: 0

The thing to bear in mind with this is they're all constantly looking at a bunch of other initiatives before jumping in, so if one of these people had a comment to a reporter on just about anything it's probably not the first time they're thinking about that subject.

Bezos built the biggest e-commerce business in the world, never having worked in e-commerce or retail before. And seems to be doing some impressive stuff at Blue Origin, not knowing anything about space travel.

That's all not to mention Musk, who goes from new industry to new industry, building successful businesses that fundamentally change those industries, without previously knowing anything about those industries.

These are incredibly impressive accomplishments. They've proven their bonafides for solving general problems in fields they weren't previously familiar with, probably more than just about anyone else in the world.

Because they have a history of getting impressive shit done. Not complained about, but actually done. And they have the will to get it done, and a bunch of capital to put behind that will, even if they were taxed at whatever ridiculously high rate Giridharadas wants them taxed at.

Giridharadas is welcome to disagree with successful people, but they've at this point proven their opinions do tend to matter when it comes to shaping the country whether we want to pay attention or not.

Of course, it's not the same, and retailers need to do a hundred other things correctly as well, but there is a lot of data to show that people go where the good search is.

There's also been a ton of research done that most consumers do want personalized experiences, will pay more for them, and will be more likely to churn if they don't have them. There's a pretty good list at https://venturebeat.com/2017/08/18/hyper-personalization-mar....

Some examples from that article:

>>> Forrester uncovered the fact that 77 percent of consumers have chosen, recommended, or even paid more for a brand that provides a personalized service or experience.

Accenture found that 75 percent of consumers are more likely to buy when you show you recognize them as an individual and provide recommendations based on their unique wants and needs.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19247859

Points: 28

# Comments: 27

The software engineer unemployment rate in the US is something like 1.6%. Engineers who specialize in self-driving cars get paid absurd amounts because there aren’t enough of them. We need more specialists, not generalists. If they’re specialists in more than one thing, that’s even better, but it’s not the main problem.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14800470

Points: 24

# Comments: 7

Small sample size and all, but if this is the way things are going, it'd be a good thing and force more founders to focus on metrics that matter early.