…Got my W2 Form. I am now depressed…. The sheer amount of federal income tax withheld….eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh…. I know people who get paid LESS than this…. I need to get married, buy property, and have some kids. Anyone? Anyone????
*sigh*
But anyway, this is not the topic of this post. No. This post is about my observations from last Friday when I was privileged to attend our company’s all day sales training with, you guessed it, our sales guys. I finally learned, at a very fundamental level, why development and sales will never EVER fully get along….ever….
Now, most of you know that I was a programmer. I use the past tense term “was” because ever since I started this little Japan gig I really haven’t programmed much and I’m only in the development department because there is nowhere else for me (though actually right now I am in the office programming…so go figure…). As a former programmer and one that is still mostly in the technical field, we have a well publicized love/hate relationship with sales. *ahem*…needless to say, it’s probably more on the hate side than the love side.
Do I really HATE them? In the past I did…simply because it seemed all of my work woes could be directly attributed to them. Was it true? No. But when you are a grunt programmer you really only have a very narrow view of the world. The only way to see that this is not the case is to get out and see the bigger picture. Something that I have been able to do for the past few years.
I also know that this is a very important department. Like it or not, we need to live symbiotically. Without us, they have nothing to sell. But without them, we will have no money. Simple as that.
However, in the end, the two departments are very different and there will always be a certain amount of…not really tension or animosity…maybe just misunderstanding. I always joke with the sales guys about them and they joke with me about us. And unlike many of our new developers, I’ve been on both sides of the fence so I THOUGHT I understood the sales psyche.
I could not have been more wrong.
NOTE: There are some blatant generalizations and stereotyping up ahead. Not every developer or sales member fit the description I’m about to give…but it will help in explaining my point if you even care at all…
So, first off, I have to say the sales training was interesting and actually quite educational. I got to see things from their perspective, I got to see how they are in their natural element (no…not in a bar…) and I got to see where and how they get these ideas. As I’ve explained to a few people, I kinda felt like Jane Goodall deep in the wilds observing the wildlife (once again…NO I am NOT calling our sales guys a bunch of mokeys…at least not in this post…(^_^)…).
Now, obviously sales people are all A type personalities. You have to be. You will not see an introvert in there. Introverts and sales just do not work. I am not an introvert either. But holy crap….I’m nowhere NEAR as extroverted as them. They nearly scramble over eachother for the spotlight. Let me explain with an example.
We were all split up into 12 teams of about 8 to 10 members each. We were given specific assignments like “Explain what our company does in 30 seconds” and such. They are called “elevator pitches” and they are actually quite important from a sales standpoint and actually quite important from a company promotion standpoint. From a sales standpoint, the scenario is, “you caught the CTO of a company that you are trying to sell the software to in the elevator and you only have 30 seconds to give the pitch and get him interested before he reaches his floor and forgets about you forever”. Of course from a promotional standpoing, most of us in one time or another has been asked “so…what does your company do?”. Being able to explain without confusing them (especially in my industry) is key since you really don’t know who you are speaking to and they COULD be the next big big opportunity.
So my team worked away at this. I’ve been with the company for 10 years this upcoming June and there was another veteran in the team with me from sales so it went pretty smooth. We taught the newer sales guys what works and what doesn’t and all was well.
And then it was time to present. Now…if this was in development or tech support or any of the other techie groups, when it’s your group’s turn, your team rep will probably *sigh* and get up there and give the presentation. Right? Heck, even deciding who will talk might take some time as no one really volunteers much for that role. In sales? Nope…. For each team, when their number got called, it was followed by LOUD cheering, clapping, hooting, and people yelling out the nickname of the representative and such. It was crazy…. And the reps were soaking it up. They were loving it. Whether the presentation they gave was good or bad it didn’t matter. The act of standing in front of 120+ people all cheering them on was something that they crave.
Of course, as soon as they were done, it was once again followed by applause and cheering. It was like a sports team. Infact it really did remind me of my HS days when we would psych each other up during swim meets and soccer games. Same tone of voice too. Guys lowering their voice before cheering them on and hitting them on the back and such (no butt slapping though…that’s only in football and something I will never truly understand….).
So here I was, kind of overwhelmed by the whole deal…and then I was greeted by another experience that is unique to this group…
We got another group assignment. This time we were told the scenario was, “You find out about an opportunity late. In fact they are making a purchase decision in a week. They have already chosen their vendor and that is where you come in. You need to, in a very short amount of time, convince the decision maker to look at OUR software and try to change his mind”.
A good exercise really. And it took us a good 20 minutes or longer to come up with a good way of doing this. Unfortunately we only had time for 3 or so presenters. Oh…there are cash prizes for the best group. So the 3 groups were chosen out of a hat (yes…more cheering and hollering) and we were about to judge the best out of the 3 when, in the middle of our sales VP talking, some dude in the back just stands up and in a loud voice interrupts her to proclaim, “My name is so-and-so and I represent team 2 here. And I have a presentation that I think you should hear even though those three has already been chosen!”
Yes…he took the exercise and turned it around as a promotion for his group.
Now…once again…if this was development or support, the general mumblings would have been, “…what is he doing? For godsakes…she was talking… Sit down dammit so we can judge…” or even a certain level of uncomfort coming from the group as a whole.
But in sales? Ooooooooh no. The room erupted into cheering and applause as the person was congratulated for “understanding the exercise and being creative”. ….wha???
It was, in the end, a very memorable, instructive, and also a bewildering day. Maybe all of this is just me. Maybe you will read it and go…so? But to me, being in that situation and almost being a third party looking in, it was interesting to see the dynamic and the thought process of how they tick. And why us developers, at a very deep fundamental level, will probably never be able to relate to sales. And in the end, that’s probably a good thing…if nothing else, so our software can actually be sold (^_^)
