[HN Gopher] Be where your business is
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Be where your business is
Author : rmason
Score : 42 points
Date : 2023-01-10 20:45 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (steveblank.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (steveblank.com)
| mahathu wrote:
| Title is peak workism
| tacheiordache wrote:
| Yeah, just look who Steve Blank is...
| millhouse_ams wrote:
| 'In a high-dollar B-to-B business, building and scaling sales
| can't be done remotely'
|
| This is provably incorrect
| jehb wrote:
| This seems like an odd post to be reading in 2023.
|
| The author is specifically talking about being where a B2B
| startup's customers are clustered, which isn't an entirely
| unreasonable premise. But we just went through three years of
| companies becoming more decentralized than they ever have been
| before. Especially for large companies, the buying team for
| business software is more likely to be geographically dispersed
| than it ever has been. I don't even know where half of the team
| of folks I work with on procurement at my job are physically
| located, other than maybe their time zone. Proximity of the
| vendor to my geographic location seems like a dumb criterion to
| use when evaluating a vendor, but maybe most B2B purchasers are
| just bad at making decisions by considering more relevant
| factors.
| jameshart wrote:
| Sounds like a somewhat uniquely New York problem, rather than a
| generally applicable lesson.
|
| An equally valid position is: don't cap the size of your
| addressable market to just people who live in the place you work.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a somewhat uniquely New York problem, rather than a
| generally applicable lesson_
|
| An oil & gas start-up in San Francisco is going to have a
| tougher time than one in Houston. You don't see those much. But
| you do see _e.g._ agtech in the Bay Area flying out weekly
| salespeople to Iowa. It's trivial for a competitor to undercut
| them on credibility alone.
|
| That said, I think this is more pertinent to sales than other
| fields. And for some businesses, proximity to capital trumps
| proximity to customers.
| verisimilidude wrote:
| Not to get too pedantic, but California does have a massive
| agriculture industry. UC Davis is one of the best schools in
| the field. It's not much of a stretch at all for agtech
| businesses to grow and thrive here, locally.
|
| I guess you could argue those businesses should be in
| Sacramento instead of San Jose.
|
| But example aside, I do agree with your overall point.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Totally! Which doubled my Iowan buddy's confusion. A
| Central Valley, Davis or Irvine-based company would have
| credibility a San Francisco-based on doesn't. That "won't
| even open the door" effect is huge, and part of what the
| author is getting at. (The other being org chart
| discrepancies.)
| verisimilidude wrote:
| Agreed, that does make a lot of sense.
| zerr wrote:
| "Investors" part seems like the main issue here - buy out their
| shares and continue doing a small/medium business.
| molsongolden wrote:
| Steve's example is financial services companies in New York but
| this applies to the digital realm too, especially if your
| customers are less geographically-concentrated.
|
| Be where your customers are: forums, slacks, discords, social
| media bubbles, etc.
|
| Cultivate real relationships and build authentically from within
| a community. _Live_ alongside your customers instead of selling
| into a community from the outside. Interact with the community
| regularly instead of relying on a handful of periodic outreach
| responses to gather customer feedback.
| bsima wrote:
| > Erin's VP of sales had just bought a condo in Miami to be next
| to her aging parents [...] > > Her VP of Sales might
| be wonderful, but with the all the travel the company is only
| getting her half-time. Erin needs a full-time head of sales in
| New York. Time to have a difficult conversation.
|
| Hustle culture nonsense. Family is important
| https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html
|
| IMO there's always a way to do both. If there _really isn't_ ,
| choose family.
| eloff wrote:
| I agree that you should choose family, but I disagree that it's
| nonsense. It's a simple tradeoff of money/success versus what
| actually matters. Assuming there isn't some win-win compromise
| being overlooked.
|
| Usually there's no free lunch. But focus on the important stuff
| in life, you'll be happier and have fewer regrets.
| arolihas wrote:
| I am surprised those lines were in there. The point could have
| easily been made without an anecdote about the author
| recommending to fire an employee who is taking care of their
| family. Seems needlessly cruel and detracts from the message.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the author recommending to fire an employee who is taking
| care of their family_
|
| Not sure why fired versus put on different comp and maybe
| asked to vacate the VP of Sales role.
| adasdasdas wrote:
| Being an exec is choice to commit an exorbitant amount of
| your time/energy on your job. You can always settle for an
| easier/lower paying job. You don't see the president
| complaining the job is stressful.
| tacheiordache wrote:
| But your payback is enormously larger.
| munificent wrote:
| ...sometimes.
| klyrs wrote:
| > Seems needlessly cruel and detracts from the message.
|
| I'm not so sure. I mean, yes it's needlessly cruel, but
| that's the message that I get from a lot of people who
| subscribe to hustle culture. You are worth the value of your
| output plus nepotism minus your comp. People with families
| are ghosts, don't talk to them.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2023-01-10 23:00 UTC)