[HN Gopher] Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)
___________________________________________________________________
Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)
Author : jger15
Score : 187 points
Date : 2023-10-01 11:01 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (longform.asmartbear.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (longform.asmartbear.com)
| daneel_w wrote:
| For _personal relations_ I will maintain that it 's always better
| to be clear and give a straight yes or no. Nobody likes being
| left hanging in uncertainty, and nobody likes people who always
| do that to them - people who cannot even provide a "maybe" - when
| asked even simple questions.
| j7ake wrote:
| Yeah it's definitely bad advice to try on your partner, or even
| your boss /colleagues
| yellow_lead wrote:
| This article seems to only apply to job/sales quotes.
|
| The title is a bit clickbaity, it's too general.
| hammock wrote:
| In that case you ought to be reframing the problem, answering a
| different question that you are comfortable giving a definite
| yes or no too.
|
| For example,
|
| Them: "Will you do x thing for me by year end?"
|
| You: "Are you actually trying to solve y problem? What if I
| refer you to Z person by end of day? Or start by bringing you
| some research around X by end of month?"
|
| Tbh the same applies to business not just personal
| campbel wrote:
| this person collaborates
| zzzeek wrote:
| say "yes" for things you aren't into doing but just make sure you
| ask for super high amounts of money, so that you're happy if they
| accept your offer.
|
| nice theory for "getting more money is good" but doesn't work for
| "I have no time". If people could package up "more time" for me
| in some kind of interdimensional container, I'd be all set.
| yayitswei wrote:
| You can buy time with money (with some limitations).
| ghaff wrote:
| Yep. I'm almost certainly not going to cancel personal plans
| especially for something that's "just business." However, if I
| don't have any urgent plans and you want me to do some well-
| scoped short-term job for you or even hop on a plane for a
| consulting day, I'll probably do it for a fairly generous
| hourly rate/per diem. But I won't be a bargain unless it's
| something I really _want_ to do or could lead to some sort of
| follow-on business.
| xyzelement wrote:
| If you end up in a situation where people consistently offer
| you more money than you are otherwise getting, you will solve
| the time problem by shifting to the more-money type work...
|
| If your big (technically, your ask) isn't high enough to cause
| you to make the time, the it's not high enough.
| gumby wrote:
| This is good advice that has also stood me well over the years.
|
| If you are doing custom development you can also use this at a
| finer level of granularity: charge a lot for parts of the project
| you'd rather not do (even possibly pay a bonus for the poor
| person on the team who draws the short straw and has to do that
| part, and maintain it) and charge less for the parts the customer
| might be on the fence about but you know will either make them
| happy (though they don't realize it yet) and/or help you get
| future business elsewhere.
| gumby wrote:
| To expand a little: look over the horizon. Imagine you are
| thinking of expanding into the banking market at some point
| down the road.
|
| Customer A says, "hey, would you add a feature to your emoji
| generator to interface with the ACH system?" Stupid request,
| maintenance nightmare. But you might get paid to have one
| person get some exposure to the horror show that is banking
| APIs. Exposure that might later help you think a bit better
| when it's time to start thinking about that market. Of course
| charge a LOT because it's new and charge a LOT for the
| maintenance contract. Maybe it helps you estimate engineering
| and marketing budget, or maybe it helps you decide on a
| different expansion path.
|
| The converse is true too. Customer B wants hospital integration
| so they can add cute emojis to messages like "hey, you've only
| got four months to live. Have a nice day!" You're not stupid so
| you know you never want to get anywhere near the tarpit of
| medical software. So you can confidently say "no" (phrasing it,
| "we don't believe we could honestly provide the necessary level
| of support you'd require and don't want to let you down blah
| blah blah").
| hkon wrote:
| The story would be better if I did not know the basis of it.
| dang wrote:
| Discussed at the time:
|
| _Never say "no," but rarely say "yes."_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2481213 - April 2011 (36
| comments)
| sourabh03agr wrote:
| The title is catchy!
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| [flagged]
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > If they say "yes," you're happy because the terms or money are
| so good, it more than compensates for the distraction, perhaps
| funding the thing you really want to do.
|
| Perhaps. Make sure you're high bar is high enough. Opportunity
| cost is an underappreciated metric. The exceptional (read: as in
| a rare exception well above average, mean, etc.) can be
| addicting, and eventually self-defeating (read: before you know
| it your temporary digital ditch digger stint gets less stint-y
| and more permanent-esque). It's like a bad-ish romantic
| relationship that goes on too long. Regrets, and the some.
|
| If you're going to go this route, be certain to plan your exit.
| For example, "The first X weeks are $Y per hour. After that we
| revisit, if necessary." Baking this into the agreement will force
| you at the end of X weeks to recalibrate the revenue vs the
| opportunity costs.
|
| In fact, for any type of contract work with too many unknowns
| and/or too much possible career friction always include a time
| limit along with the rate.
| gregw2 wrote:
| I think that's the virtue of setting a high price on what you
| don't want to do as your "not saying no"/funding strategy.
|
| It's a reflection of your perceived opportunity cost.
|
| But you are right to suggest time-bounding your engagement up
| front to avoid getting stuck in a local maxima.
|
| Or, at a certain scale, have a segregated set of people doing
| these requests where possible to limit and help govern the
| distraction.
| ghaff wrote:
| There are things I don't really love doing like ghostwriting
| company blogs but if the project is short and well-defined
| (and is something I can actually do a good job of fairly
| quickly), I'll take a few $K from you. I'd be much more
| hesitant to commit to something more open-ended even if the
| income stream were good if it were something I was doing
| _strictly_ for the money.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| The other thing I wanted to mention, aside from opportunity
| cost, is risk. I'm not suggesting never leave your sweet
| spot. That would be stupid on my part :)
|
| However, as you leave your sweet spot, be aware (read:
| beware) of what you don't know. Be aware of the fact that bad
| decisions are very similar to trust...one slip and you've
| lost 10x more than you anticipated. If you're going to leave
| your sweet spot be sure you're prepared for the worse. It can
| and does happen.
|
| Put in real terms, over the years I've worked as a contractor
| for a number of marketing / web dev agencies. The more
| successful ones didn't get there from yes, they got there
| because of no. No to projects beyond them. No to clients with
| expectations out of proportion to budget. No for the win, so
| to speak.
|
| I've also seen those same agencies start to drink their own
| Kool Aid. They get in a financial pinch and take on work /
| clients they're not tuned for. For example, they don't have
| the in house expertise in the technology / solution required.
| Eventually the project costs more than it brings in *and* the
| team is miserable, has lost faith, leaves the conpany, etc.
|
| If you're leaving your sweet spot and you're not concerned,
| you're probably doing it all wrong.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| [flagged]
| junon wrote:
| Did you read the article? It's not about toxic positivity, it's
| about how to craft "no" and "yes" such that they're not
| absolute and can still make both sides happy. Has nothing to do
| with feelings.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| [flagged]
| junon wrote:
| I really, truly don't believe you read the article.
| BLanen wrote:
| > can still make both sides happy.
|
| > Has nothing to do with feelings.
| nailer wrote:
| And also ruin your reputation.
| lee wrote:
| I have a similar anecdote in my career as a developer.
|
| At the height of the financial crisis I was just 2 years out of
| school and working for a small startup. Our first child was just
| born, and I got fired from my job as they discovered I was trying
| to bootstrap my side-project. There was no non-compete clauses in
| my contract but the company used it as an excuse to avoid paying
| me severance as they laid off a quarter of the staff the
| following week.
|
| So there I was, anxious that no one would hire a young developer
| who has a tarnished work experience with a newborn at home.
|
| I was desperate to just find some work. I eventually got two
| offers with the exact same salary as the job I had gotten fired
| from. One job sounded more appealing and offered me a chance to
| learn and grow. The other was for a job to maintain an existing
| legacy codebase for a struggling company that just went from 100
| employees to 10. My wife suggested to just counter-offer with a
| 50% increase for the unappealing job. If I didn't get it, it was
| no big loss as I had another in hand. Sure enough, they accepted
| and the job wasn't actually that bad in the end.
|
| Strangely, when I look back everything turned out in the end for
| me. I got a 50% pay raise and I also got to spend 3 months at
| home with my newborn child while unemployed.
| jameshart wrote:
| Another lesson from this article:
|
| If you land a $100/hr gig, and the work takes 90 minutes: _bill
| the client $200_ , not $150!
| [deleted]
| londons_explore wrote:
| Downside of this approach:
|
| Often you are quoting a super high price because you don't want
| the work and maybe it isn't really what you love to do or your
| expertise.
|
| But the buyer assumes you have a super high price because you're
| the best and can charge what you're worth.
|
| End result: The buyer is unhappy with your work, because you
| priced as if you were a world leading expert and actually you are
| learning on the job and don't want to be there anyway.
| waisbrot wrote:
| Maybe. In my experience, a more common case is that the buyer
| has no way to evaluate value other than quoted price and so
| they're actually _much happier_ with a huge price than they
| would be with a smaller price for the same work.
| Aurornis wrote:
| You think they're happier to pay more than to pay less? I'm
| having a hard time believing that hypothetical.
|
| Regardless, companies that don't know how to evaluate the
| value of quoted work will eventually figure out the value
| later. A client that that is initially happy with a price
| will likely become retroactively disappointed when they deal
| with another contractor in the future who has more realistic
| pricing.
|
| In my experience contracting, I've encountered a lot of "You
| paid _how much_ for this!?" situations when dealing with work
| from prior contractors. Once they realize how bad and /or
| overpriced the work of a prior contractor was, that person's
| reputation is done. Ironically, the contractor will often try
| to use them as references for other clients because they were
| initially happy.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > You think they're happier to pay more than to pay less?
|
| People are not rational consumers.
|
| See the Palessi story from a few years ago:
| https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/payless-sold-discount-
| shoes...
|
| Tl;dr: Payless Shoes, a discount shoe retailer, opened a
| fake high-end store under the Palessi name and got fashion
| influencers to gush about how great the shoes were. People
| who actually bought such Palessi shoes probably were
| happier with them than if they'd bought them at Payless.
| tough wrote:
| 1000$ wine always tastes better than 100$ one
| bumby wrote:
| Years ago, a luxury car company (I believe it was
| Mercedes) did a study measuring demand with the same car
| across a relatively wide range of prices. Contrary to
| economic models that assume rational actors, there was a
| point where lowering price further made demand go down.
| People apparently assumed the higher price tag on a car
| made it more attractive as a consumer.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Probably why Mercedes does not bring their lower-end or
| lower-optioned car models to North America. They want to
| maintain their image as a luxury marque so they can
| command premium prices that their customers are happy to
| pay.
| ilyt wrote:
| And https://www.odditycentral.com/news/2-70-supermarket-
| wine-win...
| sokoloff wrote:
| Hah. Love it!
|
| > winners that they could buy 1,000 gold stickers to
| display on their wine labels for just EUR60.
|
| That's not a bad price at all for gold stickers intended
| for wine bottles. EUR0.06/sticker. I assumed they'd be
| able to get a good bit higher price.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > You think they're happier to pay more than to pay less?
| I'm having a hard time believing that hypothetical.
|
| I believe it. Here's an anecdote which blew my mind when I
| saw it as a kid, and which illustrates the point.
|
| When I was growing up, we had a guy in our church who made
| guitars. Beautiful instruments (seriously, look up Petros
| guitars sometime because they're really beautiful), and
| played/sounded good to boot. Bruce was charging between
| $3000 and $6000 at the time depending on specifics, so
| while pricey they weren't expensive by guitar standards. He
| told me that he got feedback from customers that they
| weren't sure whether or not his guitars would be good,
| because they were priced so reasonably (compared to what
| one would expect to spend on a custom made guitar).
|
| So Bruce decided to raise his prices, and see what
| happened. He said his sales went _up_ after raising prices,
| presumably because the guitars were now at a price point
| where people went "yeah this is what a custom handmade
| instrument should cost" rather than "what's the catch
| here". Weird, but hard to argue with results. People aren't
| always rational buyers, as someone else pointed out.
| ilyt wrote:
| You can just tell them that.
|
| "That is not the type of jobs we usually do, and if we did we'd
| have to use a lot of time to build competency in the problem
| and that would've costed you a lot. You'd be better off trying
| X or Y contractor, that's closer to their wheelhouse"
|
| And as a bonus you'd still be considered for future work that's
| not that rather than being filed under "those are those super
| expensive guys we can't afford"
| SoftTalker wrote:
| A friend of mine who is a plumber said he tells people this
| all the time, basically "this is a pretty small job and not
| what we normally do. If I did it, I'd have to take one of my
| plumbers off of this big job we're in the middle of and
| charge you what that is costing me, here's the number of a
| handyman I know who can take care of that for you"
| p3rls wrote:
| The plumbing company I work for charges $240 per truck for
| the first hour in labor and $160 after that. For those
| prices it's definitely worth trying to google it first.
| gumby wrote:
| Commit to doing a good job, or at least a job that meets what
| you promise to the customer.
|
| Back when I did support and custom dev, our minimum price was
| $100K/year (back when $100K was a lot of money). Most of those
| contracts were fabulously profitable. But once in a while a bug
| would be reported that took five or even ten person-months to
| fix, scrambling all our other plans in the process. So what: we
| didn't charge extra and didn't complain to the customer. Led to
| crazy levels of customer loyalty.
| creer wrote:
| Exactly. A high price does not necessarily promise that you
| have the technical solution ready to go. There is such a
| thing as building an understanding with the client (even if
| the contract text itself is more conservative). That leads to
| a "relationship" with some level of solid grounds for it. As
| opposed to a common practive of throwing a one-off contract
| over the wall and merely praying that this will go well.
| ozim wrote:
| Unfortunately this has to be 2 way street, you might want
| to do it properly but a lot of customers don't want to
| invest time.
|
| They want to have stuff done and move on so drop the money
| and you have to figure out how to do what they want.
| gumby wrote:
| Those aren't the customers you want.
| Aurornis wrote:
| When I look for contractors I ask around my network first.
|
| In recent years I've been getting more recommendations for who
| to _avoid_ than who to hire. There are a lot of contractors and
| small agencies out there who have gotten good at selling the
| contract but not so good at delivering satisfactory work.
|
| Often the negative recommendations are from a situation like
| you described where they pitched a high price or otherwise
| played games to charge more and more, then delivered a bare-
| bones result that barely worked or struggled to deliver
| anything at all. The gap between the expectations of a high-
| priced contractor and the reality of a disappointing work
| product leaves a bad taste.
|
| I think a lot of these contractors operate with the mindset
| that customers will always be available and none of them will
| talk to each other or seek reference checks, but this approach
| suffers as the person's reputation permeates their local
| industry. There are a few contractors in one niche I worked in
| where nearly everyone knows to avoid them, or at least to put
| strict oversight and micromanaging in place on their work and
| billing. At this point their primary audience is new startups
| where they can milk them for overpriced work until they catch
| on.
| creer wrote:
| > have gotten good at selling the contract but not so good at
| delivering
|
| This has been a problem beyond "recent years". In part
| because of splitting the sales function from the technical
| function - which is many agencies as soon as they decide on
| growth vs specialization.
|
| For clients with a little more time and budget - i.e. a
| little more forethought in general, it's good reason to hire
| someone more broadly technically competent or at least aware
| just to help with the process of hiring more specialized
| work. At least the first time around it can end up being a
| recursive problem: if you hire a hiring advisor who has their
| mind locked on just one way to do things, then you just shot
| yourself in the foot.
| ilyt wrote:
| > I think a lot of these contractors operate with the mindset
| that customers will always be available and none of them will
| talk to each other or seek reference checks, but this
| approach suffers as the person's reputation permeates their
| local industry. There are a few contractors in one niche I
| worked in where nearly everyone knows to avoid them, or at
| least to put strict oversight and micromanaging in place on
| their work and billing. At this point their primary audience
| is new startups where they can milk them for overpriced work
| until they catch on.
|
| Well, did they get out of business ? No? Then by captialism
| the approach is great working strategy...
| creer wrote:
| Are you arguing that there is some (other) system that
| solves the issue of over-selling and under-delivering?
|
| More constructively, I don't think anyone argues that there
| isn't (rudely speaking) a broad supply of fools waiting to
| be parted from their money. For the purpose of this forum
| the question is what can the clients (quite possible
| technically weak which is why they need to hire out) do to
| improve their odds.
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| It's a great working strategy purely due to information
| asymmetry, not because "markets"
| Nevermark wrote:
| I don't share the viewpoint you are responding to, but
| information asymmetry is a significant factor in most
| transactions.
|
| Rarely is being a more informed customer not a benefit.
|
| Or being a less informed customer not associated with
| greater difficulty determining which
| supplier/service/product is the best fit.
| MourYother wrote:
| Still a win in my book
| bumby wrote:
| Unhappy customers coupled with high cost to the customer is
| probably a Pyrrhic win.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| No one said to LIE.
|
| It's the opposite.
|
| You quote high to inform them honestly what it would take,
| rather than deciding for yourself what is really their choice
| not yours. Your choice is to not take a job if you just don't
| want to or can't of course, but is not to tell anyone else what
| they want or what it's worth to them to get it.
|
| So as long as you don't mind doing the job fundamentally, but
| it's just a matter of resources or time or efficiency etc,
| (you're not being asked to do something you morally object to,
| or totally unrelated to the kind of work you want to do, or
| requires something like living on an oil rig for a year etc...)
| then you have no excuse to do anything but make your best guess
| at the honest estimate whatever that is however outlandish you
| think it is, including whatever no-promises cya terms you think
| should apply, and just tell them that. "It will be $200k, 4
| months minimum, and you might get nothing in the end."
|
| And part of that is also giving your best honest advice about
| what they should actually do, and your reasoning. Some other
| approach that you think is better, or recommendation how to
| find some other supplier who could do the approach they wanted
| "that will require rust and high availability, so you want to
| look for shops that specialize in rust and high
| availability...", whatever.
|
| The end result is that they are the ones who decide not to do
| it rather than you. And if they go for it, well, considering
| you weren't bullshitting them but giving your honest best info,
| recommendation, and reasoning, you take it and do the job. If
| that means spending 2 months just learning a new system or
| language and throwing away a bunch of experiments just to get
| started, or hiring someone else to do some part you can't do,
| so be it. You put all that into the quote, and they said do it,
| so enjoy your big safe gig for the next while.
| bluedino wrote:
| Isn't that how the big name consultants work? Price it out like
| you're getting experts from a famous firm and then send in a
| green team to do the work?
| ilyt wrote:
| Or subcontract, which created one of most dystopian term in
| corporate, "body lending"
| FormerBandmate wrote:
| It's also how Saul Goodman works
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Saul Goodman didn't outsource his lawyering. Having a
| paralegal secretary isn't the same as sending a green team
| jt2190 wrote:
| > ... maybe it isn't really what you love to do or your
| expertise...
|
| And that means that you would follow the author's advice and
| say "no" because you know in advance that it's not your area of
| expertise and not what you want to do, _and most importantly
| you haven 't stated any long-term benefits of making this
| short-term sacrifice_.
|
| Edit: emphasis
| ww520 wrote:
| Yes. This is a very likely problem. When I evaluate quotes on
| the other side, I usually weed out the highest and the lowest
| ones. The highest one is usually some middleman re-contracting
| out the work adding on his profit. Or someone like you said,
| just trying to price out the job instead of refusing the job
| honestly.
| paulsutter wrote:
| Focus means saying no to almost everything
|
| The hourly rate example is a clear tell. If you're selling your
| time by the hour you're already doing the wrong work. Consulting
| = death, and I mean that literally. The months of our career are
| finite and we should allocate them carefully
| sbayeta wrote:
| Could you please elaborate on consulting = death?
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| While I agree the combo is death, billing hourly and consulting
| are two different things.
|
| Consulting with value--based fees is a fantastic way to
| deliberately allocate our finite time .
| lmm wrote:
| Career is a means to an end. Billing hourly I can look after my
| family, not get too stressed, and focus on what really matters
| when I'm off the clock. Even if the EV from swinging for the
| fences would be higher, it's not worth the risk.
| creer wrote:
| Perhaps there is space for a nuanced:
|
| - "yes"
|
| - "no"
|
| - "this is not our specialty but we'll do it within our current
| relationship for $BIG_ENOUGH" (and then you know, actually do
| it.)
|
| - "this is not our specialty but we'll help you hire and manage a
| specialist so they fit in (for $MODERATE)"
| xyzelement wrote:
| This is also why you should _get_ multiple quotes for any
| transaction without an obvious and transparent market. When your
| roofer quotes you $XK to replace your shingles, that _might_ be
| what he thinks is a competitive rate in your market, or it
| _might_ be the "I am too busy but if they really want to pay
| that much I'll find a way to make it work" rate.
|
| A guy who's drowning in business and a guy who's sitting idle
| will likely quote you very different rates. Obviously you should
| also be conscious of why someone is busier than another, but
| sometimes it's just a matter of timing, etc.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| >A guy who's drowning in business and a guy who's sitting idle
| will likely quote you very different rates
|
| Yes, that's how it works. That's why no one goes out of their
| way to hire unemployed people
| xyzelement wrote:
| // That's why no one goes out of their way to hire unemployed
| people
|
| I don't know why someone would "go out of their way" to do
| that, but the numbers take care of it. For example, if I post
| a job at $XXXK per year, if XXX < FAANG salary, I would
| expect nobody from FAANG to apply, but I might get some "laid
| off from FAANG" candidates.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| A decade+ later lots of people (potential customers, investors)
| also prefer not say "no".
|
| In my work with startup founders, I regularly say, "people say
| 'no' in a lot of ways, many are very subtle. But when they say
| 'yes' it's clear and obvious."
| Tade0 wrote:
| I never give a definite answer before I'm at least somewhat
| familiar with the problem at hand and their deadlines - I'm not
| able to tell from this article alone if the author did that.
|
| Anyway this approach is profitable but comes with two downsides:
|
| -You risk getting stuck with a project that was much larger than
| you anticipated.
|
| -Eventually you find that your business is not what you
| originally envisioned.
|
| I used to work for a company that wanted to get into the Big Data
| space back when that was a fashionable buzzword.
|
| I went to an interview there a couple of years after parting ways
| only to discover that while they still heavily advertised big
| data, deep learning and whatnot, their main money maker was some
| pretty standard DevOps.
| [deleted]
| b8 wrote:
| As I learned from my mom, "maybe, I'll think about it".
| Klsimek wrote:
| See also Weinberg's "Orange Juice Test" from "Secrets of
| Consulting"
|
| https://lalgudi.medium.com/orange-juice-test-will-you-pass-i...
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