[HN Gopher] The real "Wolf of Wall Street" sales script
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The real "Wolf of Wall Street" sales script
Author : nicconley
Score : 406 points
Date : 2024-08-06 17:56 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.jointhefollowup.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.jointhefollowup.com)
| kqr wrote:
| Detail question on one of the recommendations in the article:
| wouldn't "are you busy?" be more effective than "do you have a
| second?"
|
| Working from the hypothesis that people generally don't have
| seconds they are willing to give away to anyone who calls, but
| they are busy to varying degrees.
| kungito wrote:
| From what I read he doesn't ask whether someone is busy but
| only acknowledges they know they are busy and moves on with the
| pitch
| moribvndvs wrote:
| I dunno. "Are you busy?" sounds open ended and is a bit
| presumptive (I don't know you, what business is it of yours?).
| Do you have a second seems more casual and nonchalant without
| being particularly rude while succinctly indicating you aren't
| asking for lengthy or in depth attention. You're playing on a
| natural tendency many people have for simple charity, and then
| once you're in... well, lots of us have felt trapped in
| unwanted situations because of a fear of being rude, right?
| Tectosage wrote:
| The pitch was designed to elicit a 'Yes' response at every turn
| (the idea being that the prospective client would be
| conditioned to saying 'Yes' over and over and be more amenable
| to the final hammer swing of 'send me x dollars for y shares').
| Most pitches were directed at the kind of business owners and
| execs who end up on lead services like Dun & Bradstreet, but
| sometimes also targeted individuals at their homes; in either
| case, the prospect is either running a business or just arrived
| home from work and is tending to kids/dinner/chores/etc. Ask
| someone in either scenario if they're busy and the default
| answer is yes; they're always busy. But ask them if they have a
| second, and they're more likely to say yes. Everyone has a
| second, even if they're busy, and the very wording of the
| question implies this will be a brief and laconic interaction
| that won't interrupt their day. Busy is a negative primer, have
| a second is a positive one.
|
| The article contains a few rebuttal snippets, but the full
| "straight line" pitch had rebuttals for every step of the
| interaction and every possible response from a prospect. They
| called it the "straight line" because the idea was that at all
| moments of the conversation, you are constantly guiding the
| prospect along a straight line to the desired conclusion (a
| sale), and any diversion from this straight line in the form of
| customer protest/question/disinterest needs to be quickly and
| somewhat aggressively countered with a rebuttal and then
| followed with a slick line that elicits a return to the
| previous direction.
|
| Since I'm already rambling, I'll add another detail that isn't
| in the article; Belfort didn't come up with this pitch himself,
| it was developed originally at Lehman Brothers (one of the
| leading firms) and was used in some form at all of the big
| wirehouse brokerages (eg, the original Merrill Lynch
| "thundering herd" or LF Rothschild, where Belfort learned it).
|
| Belfort's "innovation" was not the script, it was taking the
| script out of the hands of elite white-shoe brokers (who sold
| legitimate stocks to clients) and teaching it to unscrupulous
| boiler room scammers (who made their money by tricking
| prospects into buying penny stocks that Stratton Oakmont then
| dumped).
| lupire wrote:
| The white shoes were also unscrupulous; they just weren't
| outright frauds
| kqr wrote:
| I was under the impression that this "yes momentum" thing
| didn't really work because people get defensive when you make
| them say yes to things.
|
| And also everyone knows when someone asks for a second they
| are really asking for much more. On the other hand, if
| someone readily admits to being busy (and thus cannot listen
| well to you), it's better for both of you that you call again
| some other time.
| allenu wrote:
| I suspect the latter question works better because it's softer
| and doesn't give as much of an out as the former. We're all
| busy. It's much easier to answer in the affirmative and if
| anything, highlighting the busy nature of your day makes it
| easier to say "leave me alone", but the latter is harder to
| answer no to, at least socially. A second or two, surely you
| can spare that. He's not asking for much! (Obviously, it's
| figuratively "a second" and more like a few minutes, but at
| least there's some daylight for the caller to squeeze their
| foot in the door.)
|
| A lot sales pitches really prey on people's general desire not
| to be rude to another human being, so choosing the right
| phrasing to make the mark feel bad for breaking a social
| convention if they say no is by design.
| bittercynic wrote:
| I guess it must work, or they wouldn't keep doing it, but why
| would anyone entertain a cold caller to any degree? In my
| experience there's a 0% chance it will be useful or a good deal,
| and a very high likelyhood it's an outright scam.
|
| I do think it's good to be polite to anyone who calls, but it
| doesn't matter what they say or ask, the answer is always a
| polite "Please don't call me again."
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Most cons like that are have huge failure rates. But all it
| takes is one or two to fall for it for it to be worthwhile.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| It's a lot better than the scam calls I get where an Indian guy
| says "Do you remember signing up for x, you won!" on a scratchy
| connection where I can clearly hear everyone else in the
| crowded room calling other people.
| scrapcode wrote:
| I'm interested in more lit on the subject, but I never
| understood how anyone sells anything via cold-calling. I
| understand why SPAM works - because it has a very small barrier
| to entry and it works on the idea of converting a small
| fraction of messages sent. But cold-calling takes man-hours and
| I can only imagine it's sole purpose is to catch individuals
| that simply would rather pay you to end the call rather than
| say "no."
|
| Even worse is door-to-door sales. My neighborhood has big "no
| soliciting" signs at the entrances, but at certain times of the
| year we get huge swaths of salesmen and it's typically for the
| exact same services at different times of year. Once I was
| working on my boat late at night in my garage with the door
| halfway open. I had a pesticide service salesman zip up my
| driveway on a segway and come inside my garage and start
| pitching. I couldn't help but to lose my stuff on him. Do these
| tactics really work? Is it a certain demographic? Because I
| just don't grok.
| ryandrake wrote:
| A lot of people are gullible and/or socially have trouble
| saying "no" to people. I think cold calling and door-to-door
| sales preys on that. I have elderly family members who _hate_
| getting telemarketing cold calls, but they are from some time
| /culture where it's uncomfortable/difficult to directly tell
| someone "No, I'm not interested. Fuck off." That's often
| who's falling for these.
|
| If I actually needed what the salesman was selling, I would
| have bought it already myself. This is true for everything
| I've ever purchased. The fact that they have to push it on me
| proves that it's negative-EV and I have no problem just
| hanging up or closing the door. I guess not everyone finds
| this easy.
| 6510 wrote:
| This is actually good. "Thanks for your time, the BRAWNDO
| CORPORATION won't call you again."
|
| If you manage to end it in 3-8 seconds they can do 360 such
| calls in an hour. If the guy costs $12 per hour that works
| out to little over 3 cent.
|
| And then, 20 months later a % of the "fuck off, leave me
| alone" guys need the product and remember how polite the
| call was. These usually do a good bit of research. They
| clearly call for information. If the price is good and they
| live 3 blocks away there are good odds they let you mow
| their lawn.
| somat wrote:
| Too true, Many people, including myself, tend to say "ha,
| I have never bought any thing based on an ad or salesman"
| But often that is not the point, the point is to get it
| in your head that the product exists. and when you do
| need one, when faced with several indistinguishable
| items, you go for the one that feels familiar, the one
| that was infiltrated into your head months ago.
|
| There is nothing super wrong with this, I mean, sales is
| necessary evil of doing business. necessary, because the
| whole point is to sell the thing, and evil, because you
| are coercing someone to do something they otherwise would
| not have done. But I think there is a healthy ratio here,
| and I try to make a point(often failing for the reason in
| the previous paragraph) to avoid products that lean too
| heavily on the unhealthy side of that ratio. those
| companies that believe sales is more important than the
| product.
| 6510 wrote:
| If there are very few potential customers you just ask if
| it is at all possible to meet them. Same if you have only
| a few phone numbers from people who meet some set of
| requirements.
|
| If there are millions of prospects and you cant filter by
| anything the point is to figure out that they don't need
| or want your product. Do it fast and politely.
|
| Or not even that, the actual goal is to put in the calls
| without the negative psychological effect of mass
| rejection.
|
| Arguably, you can start calling before writing the
| business plan when you only have a half finished idea. If
| you find just one prospect who says your product would be
| a wonderful thing have them be more specific. Like that
| it is much easier to stay motivated. Rejection is much
| harder if you are deeply invested, wrote the plan, wrote
| the code, found investors, hired employees.
|
| While cold calling is heavily associated with shit
| products that doesn't mean your product is shit the
| moment you pick up the phone. Or maybe it is and you need
| to be told what is wrong with it repeatedly. You need to
| be talking with people who've made widgets for decades,
| they know their stuff.
|
| Who knows, maybe you don't even need an idea. If you just
| call 1000 people in the funeral sector they can tell you
| what software they need. Then try weddings, laundromats,
| plumbers etc
|
| Ask the dumb questions, what would be the right time to
| call someone in the $sectorName sector? What is their
| software budget? What are the repetitive administrative
| tasks? Is the sector patient and polite or do they tell
| you to fuck off and hang up?
| immibis wrote:
| > If I actually needed what the salesman was selling, I
| would have bought it already myself.
|
| This assumes it's a frictionless commodity. I want a pizza,
| I buy a pizza. I'm not interested in cold calls selling me
| pizza because if I wanted one, I would've already gone to
| the pizza shop down the road.
|
| However, not everything is like this. Jobs, for example,
| are the opposite extreme. If someone cold-calls me asking
| me a job interview, well, this actually happened (not via a
| phone call) and led to me moving halfway around the world
| and having to learn a second language. Did I get scammed?
| Ich denke nicht.
|
| In the realm of actual products, there are might be things
| you think about buying for a long time, and then eventually
| you see a good deal and buy it. Cold calls may help you
| find a good deal (I doubt it now - but back in the era when
| they weren't just spam) and then you may buy it.
|
| There's also just advertising, especially for B2B where
| everything is more opaque. I have no idea where to get
| advanced Ethernet switch ASICs ("merchant silicon" as they
| call it) and you can't even Google it because the
| information isn't public. If I was a networking company and
| some switch ASIC company called me to tell me they make
| switch ASICs and here's our product selection guide, that
| would actually be welcome information. (I'm not one, but
| let's imagine I was.)
| Eridrus wrote:
| This assumes that you know everything there is to know
| about the world.
|
| Customers often do not know that products or even product
| categories exist and need to be informed about them.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| This idea that there is a solution to every problem if
| you only knew about it is a hallmark of these things. A
| lot of products are solutions looking for a problem, and
| they work very hard to make you think you'll have a
| problem if you don't buy the product.
|
| As an example, a pest control company canvassed one of my
| friends' cul-de-sacs and essentially threatened to send
| all the pests into his house by poisoning them and
| repelling them from all the neighbors. If you have a pest
| problem exclusion is usually cheaper and better than
| poison or repellent. My wife paid for trapping and
| control on her house for years and then I went around
| over the course of a couple of weeks and closed the gaps
| in her siding that were added by telecommunications
| companies like Verizon and AT&T and Comcast over the
| years. Mysteriously the pest problem went away after
| that.
|
| So it's not always the case that the product being
| advertised is a net positive. Often it's net neutral or
| net negative. But the advertiser sure wants you to do it
| anyway.
| Eridrus wrote:
| Not all products and services are good, yes. But you
| don't spring forth from the womb knowing about all the
| good ones either.
| vundercind wrote:
| I know ad and marketing folks tell themselves this to
| sleep at night, but it's such a small factor in actual
| marketing and advertising that happens that it's
| negligible.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| That's what word of mouth is for. Ads and cold calls are
| not reliable sources of information, they are universally
| lies with some rare smidgen of truth sometimes hidden
| inside.
| dghughes wrote:
| Elderly who are a prime market for a reason cash from
| retirement or life insurance and possible dementia.
|
| I don't know how many times I have told my own mother not
| to pick up the phone. At best she knows at worst she says
| she's knows it's a scam but "just wants to see who it is".
| At least she knows not to press 1 although "why what would
| it do?" often comes up. She has no credit card or Internet
| so VISA and Amazon scams are obviously fake. Of the calls
| to her land line phone nearly 100% are scam calls.
|
| Even my aunt who knows better called to ask my mother why
| [large company] needed her to get gift cards and not tell
| the police. The pressure of authority is strong for older
| people they can't fathom someone would dare impersonate
| police.
|
| Don't fall for your elderly relatives behaviour if they
| seems smart and not in any way gullible they still may be.
| It's shocking how easily some people are fooled even ones
| you think would never fall for such scams.
| ralegh wrote:
| It sounds like you mostly didn't have the problems they were
| pitching for. Imagine you urgently needed a pesticide guy!
| Maybe you'd too annoyed to buy but someone else might not.
| That's my head canon on why google makes so much from search
| ads, they're advertising to people who are trying to solve
| that specific problem right now.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| My ex used to write car commercials, and I asked her why
| they all had that goofy tone and all sounded the same in a
| weird way. I told her that I couldn't remember a single
| dealership from all the commercials I'd heard, since that
| tone lets me filter them out. She told me that was just
| because I wasn't in the market for a car, and if I was,
| that same tone would make the car commercials stand out.
| Sure enough, when I _was_ in the market for a car years
| later, I realized she was right!
| cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
| Yep. HN (and similar community) conversations on this
| topic are always so snobby, but in reality all it points
| to is this community mostly wanting to buy different
| things. Everyone here is just as susceptible.
| allenu wrote:
| That's a great point. So much of advertising is just
| providing awareness, too. I may not be in the market for
| a particular product, but if I've heard their ads a
| million times, even if they're annoying, once I go to
| buy, I will probably give them more weight than some
| unknown brand, especially if it's a low stakes purchase.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The biggest door to door I get is from roofing/window where
| they canvas the neighborhood when doing a neighbor's house. I
| don't see the types of door to door where a car would drop
| off a couple of people to cover an area any more though. The
| No Soliciting is just not even a concern for them. It's not
| like it is enforceable in any way than a possibly rude door
| slamming in their face, and who cares about that?
| nemo44x wrote:
| "Hey, we're doing some work in your neighborhood and since
| our trucks and team are already there we can get you a
| great deal..."
|
| I've never understood why anyone would think this would
| matter. Like they're camping in our neighborhood for the
| week and this saves everyone money somehow?
|
| Or the other tactic where they say "you might have noticed
| my truck around as I've done some work for <neighbor> and
| will be at <other neighbor>'s house later..."
|
| They name people whose door they knocked on, got their
| name, and likely rejected. But they use those names on
| other prospects which makes it sound like word of mouth,
| the best form of advertising! "Oh, if my neighbor is using
| this guy for <Service> he must be good"... Really a
| brilliant tactic that I bet fools some people.
|
| The only guy I really admired (but didn't use because I
| thought his prices were far too high) was a guy going door
| to door offering to clean the outside windows. He wanted
| $10/window and I was like no way. I'm sure he got a few
| customers.
| allenu wrote:
| I can see how "we're in your neighborhood so we thought
| you might want to use our services while we're here"
| could work. When I first moved into my house a few years
| ago, I wasn't familiar with tactics used by door to door
| salespeople, so I legitimately thought they were in the
| neighborhood and to save them on a second trip, they were
| seeing if they could drum up some additional business.
|
| It was only after just about every door-to-door salesman
| used that excuse that I clued in that he's probably just
| a sales guy going to random neighborhoods and not
| actually one of the workers on the ground doing the job.
| Anyway, my point is most people don't think about these
| things, and especially not new homeowners, and probably
| just take their word.
|
| Regarding the $10/window guy: I've been meaning to get
| out the ladder and clean all my windows myself but have
| been lazy, so if somebody actually showed up at my door,
| quoted a price, and said they'd do it right then and
| there, I might take them up on the offer. It's really
| just a numbers game for them.
| nemo44x wrote:
| For me it would have been over $400 since I have over 40
| individual windows. I'd do it for $150, maybe $200. But
| not $400. I'm guessing he was able to pull a few though.
|
| As for the "in the area" thing, it sounds logical at
| first and I've heard of neighbors negotiating a discount
| by getting the same job done by the same vendor but for
| jobs that take a good while if not multiple days, it just
| doesn't matter.
| dmurray wrote:
| > I've never understood why anyone would think this would
| matter. Like they're camping in our neighborhood for the
| week and this saves everyone money somehow?
|
| This seems obvious to me. My neighbours were getting
| their gutters cleaned and needed to come in to our
| garden, I asked the guys if they'd do ours as well. We
| didn't negotiate too hard on price, but I'm sure if
| pushed they would have taken something less than they'd
| charge to drive out and set up their equipment from
| scratch.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Maybe but probably not since they likely have jobs lined
| up for the next few months and aren't about to work for
| less than they know they can get. It's not like these
| guys are taking a horse and carriage 50 miles to a town
| to setup camp and try and sell out of whatever they're
| peddling. They drive like 15 minutes. And they aren't
| desperate for work.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Like a contractor like this wouldn't be willing to call
| up the customer they have scheduled next to say they were
| delayed for a reason other than what it actually was.
| However, on the flip side the expectation that they would
| drop everything just to service this one random request
| does seem a bit entitled.
| nemo44x wrote:
| What they would do is quote a much higher price since
| they're aware the prospect isn't price comparing and
| probably thinks they're getting a deal because "they're
| already here". Why on Earth would they risk a higher
| priced job cancelling so they can do a lower priced job
| instead? lol! No. They will always do the better paying
| job first. If your contractor delays you it's because
| another person is paying better.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| I think you're assuming people are much more rational
| then they are in practice. Sure, if it were a company
| calculating all of those things, you'd be right. But I
| think it's not at all unlikely that a contractor would
| feel better doing an extra job close by, even for
| slightly lower pay, and even if they are delaying a
| slightly higher paying job farther away. Just like
| consumers have all sorts of biases that mean they don't
| always act in the most rational way, producers do to -
| especially individuals and small businesses.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| Sometimes they actually do have equipment nearby, like a
| whole driveway repaving setup!
| dsr_ wrote:
| If the tactic results in a return on investment, somebody
| will do it -- even if it makes them unwelcome at family
| reunions.
|
| When the cost is extremely low -- spamming -- any return at
| all will justify it.
|
| When the cost is low and the return is relatively high --
| cold calling -- it will happen.
|
| Only regulation and good enforcement of the regulation can
| stop these activities in a capitalist regime.
| landryraccoon wrote:
| The fact that cold calling was expensive was a signal that
| the caller was legitimate.
|
| In the era where calling someone on the phone is cheap and
| highly optimized, getting a phone call is not a signal for
| quality.
|
| But back in the 1980s that wouldn't have been the case. If a
| human being picked up the phone and called you, you would be
| more inclined to listen to them, simply because you knew it
| was expensive for them to call and it happened infrequently.
| Phone spam didn't become a thing until much later.
| 13of40 wrote:
| I think the answer is that much like an ad for a car or a
| mattress, the cold call isn't meant to take someone from zero
| to full interest, it's to find that one person in a hundred
| who's already thinking about it and just needs an opportunity
| presented to them.
|
| How many random people would you need to ask before you found
| someone who was pondering joining a gym this very morning and
| would love some more info about it?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| You're probably right, but I don't get this attitude at
| all. I could have a burning desire to do X and no time, if
| you called me out of the blue offering X, I'd still say no
| thank you, sorry. It's entirely in my DNA that cold calls
| are never good. Wonder why other people haven't developed
| this.
| JohnFen wrote:
| My "No Soliciting" sign actually worked very well with
| everyone except religious organizations. I still haven't
| figured out how to deter them aside from saying "I'll listen
| to your sales pitch about God only after you listen to my
| sales pitch about Satan."
|
| Funny story, only once did that fail to get them to go away.
| In that case, it was a couple of Mormons and they took me up
| on the offer (leaving me wishing I actually had some sort of
| satanic sales pitch). They were very nice and pleasant
| company, and we ended up spending a couple of hours talking
| about the music of Frank Zappa.
|
| But I didn't become a Mormon.
| allenu wrote:
| That was smart of them to take you up on your offer! It
| reminds me of something I read that said if you are trying
| to sell something to someone and they're budging, ask them
| what it would take to change their mind. It's kind of a
| trick question, because often, whatever they request can be
| provided (or at least an equivalent), and once the
| salesperson provides it to them, it's very hard for them to
| say no. Most people want to appear consistent in their
| behaviors.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > That was smart of them to take you up on your offer!
|
| It really was. I think the reason they did and the others
| didn't was that they understood that I wasn't being
| serious, but the others thought I was. They laughed when
| I made the offer and said "sounds great!".
|
| But, to your point, once they agreed I wasn't really in a
| position to say "no, never mind" without losing a bit of
| face.
| strix_varius wrote:
| I was once offered a job across the country. I was
| flattered and a friend's recommendation was involved so I
| wanted to be polite. Instead of saying "no," I said thank
| you so much but looking at cost of living etc it would
| really take (to-me absurd offer, benefits, moving
| support, etc). They replied back: you drive a hard
| bargain but we can do that. Welcome aboard!
|
| ...shit. But yeah, I moved.
| lupire wrote:
| Mormon salesmissionaries are trained to do whatever you
| want. They'll mow your lawn for you.
| wyclif wrote:
| Pro tip about Mormon missionaries (I've never been a Mormon
| but have been visited by them): the easiest way to get them
| to go away permanently is to get on their blacklist; they
| have them believe it or not. It is basically a "do not
| visit this house" list. And the easiest way to do that is
| to try to convert them to a different religion from
| Mormonism. If you're really good at it, they'll consider
| you a threat to their missionary work and blacklist you.
|
| Now, you might be thinking "Nah, that sounds too much like
| work" but consider the benefit: you won't be blacklisted
| only by Mormon missionary trainer 1 and trainee 2, but no
| Mormon will ever visit your home ever again, because you
| are in their LDS ward.
| JohnFen wrote:
| While I really dislike anyone knocking on my door to sell
| me something, regardless of what that thing is, I do have
| to admit...
|
| Mormons are usually the least objectionable of all the
| door-knockers. They tend to be genuinely friendly (or at
| least are able to fake it really well), respectful, don't
| do the "hard sell", and when I tell them I'm not
| interested, they honor my statement and leave without
| trying to change my mind or guilt-trip me.
| bjourne wrote:
| Yes, they work. Cold calling and similar methods are all
| about the the numbers so even if you are immune to them,
| enough people aren't. Pesticides isn't everyone's cup of tea,
| perhaps you'd be more swayed by Doctors without Borders
| soliciting donations for aid to Gaza or something? You want
| to tell Jenny the volunteer you're so cheap so can't make a
| $5 donation? And before you know it you have signed up for a
| $10 monthly donation. Jenny will send you a thank you card in
| the mail. :) Couple the emotional manipulation with some
| insistence and aggressiveness and you'll have lots of sales.
|
| BTW, I don't think you are immune. The only truly immune
| people are those that don't understand the language and/or
| have no money.
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| > The only truly immune people are those that don't
| understand the language and/or have no money.
|
| I have to disagree on that point. I have a no soliciting
| sign. It is an IQ test - I don't do business with people
| who can't or won't read the sign. I used to work in sales
| and had to deal with rejection enough that I have
| absolutely no problem asking people if they can read the
| sign and closing the door in their face if they start to
| argue that what they are doing isn't "soliciting" for some
| technical reason.
| behringer wrote:
| And yet if I showed up with exactly what you need in my
| hand at a reasonable price you wouldn't even think about
| the sign. The sign doesn't mean anything.
| vundercind wrote:
| I would assume you're screwing me and turn you down. If
| you've got enough margin to do sales that way, you're
| screwing me, even if I can't see it. It's a no.
| behringer wrote:
| Everybody makes a margin, that's how the free market
| works.
|
| But let's say you're a communist and I show up with a
| compound and a few followers, I suspect we have a deal to
| discuss regardless of the sign ;)
| vundercind wrote:
| > enough margin
| copperroof wrote:
| It's wild to me people can say things like this so
| confidently. I've said no to everything my entire life. I
| don't care what you're offering, I'm already seething
| with rage that I have to talk to you. If I want something
| I'll look for it same rules as avoiding phishing.
| immibis wrote:
| Really? If you're hungry and your coworker shows up with
| a pizza you just tell them to fuck off?
| marcuskane2 wrote:
| :wave:
|
| Hey, the rest of the thread is over here. It looks like
| you moved the goalposts so far away you might be lost.
| behringer wrote:
| Not really, it's exactly my point. If you're a game
| collector and I show up with a game at a good price,
| that's a sale. If I pull into your driveway with the
| classic car you're looking for the sale is on the table.
| The sign means nothing, what matters is what you've got
| and how much it'll cost.
| lowdest wrote:
| Those are very niche. How would you have known that's
| what I'm looking for? Sounds like groundwork for a larger
| crime. I'll say I'm busy but take your name and number
| and later do OSINT research on you to level the playing
| field. Why would I engage someone who knows where my
| family sleeps when I don't know where theirs sleeps?
| immibis wrote:
| Successful cold callers research their customers
| beforehand to know what they want, and don't call people
| who probably aren't interested.
|
| If you're a game collector and I show up with a rare
| game, you're probably interested. Even if you don't buy
| it, at least I'm not wasting your time. If I show up with
| an Ethernet switch ASIC, you're probably not interested
| and I am wasting your time. That's why Marvell would
| cold-call Juniper and Cisco, not Antonio Romero Monteiro.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| You could be offering hundred dollar bills for my garbage
| - I wouldn't even listen.
| behringer wrote:
| Everybody wants something and everybody has a price
| they'll pay for it.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Not from random strangers soliciting it. The chance that
| they are going to scam you is much too high to trust
| anything they offer.
| kuschku wrote:
| Even in such a situation - and that's actually happened
| before - I'd still say no and buy the product from a
| competitor, even if that means paying twice as much.
|
| Also, the last time a doctors without borders person
| showed up, I tried pressuring her into joining a local
| protest a few days later until she got uncomfortable and
| decided to leave.
|
| All types of forceful advertising - be that online ads or
| door-to-door salesmen - are absolute bullshit and
| shouldn't exist in a civilized society.
|
| My doorbell is labeled "no soliciting" for a reason.
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| Yes, it would mean something, and, yes, I would think
| about the sign. In fact, I did this about a month ago to
| someone who was selling a service I was actively in the
| market for. As I said, and I can only say this to you
| again, I can't understand it for you: the sign is an IQ
| test. I will not do business with someone who cannot or
| will not read the sign.
| r0fl wrote:
| I disagree with the last statement. I have seen a handful
| of people close to me get scammed and have developed a "no
| thank you" attitude to everything.
|
| Want to donate to save this or that? No thank you
|
| Want this super great deal on this awesome thing? No thank
| you
|
| Want free money? No thank you
|
| If I want something I'll Google it and do some research and
| then just get that thing. I'm glad to overpay to do things
| my way. Nothing would change my mind. Ever.
| XorNot wrote:
| My opinion in recent years is that, completely by accident,
| we made the internet more secure then the phone system.
|
| On the internet we have - for it's faults - the DNS and
| X.509 certificate systems. When I go to my bank's website,
| I know it's my bank.
|
| We _desperately_ need telecommunications to implement the
| same thing - i.e. businesses must present a valid
| cryptographic certificate which ties back to their
| registration number when using the phone system.
|
| At the very least, so someone claiming to be a business
| would have a clear "invalid certificate" message displayed
| on the receiver.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Could individuals implement this on top of the current
| phone system?
|
| E.g., each call starts with an attempted modem
| conversation to validate certificates, keys, etc.
|
| And then the call is forwarded to the recipient's actual
| phone depending on rules related to that first step.
| ttla wrote:
| Not disagreeing that it must work, however, I think
| immunity is possible with a simple heuristic: Say no to all
| inbounds.
|
| Or more specifically, if you get a call and it's not from
| someone you know then you simply hang up. Relevant
| information comes from you seeking it out, not the other
| way around.
| jtriangle wrote:
| I'm immune because I don't answer my phone if you're not in
| my limited contacts list, and if you're an unknown number,
| you automatically go straight to voicemail.
|
| Drastic measures like this had to be taken because I had a
| DBA for awhile and foolishly listed my actual number with
| the business. Basically my number is forever 'on the list',
| so, I made my own list.
|
| Of course, if you're on my list and you call asking for ten
| bucks, well, I'll probably give it to you.
| astura wrote:
| >BTW, I don't think you are immune. The only truly immune
| people are those that don't understand the language and/or
| have no money.
|
| Incorrect - I'm immune because I presume 100% of
| solicitations are scams and behave as such. I don't listen
| to solicitations from anyone. I will just hang up, end the
| conversation, walk away, or close the door.
|
| Even if I did listen to a solicitation and I was interested
| in the product or giving to the cause I would never
| actually buy anything, remember, I am presuming Jenny is a
| scammer. Jenny isn't getting any money from me no matter
| what she's selling.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _Doctors without Borders soliciting donations_
|
| We had such a visit recently; we were so appalled at the
| very _idea_ that DwB would stoop so low as to send door-to-
| door solicitors around the town, that we immediately
| assumed this person was scoping the block for a potential
| break-in. Because he asked about our neighbor and we
| accidentally let it slip that he 's away, we put up a
| hidden surveillance camera[0] overlooking the stairway and
| both our doors' for a couple days, just in case someone
| decides to come back at night. We also immediately queried
| Doctors Without Borders about this, warning them about a
| potential crime done using their brand.
|
| Imagine our surprise where Doctors Without Borders
| responded to confirm that the person who visited us was, in
| fact, legitimately soliciting donations for them, and that
| they actually do door-to-door. Something in me died that
| day.
|
| --
|
| [0] - We repurposed a nanny cam for this, where by "nanny
| cam" I mean Ubiquiti G4 Instant, because the only way you
| can get a baby camera these days that doesn't send videos
| of your kids to random third-party servers is by buying
| industrial surveillance hardware.
| lowdest wrote:
| For privacy sake, and having encountered too many scammers,
| I have a hard rule about never giving money or personal
| info to any request, for any reason. If it's something I
| want to buy or participate in, I will follow up through
| other channels after some online research. If it's a
| business I already buy from, still a scam, I will use their
| website on my own. If it is emotionally charged or urgent,
| it is definitely a scam.
|
| The most manipulated I've been in recent years is when I
| actually feel bad for the salesperson because their job
| sucks so much.
| scrapcode wrote:
| I have personally never bought / donated anything from / to
| a cold-caller or a door-to-door salesman. At most it might
| pique my interest into doing my own research into the
| field/product and seek out the market leader on my own.
| nunez wrote:
| Sometimes the right QUALIFIED cold call/email at the right
| time with the right pitch can be very effective.
| WalterBright wrote:
| My favorite door to door sales pitch is "buy a subscription
| to one of these magazines or I'll have to go back to doing
| drugs." I've had at least 3 of those salesmen.
| jasomill wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_wnCkhi9b0
| romanhn wrote:
| You know, I'm with you. Yet - I once had an ISP rep (Sonic)
| show up at my door letting me know that they're setting up
| 10Gbps fiber in the neighborhood and if I'm interested in
| getting 10x speed (was already on 1Gbps fiber from AT&T) at
| less than half the cost. I signed up on the spot, and I'm no
| stranger to saying no. So I suppose it's all about playing
| the numbers game looking for the right customer for that
| pitch.
| gadders wrote:
| I did door to door selling in the US (as a Brit) as a summer
| job after graduating. The items weren't super expensive
| (maybe max $80 in the early '90s).
|
| I wasn't very good at it, but some people did quite well out
| of it. Admittedly, only earning student-amounts. I don't
| think you could have fed a family on it.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Many occupations involve receiving cold outreach and
| filtering for useful offers.
|
| Think YouTubers receiving sponsorship offers, journalists
| getting leads, recruiters getting candidates, VCs finding
| start-ups, and car dealers getting inventory.
|
| These people are often quite receptive to cold calls & emails
| if you can demonstrate credibility.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I'm interested in more lit on the subject, but I never
| understood how anyone sells anything via cold-calling.
|
| Read a good sales book that talks about it.
|
| There are a few factors: Effective salespeople will narrow
| down the list to cold call - so it's not completely random.
| Examples:
|
| When trying to get a house for cheap, it's not hard to find a
| list of people in a locale who own more than 50% equity. Now
| it's a matter of cold calling and finding one who is in hard
| times and cannot sell (e.g. house is in poor enough condition
| that no bank will give out a mortgage). The home owners are
| at risk of defaulting, so you take the property off their
| hands for relatively cheap, fix it up, and sell it. This way
| the homeowners get money (as opposed to a foreclosure where
| they'd get nothing).
|
| Roofs: A lot of new homes have a 20 year roof. Look up
| neighborhoods built in the last 20-30 years. Go door to door
| and try to sell them a new roof. Many will buy, because they
| _know_ they have to replace it sooner or later.[1] You can
| also tell them which of their neighbors recently got a new
| roof.
|
| Solar panels: Same idea: Find people with old roofs, and give
| them a "deal" for a new roof + solar panel combo. Getting
| that solar panel incentivizes them to change the roof.
|
| Really, the key is to have a systematic way to reduce your
| search space. Then you'll get more successes.
|
| [1] Pro tip: _Never_ get your roof changed this way. I 've
| actively gotten quotes for my roof, and the highest quote I
| got was cheaper than the lowest quote from the door to door
| salesmen.
| bboygravity wrote:
| Not efficient compared to what?
|
| Compared to online marketing? Or cold emailing? Or talking to
| random people in the street?
|
| I can't actually imagine a more efficient way to get a
| significant nr of sales from strangers than cold calling
| personally.
|
| Of course contacting people who already know you is better, but
| the problem for a business is that in most/all cases that list
| of people who know you is not long enough.
| djohnston wrote:
| Old people are lonely. It's not complicated.
| gregschlom wrote:
| Probably because things are a bit different now than in the
| 80's and 90's?
|
| 1. We used to do a lot more business over phone calls back in
| those days, so people were more willing to entertain cold phone
| calls
|
| 2. Technology has allowed automating phone call scams, so we
| get a lot more of those nowadays
|
| 3. Calling internationally is dirt cheap now, so you can have
| call centers full of scammers in cheap countries
|
| 4. Everyone is using text messaging with their friends and
| family so phone calls are more likely to be scams
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| I remember every other TV commercial ending with an address
| for where to send my self-addressed stamped envelope.
| pixl97 wrote:
| To expand on point 3, unlimited long distance and VOIP. At
| least before 1984 things like long distance calls where HYPER
| expensive via AT&T domination of the long distance market.
| After the breakup the market slowly trended to unlimited long
| distance.
|
| After that point it required the invention of high speed
| internet and compression algorithms. Calling internationally
| over dedicated channels remained insanely expensive even
| after long distance mostly disappeared. Now the foreign call
| is handled via IP until it reaches the country of origin and
| is dumped into POTS via a local VOIP provider.
| 6510 wrote:
| After we've called you 50 times using different company names
| the deals get really competitive. Is Monday good for you?
| Tectosage wrote:
| This pitch worked much better in the 80s and 90s when
|
| A) most investors had a broker not just for advice, but because
| there was no easy way to trade individually or get live stock
| quotes until the internet was widespread and matured
|
| B) telephone sales in general were more common then and less
| likely to be a scam (Stratton Oakmont and other boiler rooms
| played a large role in shifting public opinion on this)
|
| C) The most desirable prospects (High Net Worth Individuals)
| were accustomed to dealing with legitimate brokers over the
| phone and being solicited by brokers from other legitimate
| firms in such a way
|
| D) The markets were raging in such a way that everyone had FOMO
| and was dying to hear of a hot new tip
|
| Almost nobody legitimate in the financial advising world
| acquires customers via cold call pitching anymore. Cold calling
| is still part of the toolkit for other sales niches (eg, tech
| sales) but it's a tough road with a low success rate.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >telephone sales in general were more common then and less
| likely to be a scam
|
| Caller had to pay long distance costs at the time and really
| until you got in the later 90s early 2000's did you start
| seeing unlimited long distance everywhere.
|
| Getting cold calls from random people way back then was super
| rate because it was expensive.
| Tectosage wrote:
| This is a great point. "More common" wasn't the best choice
| of words because it implies a higher frequency, which was
| not the case. "More acceptable/accepted/normalized" would
| have been better phrasing.
| cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
| I mean, if you want to be pedantic about it, I suppose it
| depends on whether or not "telephone sales" implies
| something actually being sold.
| gary_0 wrote:
| "Extremely cheap global telecommunications accessible to
| everyone" came with a lot of drawbacks we didn't consider
| at the time they started to become viable. Although all the
| spam in our inboxes should have been a clue.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| Not exactly an advantage to pay a fee to a middleman.
| It's more like frictionless communication should be the
| default, and we had a period where friction accidentally
| acted as signal
| Avicebron wrote:
| I mean if the signal isn't replaced by anything, then the
| onus is put on to the person receiving the call. If years
| ago, there was a barrier for an army of phone scammers
| from across the world throwing everything they can think
| of at an old person with borderline dementia, and
| suddenly that went away..I don't know how you can really
| justify the "frictionless communication" outside of a
| couple of options. A) "Well it's their fault, they should
| be on their guard all the time everyone is always trying
| to scam and manipulate you" -- (idk about you but this
| seems pretty grim and inhumane) B) "well it's a net
| benefit for ~someone~ so we should all be happy about it,
| and refer to A)"
| vkou wrote:
| You don't actually want frictionless communication.
| Frictionless communication will drown you in a mountain
| of spam.
|
| A 'Frictionless' ability to transmit puts all the
| friction, pain, and negative externalities onto the
| recipient.
| qq66 wrote:
| I want frictionless communication with the people I've
| already communicated with, but very high friction
| communication with people I've never talked to before.
| I'd love a way to charge $10 to get into my inbox. If it
| ends up being a long lost friend or whatever, I'll Venmo
| them back the $10.
| smabie wrote:
| You can send everyone not on a list to spam and auto
| respond with a link to pay you $10 to get on the white
| list
|
| should be doable
| thanksgiving wrote:
| Not currently doable with phone calls.
|
| From what I understand, the caller ID feature is
| completely useless. There is no willingness to implement
| rules that guarantee the number the call is coming from
| is the owner of the number. The best you can do is call
| them back and hope the routing doesn't get screwed up.
| gsck wrote:
| Depends on the circuit that you are dialling out onto.
|
| I know where I work there are some rules about presenting
| whatever number you want on our trunk provider, but this
| is something they have put in place themselves with no
| "legal" reason for them to do it. We've been working with
| them for years so we are one of their trusted clients and
| have the ability to present any number we want as long as
| we have permission to do so from the number owner.
|
| The fact its up to the trunk provider to put these rules
| in place and not just standard everywhere is wild to me.
| c22 wrote:
| You'll have to just to send your reply!
| outop wrote:
| If I was your long lost friend I probably wouldn't pay
| the $10 upfront.
| jtriangle wrote:
| Not much of a friend then eh
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| This use case is actually the reason we have bitcoin, tho
| it's a shame it took off as a protest to banks instead of
| getting implemented as a functional anti-spam tool. To
| this day spam is regularly in my inbox and I have to
| check my spam folder for legitamate messages.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash
| dartos wrote:
| Well, no. That's the reason we have hash cash (the pow
| algo for bitcoin)
|
| Bitcoin itself, as with most early cryptocurrencies, is
| and was a protest against banks and centralized finance.
| gosub100 wrote:
| There's nothing stopping this from happening. Build
| encryption into the email protocols and hide the decrypt
| key behind a block chain that costs even $0.01 of a
| fungible token to access.
| CPLX wrote:
| There's lots of services like this that I have seen,
| including a popular one where you can donate $1 to a
| charity in order for your email to reach someone's inbox.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Ye imagine if you got 50c for each call or email you
| received not on a whitelist and the social contract was
| to refund it by pressing #1 after the call ended or
| whatever.
|
| Pay numbers are a thing so I guess it should be doable.
| tantalor wrote:
| Yes please. SMS too.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > It's more like frictionless communication should be the
| default
|
| No. We should have complete control on how much friction
| anybody gets to communicating with us. And frictionless
| should absolutely not be the default.
| pradn wrote:
| Friction is signal.
|
| I recall I used to individually send snaps to like 30
| friends each time, back before Snapchat invented Stories.
| I had to think a tiny bit, and put a tiny bit of effort,
| for each person. We lost that when people started posting
| to stories only.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| With enough technological development we can make
| everything in the future like getting off from the
| airport train in a big third world city and surrounded by
| beggars and fraudsters. Robocalls, AI blogspam, Email,
| Facebook etc.
| JackFr wrote:
| Up until the early 90's if you wanted a stock price intraday,
| you had to call your broker. Your alternative was waiting
| until the morning and getting previous close from NYT or WSJ.
| Bluestein wrote:
| Totally.-
|
| PS. Brings back memories. Won an US, national high school
| "paper trading" contest back in the day. Out of 14000
| participants. Was quite proud ...
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Trick to winning is to make a couple of insane bets that
| end up panning out, yeah?
| Bluestein wrote:
| Can't speak to that, but I remember spending hours and
| hours and hours pouring over stock listings after hours.-
|
| I distinctly remember we used a newspaper that I think is
| still around called IBD "Investors Business Daily", and
| they had this system that worked really well ("C-A-N-S-L-
| I-M").-
|
| And I remember pouring over thousands and thousands and
| thousands and thousands of possibilities each day, and
| basically doing fundamental and technical analysis. I
| would filter out the candidates with broad technical
| analysis and then review the fundamentals of each,
| looking up each company on huge binders - yes, paper -
| from a subscription service the school had that had all
| financial and other info for all listed companies.-
|
| And it worked out. At some point, I caught a few big ones
| that just went ballistic. And it worked out great. One of
| the things it did is it taught me the _value of effort_.
| And I distinctly remember another thing, too. I
| distinctly remember being called by the organization to
| let me know I was winning, having won, all but
| certainly.-
|
| And the _day after that_ , right before the closing of
| the ranking, _running out of trades_ - because one had a
| limited amount of trades to perform during the
| competition. So I could not close a position I had, which
| had earned me a lot, so I wound up at a loss after having
| won, which, and I shall never forget this, ended up with
| my teacher basically saying, "I have seen how much
| effort you put into this, so I will give you -my account-
| to handle, so you can continue trading, so you will
| always remember that hard work and effort pays off in the
| end".-
|
| In the end I did loose my ranking and with too little
| time could not catch up, even with the second account.-
|
| So, I lost, but - in a way - I won, because I "won" that
| lesson ...
|
| And gush bump it, it's a lesson I've never forgotten.-
|
| So thank you, Mr. Brown.-
| themdonuts wrote:
| Did you become a trader?
| Bluestein wrote:
| Ah! The "fundamental" question :)
|
| No, I did not.-
|
| PS. Funny thing is I remember being asked, by the
| organization - whether I was going to go into finance at
| the time. Of course, I emphatically said that I was.-
|
| I guess "life" took over. It is what happens to you while
| you make other plans, after all ...
|
| ... but the lesson(s) learned have remained with me.-
| Shocka1 wrote:
| IBD - The ol' cup and handle. I still use it to this day
| when selling puts.
| Bluestein wrote:
| I mean they had (O'Neil and Co.) some great, solid
| points.-
|
| (And, in the days before the internet their listings were
| great ...)
| calfuris wrote:
| I remember doing something similar with a website in high
| school. Some people made reasonable investments and did
| well. Some people made insane bets that panned out and
| did better. The winner correctly guessed that the site
| wouldn't properly account for stock splits and merges and
| went hunting for stocks that were about to merge.
| Bluestein wrote:
| > The winner correctly guessed that the site wouldn't
| properly account for stock splits and merges and went
| hunting for stocks that were about to merge.
|
| Smart, actually.-
| eitally wrote:
| Ahh, the "Stock Market Game". It still exists:
| https://www.stockmarketgame.org/
|
| It's more sophisticated now, and like you, when I was in
| school (middle school in the late 80s), we just tracked
| our portfolio performance using daily newspapers. I
| remember buying a couple of symbols for companies I'd
| never even heard of, and knew nothing about. Probably not
| the best that this was a thing led by our social studies
| teacher.
| Bluestein wrote:
| Fascinating to know that it still exists. Thank you for
| bringing it up ...
|
| Actually, these "wargames" serve _another_ IMHO crucial
| purpose - and another lesson I gathered from the whole
| experience, early: Learn to invest. And learn to invest
| as an structural part of one 's development.-
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| Also worth noting companies like Cutco use a similar script
| and a cold-calling approach, it doesn't work nearly as well
| as it used to though because most people don't answer numbers
| they don't know, so they train people to leave a message and
| say that a close friend (the reference) told you to call them
| mwexler wrote:
| Remember, this was not too far removed from the era of
| https://youtu.be/2MXqb1a3Apg?si=J7Q_9hBYin2KWKwN
|
| In our world of limited source credibility and disdain for
| expertise, this video and the script do seem like throwbacks
| to another time.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Go ask the elderly why they love cold callers and scammers. It
| is beyond my comprehension how their minds work. If Moses split
| the sea in front of their own eyes they wouldn't trust him to
| lend him five dollars, but as soon as there's a scammer on the
| phone or on the internet, wallets open wide.
| djeastm wrote:
| I would guess many of them are lonely and are just happy for
| the attention.
|
| My father made a friend, an elderly man, who was being taken
| advantage of by some locals. Basically helping themselves to
| anything in his house, asking for cash, drives places, etc.
| And he was glad to give it because he had no one else in his
| life at the time. What's money with no one to share it with?
| Finally met my Dad, who, thankfully, got his friend to move
| out-of-state to live with his only surviving family before he
| passed
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Well, that's where the word "phony" comes from.
| lupire wrote:
| That's a phony etymology of "phony", which predates
| telephony.
| missedthecue wrote:
| It surprises me too. When my current company was getting off
| the ground last year I was cold calling to find our first
| customers for our MVP. This is in the B2B software space. I
| would make about 70 calls a day and it would shock me how many
| people not only pick up, but stay on the phone to hear me out.
| I landed a number of accounts this way to get the momentum
| rolling.
|
| And it was awkward for me too, I don't even have a background
| in sales. I'm sure a talented salesperson could have done much
| better than me at retaining their attention after the first
| opening sentences.
| immibis wrote:
| I think it's more welcome in B2B transactions because there
| are less ways to find products and less transactions in
| general. Whatever you're selling, there's a good chance the
| company didn't even know they wanted it until you reached out
| to them.
|
| It goes like this at trade shows too. I can find the
| available types of pizza by visiting any pizza shop, but to
| find the available types of 5G base station I'll probably
| have to attend Mobile World Congress, or they'll have to
| discover me (if I'm a more publicly visible and quite big
| company) and then call me.
| pavlov wrote:
| I remember getting a cold call in 2014 from (supposedly) an
| investment company in Hong Kong. I was curious to hear what
| kind of pitch they had for someone like me living in Finland.
|
| They claimed to have access to a block of NVidia stock
| available at a discount to the market price (I think it was
| around 10-15% off) and they needed investor funds immediately
| to buy the whole block. The minimum investment was $10k. When I
| sounded interested, my call was moved to a different young man
| who had a much more aggressive tone. That's where I hung up.
|
| After the call, I remember thinking: "This is actually a good
| investment idea. I should buy some NVDA, but not from these
| weirdos in Hong Kong."
|
| -- Dear reader, did I buy the stock then? Of course not. Looks
| like NVDA is up about 260x since that call. (Insane. I had to
| double-check that.)
|
| Imagine if someone actually sent $10k to this cold-calling Hong
| Kong company and just forgot about it. Now that $10k would be
| worth 2.6 million dollars. You see NVidia in the news and get
| excited about cashing out to buy a mansion... You call their
| phone in Hong Kong. "This number has been disconnected." No
| trace online of the investment advisor who got your $10k. That
| would sting far worse than just realizing early on that you'd
| been scammed.
| lupire wrote:
| This is a very common active Bitcoin "investment" scam today.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > This is a very common active Bitcoin "investment" scam
| today.
|
| Are you saying that now that BlackRock's CEO is endorsing
| it, El Savlador's president is buying it as reserve for the
| country and Trump promising to use Bitcoin as a strategic
| reserve, it could go 260x and that, hence, if we get such a
| scammy phone call we should hung up and open an account on
| Coinbase (a HN unicorn btw) to buy Bitcoins?
| cynicalsecurity wrote:
| You would send them 10K USD and you could forget about 10K
| forever. What a great opportunity. I'm not even sure the were
| from Hong Kong, probably some scam from mainland China.
| icedchai wrote:
| Cold callers were less of a problem 30 years ago. Now the
| entire US phone system is open to competition. You might think
| that was a good thing, but it's also what allows cheap VOIP
| calls appearing to be from "local" numbers to bother you night
| and day.
|
| Bring back Ma Bell. She wouldn't have put up with this crap.
| proteal wrote:
| I think cold calling works decently for a certain subset of
| business people. There are folks out there that have genuine
| needs that salespeople can meet. At my last job, I didn't have
| authority to buy nor any real interest in the risk that such an
| opportunity could mean for the business. My boss, on the other
| hand, had lots of authority and would occasionally listen to
| pitches because they could benefit both parties. 95% of the
| time things didn't go further than the first call, but every
| now and then it would be a good fit. Anyone more senior than
| him probably didn't have the time for cold calls, but there is
| a sweet spot in the org where they can be effective. Since my
| boss had the ear of the budget setters, he could pitch them the
| idea and reap the benefit. Like other commenters have pointed
| out, cold calling and spam aren't so different in the sense
| that if they never worked, nobody would do them.
|
| For example, I worked with with the woman in charge of our
| modeling team. She had a big issue managing a growing,
| international workflow. They used spreadsheets when the team
| was smaller, but that solution didn't scale and was starting to
| show cracks. Her boss gave her significant budget to fix the
| problem, but she had no idea how to spend it. I told her that
| one call to a Jira sales rep (or equivalent) and all her
| problems would evaporate. One call could have potentially saved
| our firm tons of money and provided another firm with a very
| good, sticky customer. As far as I'm aware, she was so
| overworked as-is that she never reached out/researched it.
| tombert wrote:
| There was once a recruiter who cold called me and I ended up
| taking the job that they reached out about, so I guess it works
| sometimes?
|
| Obviously recruiting is a bit different, because of course I
| have to go interview at a place and whatnot, but it's the only
| example of where a cold call worked on me.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| This is like asking who would ever click on an online ad, yet
| they sell billions of dollars of merchandise every year. It's a
| numbers game.
| tootie wrote:
| Even with modern marketing like tv ads, display ads, or even
| paper mailers the expected conversion rate is tiny. It's always
| a numbers game. If you have a sales script that captures 0.7%
| of people who hear it while your competition is capturing 0.4%
| then you have a huge advantage. But you still have to reach
| thousands of targets to sustain a business.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Retirees are bored and want to feel like they are part of
| something
| borski wrote:
| Cold calling _still works today_.
|
| People are gullible and want to believe the best in others.
| Cynics don't make good victims.
| atum47 wrote:
| > but why would anyone entertain a cold caller
|
| I'd like for you to meet my dad.
| gspencley wrote:
| > I do think it's good to be polite to anyone who calls
|
| Out of curiosity, why?
|
| It might be (probably is) my asocial personality and the fact
| that getting interrupted is very triggering for me.*
|
| But while I am amenable to the argument that there is no use in
| being rude to someone who cold calls, I can't help but pick on
| your choice of words: "good to be polite to anyone"
|
| Is it morally good to be polite to someone who wants to harm
| you? Perhaps if they are physically threatening you and
| politeness is part of your deescalation strategy. But a cold
| caller? I like to believe that there is a special rung of hell
| reserved for cold callers (right next to lawyers and people who
| talk at the theatre).
|
| I don't go out of my way to be mean or nasty to them because
| there is nothing of value that can come from that.
|
| But they certainly don't deserve a "please" in front of "delete
| this number _click_ " in my personal opinion.
|
| * - While I'm not a huge fan of smart phones, they do have one
| killer feature that has won me over: the ability to set the
| default ring tone to silence and assign people in my contacts a
| ring tone that will actually get my attention.
| cynicalsecurity wrote:
| > Is it morally good to be polite to someone who wants to
| harm you?
|
| It's not. People who advocate for it here are cold callers
| themselves.
| littlekey wrote:
| >Do we all kind of wish we worked at Stratton Oakmont for a year
| and made tons of money....? Probably.
|
| Gross.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| > If you can look past the $200M they defrauded from 1,500
| investors... they were actually a pretty successful sales team.
| jjulius wrote:
| The operative word being _" if"_. I'm kinda with OP here
| either way.
| the_af wrote:
| That reads a lot like "if you can look past the fact Famous
| Serial Killer murdered people, you have to admit he was
| pretty skilled with knives!".
| jameslk wrote:
| Please write more substantial and intellectually stimulating
| comments on HN:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| WolfeReader wrote:
| The article suggests that its author would have enjoyed an
| opportunity to work with the disreputable firm Stratton
| Oakmont, and that their motivation to do so is purely
| personal gain.
|
| And while this alone would cause us to doubt the character of
| the author, they then go on to claim that "we", the readers
| of the article, share this amoral viewpoint. Or perhaps
| implies that we _should_ share it if we don't already.
|
| I find this outlook to be reprehensible. Even thinking about
| it causes my stomach to tense.
|
| (There, 3 paragraphs that say exactly what the OP said in 1
| word. Happy?)
| jameslk wrote:
| > (There, 3 paragraphs that say exactly what the OP said in
| 1 word. Happy?)
|
| Yes, I think that's a better comment, sans the snark.
|
| Regardless, as another commenter pointed out, the quote is
| missing some important context:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41174244
|
| In general, I find the rest of the article more
| interesting, and focusing on the ethical leanings of the
| author less relevant. I'd rather see more discussion about
| the sales script.
| the_af wrote:
| While I did find the rest of the article fascinating -- I
| find the tricks and traps of conmen fascinating -- I do
| not think the missing context was at all important. It
| was actually a cop-out. Any Stratton Oakmont business
| acumen was overshadowed (and possibly caused by) their
| willingness to commit fraud. It's not something that can
| be glossed over.
| photonthug wrote:
| > focusing on the ethical leanings of the author less
| relevant. I'd rather see more discussion about the sales
| script.
|
| But why? Granted that discussion of ethical
| considerations are more likely to be divisive /
| inflammatory. But this is also pretty much the only
| direction to go if you want to make any discussion of a
| _freaking sales-script_ intellectually satisfying and
| promote curiosity /inquiry.
|
| This is literally just a guide to the most effective ways
| to manipulate people. We can try to avoid labeling that
| sort of thing as "evil", but then again if the abstracted
| psychology itself is what is interesting rather than the
| practical aspects of how to trick people, we should
| probably be looking at psych-papers instead of sales-
| scripts from famous scams?
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > Regardless, as another commenter pointed out, the quote
| is missing some important context:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41174244
|
| It's a stretch to call that "important context" given
| that:
|
| 1. There is an entire article between those two
| sentences.
|
| 2. The desire to work for the company is not couched by
| that conditional
| cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
| By "intellectually stimulating", they meant "with enough
| verbosity and with a high enough frequency of multisyllabic
| words that this sewing circle of self-congratulatory
| computer operators feels intellectually engaged by it".
|
| "Gross" contributed just as much as the 50 highly upvoted
| "stochastic parrot" or "WFH or die" rants I see here every
| day, with the added bonus of its concise nature making it
| easy to read.
|
| HN needs more of these comments!
| fuzzer371 wrote:
| I mean, he's not wrong. I'd have loved to have worked there for
| a year and have made tons of money.
| jjulius wrote:
| Sure he is - he said "we all", but I count at least three of
| us in this specific chain who find it gross.
| tombert wrote:
| He also said "kind of" and "probably".
|
| Doesn't pretty much everyone wish that they had more money?
| I "kind of" want to steal a Lamborghini when I see them,
| but I don't do it because that would be unethical because
| robbing people is unethical. I don't think it's gross to at
| least think about it.
|
| I mean, I don't know, maybe "we all" was a bit hyperbolic
| but I don't think it was so bad.
| jjulius wrote:
| I can only speak for myself. I want to have enough money
| to be able to comfortably provide for myself and my
| family, while also allowing us to be able to go and do
| the things we love. And - that's where we're at. We're
| firmly "middle class" and I'm content with the amount of
| money I'm making. I don't really care if I had more (it'd
| be nice, sure, but I don't need it), and I don't really
| care about fancy, overpriced, high-end goods that are,
| essentially, just status symbols (eg, Lamborghinis).
| tombert wrote:
| I also have enough money, and I'm also firmly middle
| class, and I'm also able to afford to do stuff I enjoy,
| but if I won the lottery I'm not going to say "no" to the
| money [1].
|
| I don't really want to buy a Lamborghini because I agree,
| it's an expensive status symbol, but similarly if someone
| gave one to me for free, I'd take it because I think
| they're cool (or I could flip it for a lot of money).
| Sometimes I, if only for a moment, will think about how
| easy it might be to steal a Lamborghini and how it would
| be cool if I did.
|
| (I'm just using Lamborghini as an example though, replace
| it with anything that you think is cool but too expensive
| to actually justify buying).
|
| Does it make me a gross jerk for _thinking_ about it?
| Maybe, but I don 't think so; considering a bad thing
| isn't the same as doing that bad thing. It lives very
| firmly in my brain, and I'm quite confident that I
| wouldn't _actually_ do anything like that.
|
| [1] I don't actually play the lottery, just an example.
| the_af wrote:
| > _He also said "kind of" and "probably"._
|
| Those are "probably" "kind of" weasel words to make the
| assertion seem less gross when it is, indeed, very gross.
|
| This is not like dreaming of getting a Lamborghini for
| free. It's like "kind of" dreaming of living the life of
| a successful drug cartel boss. Gross.
| tombert wrote:
| It's not a weasel word, because I don't think what they
| were trying to say was unclear.
|
| Maybe you're some angel who has never wanted to do
| anything wrong for a single moment in your life, power to
| you if you are, but I think you are in the vast, vast
| minority.
|
| Most people have considered doing a bad thing at least
| once and probably considerably more than that. I don't
| think they're bad for thinking it. I feel like that's
| what the writer was trying to say.
| the_af wrote:
| Maybe "weasel word" wasn't the best term, what I meant is
| that "kind of", "probably" are words they used to deflate
| the emphasis of their sentence in order to make it seem
| less gross. This is a technique to make the meaning seem
| less harsh/disgusting/shocking and easier to agree with
| -- and _you can bet they know it and use it purposefully_
| , the whole article is written by salespeople about other
| salespeople and is _precisely_ about techniques like this
| (see how they describe the tactical use of "fair
| enough", "I'm not trying to [...]", etc).
|
| But it is gross because we can see past all of this, and
| the meaning of the sentence remains pretty bad.
|
| > _Maybe you're some angel who has never wanted to do
| anything wrong_
|
| I've never wanted to rob or scam people, no. I'm not in
| the minority either.
| tombert wrote:
| > I've never wanted to rob or scam people, no. I'm not in
| the minority either.
|
| Ok, well then I think you're lying. I don't think you're
| just misremembering or anything, I actively think you are
| being dishonest if you are genuinely saying that you've
| never even once wanted to steal something, if only for a
| moment. I'm not accusing you of actually stealing
| anything, but if you're claiming that you've never even
| once thought "it would be cool to take that thing that
| that person has so I could have it", then I just think
| you're not telling the truth.
|
| Frankly this sanctimonious holier-than-thou pretending-
| to-be-offended stuff is really tiring; you decided to
| make a comment saying "gross" purely so you could act
| judgemental for something that, fundamentally, you know
| really wasn't that bad.
|
| EDIT:
|
| Sorry, for some reason I misremembered, I thought you
| wrote the original "gross" comment.
|
| I still think you're lying though.
| cortesoft wrote:
| You wouldn't care that every dollar you had was taken from
| some else via fraud?
| eschneider wrote:
| Right. You've got to live with the ethics of the things you do
| (and don't do.)
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't pick the most provocative thing in an article
| or post to complain about in the thread. Find something
| interesting to respond to instead._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| the_af wrote:
| Dang, in general this is a good guideline that you enforce.
|
| In this particular article, though, I think the OP's comment
| is relevant. "Gross" sums up pretty much how many of us feel
| about the quoted assertion and the overall tone of the
| article.
|
| Let's put it another way. Think about an hypothetical article
| relevant to HN (say, something about how you can "hack" a
| human's response to suggestions using pheromones or whatnot)
| analyzing how a famous rapist used these techniques, and
| included the statement "Was this person a rapist? Yes. But
| wouldn't most of us want to use these techniques on women?
| Sure!".
|
| Wouldn't it be appropriate to call such a statement gross,
| and wouldn't it also overshadow the rest of the article?
| pvg wrote:
| _Let 's put it another way._
|
| Let's not put it that way, maybe?
|
| The parallel is poor because one of these things is so much
| more provocative than the other you that you can't
| meaningfully compare the responses as analogous. The sane
| thing to do with an article approvingly invoking
| nonconsensual sexual abuse to make an unrelated point is to
| flag it and if it doesn't die, send the moderators an email
| so they can squish it.
|
| _sums up pretty much how many of us feel_
|
| The (however aspirational) goal is interesting conversation
| and a visible tally of everyone's id-level response to
| something has its own joys and merits (e.g. at concert
| venues, sports arenas, rallies) but 'interesting
| conversation' is not among them.
| the_af wrote:
| On the contrary, let's. Because it's apt.
|
| Here's an even better parallel: it's gross to dream of
| having the business acumen of successful drug lords or
| mobsters. They may excel at what they do, but still,
| saying "who hasn't dreamt of making lots of money like
| they did?" would be gross.
|
| > _The (however aspirational) goal is interesting
| conversation and a visible tally of everyone 's id-level
| response to something has its own joys and merits (e.g.
| at concert venues, sports arenas, rallies) but
| 'interesting conversation' is not among them._
|
| You lost me. Lots of words with little relation to
| anything I said.
| pvg wrote:
| I think I explained how it's quite inapt and your
| response is 'it's apt'. If you think 'please don't type
| reflexive one word comments into HN' has 'some
| hypothetical about rape' as a response worth talking
| about, we're best off leaving things here.
| the_af wrote:
| Well, you did a bad job at explaining.
|
| Both are scummy behaviors aimed at "hacking"/exploiting
| the human psyche for ill intents. And, in any case, I
| provided an even more apt comparison in the followup
| comment: drug lords and mobsters. Or scam artists of any
| kind. Such an article wouldn't be flagged on HN if it
| explains something technical or about the human psyche;
| but it's ok to respond "gross" if it contains a sentence
| such as the one which sparked this conversation.
|
| > _we 're best off leaving things here_
|
| Agreed.
| littlekey wrote:
| I respect that. I would argue though that this definitely is
| "something interesting" to discuss. I find it fascinating
| that the author clearly called out the illegality yet thinks
| it okay to do anyway, and even more interesting that they
| project that mindset onto others by assuming we would all do
| the same. But I felt my one-word answer did more to encompass
| my thoughts then a paragraph would have.
| tombert wrote:
| I mean, it's gross, but most of us work for monsters if you go
| far enough up the chain.
|
| For the last two years, I've been trying to break into the
| trading world, not because I think it's this hyper-ethical
| thing [1], but because it pays well and it seems interesting,
| and I'm not really ashamed to admit it. Does that make me a
| whore or a mercenary or sellout? Absolutely, there's really no
| getting around that, but I think if most people are being
| honest, we're all _a little_ selfish.
|
| I don't think I'm an _especially_ selfish person, and I would
| like to think I wouldn 't defraud anyone, but I certainly have
| worked for companies that used very questionable labor
| practices in developing nations where it's hard to justify
| outside of "it's really cheap and it's not illegal", an of
| course that upsets me a little, but fundamentally Tombert is a
| for-profit enterprise just as much as the business that hires
| me.
|
| Similarly, while it's obviously bad that they defrauded people,
| I don't think that that author was saying that it's good, or
| even good to want it. They said "kind of", sort of implying
| that "yeah, a part of me really would have liked to have a lot
| of cash and it would have been cool to get it", which I don't
| really think is that bad. I've _thought_ about directly
| stealing money from rich people before, it would be nice to
| have a million bucks, but I 've never done it because that
| would be unethical.
|
| [1] I've actually changed my opinions on High Frequency
| Trading, which I used to say was evil and I don't think that
| anymore. I'm still not 100% convinced that option trading is
| ethical though.
| standardUser wrote:
| I watched the film for the first time recently and was mostly
| disappointed. The best scenes focused on the sales tactics and
| the industry-specific insights, but at least twice in the film
| the main character starts explaining something and cuts himself
| of with "but you don't really care about all that". Then, on to
| more repetitive scenes about paying for sex and taking sedatives.
|
| And was I supposed to like the main character? In any way, shape
| or form? I feel I can relate more to full-fledged anti-heroes
| like Walter White or The Wire's Omar than I can to this basic
| jackass.
| Tectosage wrote:
| You might like the movie Boiler Room, which was inspired by
| Stratton Oakmont and the other penny stock shops that operated
| in the suburbs of NYC. Great ensemble cast and a much more
| grounded story.
| geoffpado wrote:
| > And was I supposed to like the main character? In any way,
| shape or form?
|
| No.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| And yet so many people seem to mess up this simple thing.
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| > And was I supposed to like the main character?
|
| No, the whole point is that you should not like him.
|
| However the film doesn't do a good job at that. I see often
| comments about how people are missing the point of this movie.
|
| You have this good looking guy with a Lambo, the hottest girl,
| a yatch, partying and all that, and then you see the downfall.
| But the movie focuses too much on the first part, and little on
| the latter, because obviously that's where the fun is.
|
| And IIRC the actual guy, Jordan Bedfort, spent less than two
| years in prison, and now gives motivational speeches and the
| like. Dare I say lots of guys would think it was worth it, and
| they aren't really missing the point, more like they don't
| agree with it?
| the_af wrote:
| > _However the film doesn't do a good job at that. I see
| often comments about how people are missing the point of this
| movie._
|
| To be fair, it's very hard in cinema to have people "get" the
| point without spoon-feeding it to them, which could fail
| anyway _and_ make it a worse movie to boot. I 'm sure you can
| think of tons of other examples.
|
| Who was it that said it's impossible to make an anti-war
| movie because you always end up making it look cool on screen
| [1]? I think it's the same with any movie parodying or even
| denouncing something, _unless_ it 's turned into a manifesto.
| And this also bit Scorsese with this movie.
|
| [1] Though in my opinion Netflix's "All Quiet On The Western
| Front" comes pretty close. I don't think anybody watched that
| movie and kept thinking war is cool or full of glory.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Francois Truffaut expressed that sentiment, though the
| various quotes I've seen attributed to him were not
| verbatim. The closest I could find was "Every film about
| war ends up being pro-war[1]"
|
| 1: https://www.newspapers.com/article/chicago-tribune-it-
| is-imp...
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| The Wall https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4218696/ does for me.
| From what I recall, "people" largley didn't like it,
| probably because it's not a happy, feel-good, good-guys-
| win-in-the-end movie. Though who the good-guys are in that
| movie is obviously not obvious.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >To be fair, it's very hard in cinema to have people "get"
| the point without spoon-feeding it to them
|
| And plenty of people will happily ignore any subtext you
| create, and most of the text you create, to just consume a
| portion of the imagery you put out. Neonazis LOVE all sorts
| of movies and characters that are supposed to be warnings
| about how bad Fascism is.
|
| Yet they do NOT love Mel Brook's "The producers", because
| it makes Nazis look _goofy_. If you are trying to turn
| people off something, the absolute minimum bar is to
| demonstrate it 's frank stupidity. You must eschew any and
| all "Coolness". This was also used to turn people away from
| the KKK when their stupid club rituals and limp handshake
| were shared without the normal framing.
| the_af wrote:
| You make an excellent point. Goofiness. Maybe that's the
| key.
| gnulinux wrote:
| > And was I supposed to like the main character?
|
| The whole point of the movie you watched was that he's a
| disgusting piece of human garbage. There are tons of people
| around him that treat him like some kind of deity, but he's
| like the worst human being you can possibly know. It's a
| societal criticism.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>And was I supposed to like the main character?
|
| Do you watch every film through the lens of what you're
| "supposed" to feel? Some people watch this film thinking he was
| a hero, some people think he was a scumbag, plus a million
| opinions everywhere in between. Feel how you want to feel, it's
| a story not an educational video.
| trollied wrote:
| A good read is "Billion Dollar Whale", which details the 1MDB
| scandal that actually funded the Wolf of Wall Street movie.
|
| Jho Low scammed ~$5 Billion, and used some of the funds to
| befriend Leonardo DiCaprio (by throwing lavish parties), as
| well as fund the movie.
| motohagiography wrote:
| the psychology of sales is fascinating and alien to me. I admire
| friends who are great salesmen, and really actually enjoy doing
| some sales myself because who doesn't like having something
| valuable to show and share, but there's a side to it I couldn't
| handle as a living.
|
| some people, and a lot of them in corporate envs when they buy
| something, they like the excitement of spending the money, but
| they want the feel like it was taken from them, and that they
| aren't responsible for it going wrong. they want the excitement
| without the responsibility, literally to be seduced.
|
| nobody wants the truth, the risks, details, or anything real,
| they want a story that lets them press the money button without
| judgment or blowback, and that's what most sales are. I'm too
| neurotic for it and make a living doing other things, and tech
| people bitch about sales and marketing all the time, but as an
| art, I respect and appreciate it.
| gumby wrote:
| Cold calling is the hardest! It's probable my greatest weakness
| (of many!) as an entrepreneur. Not just cold sales calling but
| any equivalent. I don't like to get a random call so I feel I'm
| interrupting the person at the other end.
|
| I am fascinated by employees I've had who love cold calling and
| are great at it. They are even energised by it! Most have a
| mirror in their cube smile on your call and the other person can
| hear it through the phone). One thing about all of them I've
| spoken with: they are certain that the person they're calling
| _needs_ our product (and if not they 're happy to get off the
| phone as quickly as possible so they can call someone else).
| Maybe the Stratton Oakmont sales folks thought that, though my
| impression was that instead they saw the callee as a sheep to be
| shorn.
|
| I am astonished at people who can just make a friend or at least
| an interesting connection while waiting in line for the bathroom.
| popcalc wrote:
| >Stratton Oakmont sales folks
|
| Just call them what they were -- con artists.
| gumby wrote:
| The blog post is more sympathetic, but I probably should have
| just said that.
|
| With most scams I can't believe most people involved didn't
| know.
| xedarius wrote:
| I watched a video where a guy asked people how many moons the
| earth has, the person on the video said seven. I am not surprised
| in any way the script had huge success.
| ajkjk wrote:
| > On average, sellers spend 23.8 hours (or 52%) of their week
| creating messaging.
|
| Stuff like this is like... bait, right?
| pjdemers wrote:
| Anyone serious about stock trading at the time knew who they were
| and what they did. They also advertised heavily in print. So
| anyone who stayed on the call for more than short time had some
| interest. I had coworkers who "invested" with them.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| I thought about it throughout my life why I am not just flipping
| to sales, specially when I was short on money.
|
| Each time, I reminded myself that I lack the emotional fortitude
| to take the amount of rejection sales people get. I am too vested
| and convinced "left brain" person to be able to understand then
| accept rejection. The thing I am pitching makes perfect logical
| sense to me.
|
| Basically, to be in sales, specially cold calling, one must have
| very, very thick skin, and ignore the majority rejection.
| colordrops wrote:
| I thought I was similar to you until I founded a startup and
| started doing sales. It didn't take as long as I thought to get
| used to it. It's a muscle you build with any customer facing
| job - yeah, better to think of it as a muscle rather than a
| skin callous.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| How do you know this if you've never done sales?
| sirspacey wrote:
| I've found framing this as "signal hunting" as helped
| tremendously. Now I'm asking questions with genuine curiosity &
| continuously learning. Finding little moments of signal that
| convert to momentum is a fun positive feedback loop that has
| helped me find PMF.
| jameslk wrote:
| Some of the tactics in the script are explained in _Never Split
| the Difference_ which I highly recommend for sales but especially
| negotiation (the article author also mentions the book author,
| Chris Voss).
|
| The sales script doesn't seem to have anything nefarious really.
| Just some tactics to keep the call going and typical early sales
| qualification to move a prospect to the next stage of a pipeline
| or out of the pipeline. Typical SDR/BDR work. I'd assume what's
| said in later stages is more juicy.
|
| The mildly interesting insight to me is how the call starts with
| trying to get the prospect to schedule a follow up using an
| incentive (the market report), before getting into the qualifying
| questions, which are meant to determine if the prospect is going
| to be a match for the offer. It makes sense from the standpoint
| you really want another call scheduled so you don't get their
| voicemail and you might lose the opportunity to schedule that
| later in the call.
|
| I wish the author added text from the actual sale past the
| qualification stage, but I'm guessing that wasn't really
| scripted.
| uncivilized wrote:
| Thanks for the book rec. Is there anything in this article that
| isn't contained in the book apart from the incentive?
| jameslk wrote:
| The attention grabbing and objection handling pieces are
| discussed in Never Split the Difference, amongst other ways
| to negotiate a deal. Basically ask lots of what/how questions
| until the other party negotiates themselves to your position.
|
| The rest of the script is just qualification questions, which
| you can find written about everywhere if you look up BANT
| (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline) and MEDDPICC (Metrics,
| Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Paper
| process, Identify pain, Champion, and Competition).
|
| I wish I had a good book recommendation for qualifying, but
| it's the easier part of the sales process: you're just asking
| questions and listening, setting yourself up for the next
| stage. Once you know whether the prospect has a problem you
| can solve, then you launch into the real sale, generally a
| presentation or demo tailored to the prospect's problems and
| goals.
|
| YC posted a pretty good, compact video on enterprise SaaS
| sales recently, which explains the typical sales lifecycle at
| a high level and contains further resources:
| https://youtu.be/0fKYVl12VTA
| uncivilized wrote:
| Thanks for taking the time to give me all these resources.
| I've got a lot of reading and watching to do.
| jameslk wrote:
| No problem! As an outsider to sales myself, I only
| realized after a friend who does this for a living as an
| account executive explained to me how much of sales is
| simply asking good questions and being a good listener.
| Quite opposite of what I thought sales was and much
| simpler when you think about it that way. Good luck!
| gffrd wrote:
| First, great book recommendation: _Never Split the Difference_
| is packed with insights about negotiating, bargaining, and
| generally cooperation and decision-making. Reader: if you
| haven't, read it.
|
| On starting with incentive before qualification: this is
| actually quite common. See: Cutco knives, CDs by mail, most
| current online courses/programs. Heck even startups doing lead
| gen offering analyses.
|
| This is both what gets people invested (I jump at the free
| thing, so I'll jump through the rest of hoops now) AND what the
| seller uses to establish credibility (if they're giving way
| something this valuable, imagine what else they have!). A gift
| to someone implies you see them as important/valuable, and
| people eat that shit up.
|
| There's a lot of ego/insecurity at play in sales. The person
| being marketed to wanting to feel seen/discovered/worthwhile,
| and the seller playing into it.
|
| Reminds me of the Tony Robbins recording that made the rounds
| again recently [1]. Shocking that this stuff works ... but it
| does.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY_zyLEiNYk
| vismit2000 wrote:
| Chapter level detailed summary for quick overview of main ideas
| from the book:
| https://www.booksummary.pro/Never_Split_the_Difference_summa...
| zendaven wrote:
| Feels like it's written by AI. I like the summaries here:
| https://littlerbooks.com/summary/never-split-the-difference
| komali2 wrote:
| The later stages are more juicy, and what are covered in the
| book and movie (wolf of walstreet).
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPhEBKwNZKI
|
| This for example starts with "you expressed interest in xyz
| stock" or however, I can't exactly remember, but basically it's
| the followup call to their list of prequalified leads generated
| from the calls in this article.
| iamsanteri wrote:
| I think this book was 2/5 stars for me max. Way overhyped and
| indeed, only mostly applicable to some FBI hostage situation
| negotiators. Even a rather toxic book I'd say, but some small
| things here or there are admittedly quite useful.
| sirspacey wrote:
| If you follow his more recent material you get to the core -
| tactical empathy. While I don't buy into all the Voss stuff,
| there is a Zen like quality to the discipline of truly
| operating the conversation from the POV of the other player
| while not losing your own grounding on what you want. It's
| definitely made a positive impact in my own outcomes &
| dramatically lowered my rate of failure.
| Gimpei wrote:
| I always wondered why all these sales emails use exactly the same
| language. Right now my inbox is filled with "quick questions".
| now I have an answer: apparently people write whole books on
| individual word choices.
|
| It seems the sales industry would benefit from considering the
| possibility of heterogeneous effects. I can see these techniques
| working for some, but they are off-putting for me and are a great
| way to get immediately blocked.
| tamimio wrote:
| The stock market is just a wealth or money transfer scheme from
| the naive rich-wannabe to the wealthy who can manipulate the
| market. Sure, a long-term investment might work in the meantime,
| until it's no longer a "long-term" sometime in the future.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| The US stock market specifically has had immense growth over
| the last several decades due to consistent US and international
| liquidity inflows. The story hasn't been the same for other
| markets internationally.
| immibis wrote:
| Note that liquidity inflows are the same thing as a trade
| deficit and 48% of the country is shouting loudly about
| ending the trade deficit.
| hnpolicestate wrote:
| I never "cold" called but I lukewarm called expired real estate
| listings before using scripts.
|
| They definitely work. Listed total strangers after a phone call.
| Remember it's a % game. If you call 30 people might get 20 angry
| no's, 5 friendly no's, 3 so so leads and 2 hot leads.
| IndySun wrote:
| People saying 'well it must work, they're still using it'.
| Really? I am one of those people that as soon as I smell 'sales'
| talk I shut it down. If it is a phone call, just put the phone
| down. If it's first a handshake, don't reciprocate, and if it's
| an email... well, you know the rest. It's not rude to ignore a
| rude person. This attitude came from my dad at a time when door
| to door salesman traipsed the streets looking for suckers. George
| Carlin was right, salesmen are second only to clergymen, in the
| bullshit department.
| elliotec wrote:
| I'm 100% the same. I'm an engineering director at a tech
| company so basically one of my top strengths is ignoring sales
| attempts.
|
| That said, during university I worked for the development
| center of the school (fundraising) at the Phonathon (alumni
| cold-call center) and rose the ranks to the top donation earner
| and then supervisor.
|
| I had a memorized script with branching IF statements all the
| way down and brought in hundreds of thousands to different
| departments at the university. This type of thing absolutely
| works. Especially on older generations in departments that made
| more money.
|
| Pity party calls were the easiest. Medical school alumns that
| were inching toward retirement reaaaally go for the "we don't
| have enough doctors for our population, help" angle.
| ijnbgggg wrote:
| You seem to have no needs for anything?
|
| At my job I get offers all the time and if they are
| interesting, I hear them out. It's a win-win
| IndySun wrote:
| >You seem to have no needs for anything?
|
| Needing something and being sold something are not always
| consecutive.
| cortesoft wrote:
| > Do we all kind of wish we worked at Stratton Oakmont for a year
| and made tons of money....? Probably.
|
| Not even a little bit. I hate calling people that are expecting
| my call, and I could never get over selling something I knew was
| bogus, even for a ton of money.
| mistercow wrote:
| Yeah, that was a startling admission to put in the post. If I
| were a shitty person who wanted to do scam people, I would
| probably just do it. It isn't rocket science. But I have this
| weird quirk where I don't like causing other people misery.
| xandrius wrote:
| For many money is really that important, even if they are
| actually doing rather well in the scheme of things.
|
| I'd rather make 1% of the money but not scam anyone during
| the process.
| jtgverde wrote:
| Yeah, basically saying "would you commit federal felonies
| defrauding gullible people for millions? hell yeah!"
|
| Quite telling of the morals of a lot of "sales" people
| the_af wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| Someone else is getting flak for saying the same as you, only
| summing it up in a single word: "gross". According to dang it's
| against HN guidelines to single this sentence out, even though
| it's the single most striking sentence of the (rather short)
| article.
|
| It's a disappointing world where most people don't consider
| this gross.
| hbossy wrote:
| _Although this line is taught by many sales trainers, it's
| becoming overused and immediately lets prospects know it's a
| sales call._ _Instead, try opening with something like:_ _(...)_
|
| _This opener feels less salesy, and is actually the reason why
| you called._
|
| I wonder what does it feel to work in an industry where your main
| goal is to convince other people you are not a part of it.
| komali2 wrote:
| It's a fucking nightmare where you're begging on your hands and
| knees for people to give you money. I was ok at it when I was a
| 360 recruiter (the sales half was opening up positions that I
| would then recruit for), but no matter I framed it, to me it
| always felt like begging.
|
| The office culture is half/half trying to wokeify your sales by
| being "not that kind of sales guy" like the line you quoted,
| while still kinda worshiping people like Jordan Belfort and
| internalizing the highest levels of hustle culture.
|
| I became an engineer and wrote that part of my life off. I
| still sometimes wake up an hour before my alarm with thoughts
| spinning through my head of how I could have sold better. Ugh.
| popcorncowboy wrote:
| On the other hand When you frame sales as _helping_ to solve
| real _problems_ it flips this toxic script and transforms the
| entire profession into something that can be amazing to be a
| part of.
| Version467 wrote:
| I find this framing to be extremely far away from the
| reality of any sales conversations I've been a part of.
| Flipping it like this is a rationalization that helps you
| sleep better, not some deep insight that the sales
| profession is great actually.
| lucideer wrote:
| This is self-deception, which - if done well - can be a
| very effective salve for one's mental health & help you
| survive/thrive in the industry.
| komali2 wrote:
| That's what I was trying to express about rationalization:
| no matter what way you cut it, you're still begging people
| for money. What you offer is never unique, no matter how
| much you want to pretend it is - you just want to be the
| one to actually convince them to buy YOUR SaaS product /
| recruitment services / whatever. I was very passionate
| about helping my clients and I really enjoyed the idea of
| helping my candidates get good jobs, doesn't change the
| fact that I was one of, god, tens? hundreds? of agencies in
| the houston oil and gas market.
| immibis wrote:
| Especial in B2B many products are more unique than you
| think
| steve1977 wrote:
| Then you're not sales, you're consulting.
|
| But most likely, when you are sales, you are sales. And
| you're not solving real problems.
| matsemann wrote:
| > _by being "not that kind of sales guy"_
|
| Like 90 % of recruiters sending me a message with the same
| "unique" twist in their messaging. Got this the other day:
|
| > _Hi, Andreas (not my name, it 's Mats...), I'd like to take
| this a different way than the usual recruiter mail. Not sure
| if you're in the market now? But ... [same drivel as any
| other recruiting email I've ever gotten]_
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| I shudder to think how people can do this as a daily and never
| reflect on how they're spending their time manipulating others
| and arguably making the world a worse place. Don't get me wrong,
| I used to do it myself and I was very good at it, I just don't
| understand how someone can keep doing it when there are more
| moral options.
| vasco wrote:
| We all just understand what we want to understand. For you this
| is a natural response because it's the only way your brain has
| to reconcile that you're a good person (which is something our
| brains are trying to do all the time).
|
| At the time you just did it. Then you felt bad about it and
| stopped. So now you think worse of the people that do it, but
| wait, you can't think bad about the people that do it because
| you also did it, so you instead change the form to "think bad
| of people that _keep_ doing it".
|
| If you had never done it, you'd say "who can even do this for a
| day!?!?". For someone that hasn't even considered it, you might
| be a terrible person for even having considered doing it, much
| less actually doing it for a while. Careful about moralizing.
|
| I do it too btw, I'm just blind to the ones I do.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| I just don't understand why other people who do it don't
| stop. You're deceiving people and making the world worse by
| doing so. Fair enough?
| vasco wrote:
| They are just like you were up until the point you decided
| to stop. How is it difficult to understand when you say you
| were in the exact same shoes?
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| I had limited options. We're talking here about sales
| people at top orgs pulling six figures, they have
| choices, especially in terms of technique. They have just
| decided to make this their career and use techniques like
| that to manipulate others. Fair enough?
| vasco wrote:
| I'm not judging anyone here btw, it's just interesting
| banter, I hope you don't take it the wrong way. I also
| agree with you that it is objectively worse to do it for
| 20 years than 2 years.
|
| That being said, the "I had limited options" is in my
| opinion a bullshit excuse, specially for this specific
| situation. Nobody's "few options" is working for a
| financial fraud operation. When you're out of options you
| work construction or drive a long haul truck or whatever.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| > That being said, the "I had limited options" is in my
| opinion a bullshit excuse, specially for this specific
| situation.
|
| I had irregular work waiting tables, doing MLM door-to-
| door shit which scammed me out of my money, I had to
| borrow money to make ends meet. Sales was the first
| consistent full time job I got that paid slightly over
| minimum. I did it a few years and hated it, then got into
| tech.
|
| I'm just stating if you're over six figures and you're
| doing sales and using manipulative tricks like OP you're
| not a good person. You're claiming this is only because I
| stopped doing it and yes; its because I stopped doing it.
| I'm sure I'd find some excuse that its ok if I still was;
| but that's why I wanted to stop, cause I didn't want to
| reach for the excuse.
|
| Here's a thought; still do sales but don't manipulate
| other people to flog them shit, especially if it isn't
| the right choice for them.
| cortesoft wrote:
| I am sure those people also think their options are
| limited, or they think if they don't do it, someone else
| will anyway, or a million other justifications people
| tell themselves just like you told yourself when you were
| doing it.
| michalu wrote:
| This is not the actual sales script. It's a script for the so-
| called canvassing call. Or so it was called back when I worked in
| boiler rooms cca. 2007. You hire a bunch of losers pay them no
| wage and all they do is telemarketing "can I call you with an
| opportunity?" i.e. you simply pre-qualify people for the real
| call. You show off some fake credibility, present yourself like a
| real business and says stuff like 'we only send couple of trade
| recommendations a year'. Then a week later the real sales guy
| give the prospect a hyped up call about this once in a lifetime
| opportunity.
|
| Most people, about 95% making these first calls never make it
| higher. Either they quickly gather this job is a BS scam or
| they're too stupid to realize that and that stupidity often
| prevents them from going higher up. A few cynical ones like the
| manipulative aspects of it.
|
| The job of a firm is to create illusion of excessive wealth and
| rockstar lifestyle of these "brokers" (strippers, cocaine, etc.)
| to attract some kind of talent. Most of the directors are faking
| the size of their wealth. E.g. coming to job on rented Bentley.
| They also lie about the nature of the job to hire people for
| "canvassing" as it doesn't matter how long you stay, if you only
| deliver 20 leads per first day and quit that's still a win. A
| bulk of the leads come from people who were tricked into the job
| and quit asap.
|
| Most people who make it through are the ones cynical enough to
| stay around, then they harvest work of the ones who quit earlier.
| E.g. you collect leads, small clients etc. I have a friend who
| made it far, his lifestyle was just like Wolf of Wallstreet but
| more excessive. That movie btw. it's watered down - which is hard
| to believe for most as you'd expect Hollywood to overblow things.
| gadders wrote:
| >>You hire a bunch of losers pay them no wage and all they do
| is telemarketing
|
| Isn't this what SDRs do?
| michalu wrote:
| There's telesales and telemarketing. In sales you close deals
| which requires skills. There's very few actual sales people
| in the market today, most just end up in this role because
| they can't get another job and then simply do manual
| marketing (adding people on linkedin, sending out cold
| emails, talking to non decision makers). Some are lucky to
| work in a company with great product and even there I see
| them slow down momentum. In fact I've seen a few startups
| miss their chance because they hired fake sales people early
| on.
| borski wrote:
| Er, that distinction isn't quite right. In any B2B
| enterprise company, there are SDRs (Sales Development
| Representatives) and AEs (Account Executives).
|
| AEs are the sales people. They're the ones who close the
| deals.
|
| SDRs pretty much do nothing but qualify. _If_ they close a
| deal, great, but sometimes that's not even a good thing
| because it possibly could have been a bigger deal, if they
| had the AE script /training. But if they do well at
| qualifying as an SDR, they can often move up to AE, and so
| on.
|
| But yes, SDRs are generally folks straight out of college
| or switching careers. It requires no prior knowledge, just
| the audacity and ability to cold call someone and be
| charismatic and personable enough to get them past the
| qualifying questions and hopefully schedule a follow up
| call.
|
| You may be thinking of ISRs (Inside Sales Representatives)
| which are effectively SDRs who are authorized (and trained)
| to close very small deals, as compared to the AEs.
|
| This actually requires a different set of skills, as AEs
| are often speaking to people in a "board room," literally
| or figuratively, and sales cycles are long, meaning the
| contracts have to be huge to make it worth it (plus good
| AEs are expensive).
|
| ISR sales _can't_ be long, as volume matters more than
| absolute price for inside sales, since that absolute price
| is orders of magnitude lower than an enterprise sale. As a
| result, the amount of time spent on each candidate customer
| has to be an order of magnitude lower as well, so
| qualifying a customer _out_ of the top of the funnel is
| more important than almost anything else. The biggest waste
| of time is spending hours or weeks with a customer who was
| never going to buy in the first place, and novice sales
| people make that mistake all the time.
|
| So yeah, I'm not sure what distinction you were trying to
| make between "telesales" and "telemarketing," but that
| distinction really doesn't exist.
|
| Aside: literally every single startup hires bad sales
| people early on. Every single one. I have _never_ seen one
| that doesn't. It is, in my estimation, impossible to know
| what to look for in the _right_ sales person until you've
| made a bunch of sales, which is why it's so important for
| founders to make the first bunch of sales. But founders are
| a wholly different breed from sales people, and reading
| sales people is exceptionally hard.
|
| For ISRs and SDRs, the solution is easy: hire them, train
| them, see if they perform, and fire them if they don't and
| reward them if they do. Because SDRs and ISRs are so cheap,
| relatively speaking, as it's an entry-level role, it's a
| fairly low risk as long as you're actually willing to put
| in the effort to train them and cut your losses when
| they're not working out.
|
| AEs are harder because their base is generally much higher,
| but they should come with a prepped "Rolodex", ready to
| close deals quickly. If you don't have a pipeline, solve
| that problem first.
|
| Sorry for the rant, but seemed important.
|
| Source: I'm a serial founder, have run sales teams, some
| successful and others not. I'm an engineer who happens to
| be good at sales, but finding good sales people is still a
| dark art.
| rurp wrote:
| This is a great breakdown and I can confirm that it
| closely matches my own experience with B2B tech company
| sales.
| anthonytminor wrote:
| Just shot you an email, would love to pick your brain on
| the sales side of startups.
| strictnein wrote:
| > That movie btw. it's watered down
|
| Ever read Straight to Hell? That seems less watered down at the
| very least.
| eitally wrote:
| Your post may be about high finance, but you just described the
| ISR role in tech sales, too. :)
| borski wrote:
| Yup, down to the qualification script.
| aprdm wrote:
| What does ISR stand for ?
| HaZeust wrote:
| Inside Sales Rep
| dianealmanzor wrote:
| great post! very helpful.
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