I am sorry, but I fail to see how taking many hours out of my productivity does benefit me.

Yes, I do want to know if this is the right purchase decision. So I request a trial and a live session with an engineer who can answer my questions as we go over the product in real time. I get to ask questions related to our workflows and discuss solutions and even workarounds.

This helps me build understanding for their product the way my brain works and not the way their demo is designed.

Demos are designed to impress, to highlight the strengths and hide the weaknesses of a product. They do not mention the corner cases, and often are oblivious of our workflow so do not cover our needs.

The process I described is ultra efficient for both parties.

Wooing me, playing games, mentioning my name every 90 seconds, qualifying every question I ask as "great"... all of these quickly and drastically decrease my trust in the company and the product.

But the process you've described (demo with an engineer) is far from ideal and not always efficient. That process solves the problem you know you have. That's ok, I guess. But "the problem you know you have" is never the full problem...ever. There is always something behind that problem and something behind that one and so on.

A good salesperson may let you see the demo, close the deal and sell you a solution to the problem you have identified yourself. A great salesperson will first get you to invest the time in understanding the entire picture and then sell you the solution for that. Sometimes that is a LOT more expensive and expansive. And sometimes, believe it or not, an honest salesperson will sell you something less than what you originally came for. It's why some people buy $10 web hosting and some people buy $X,000 web infrastructure. Education, process, understanding. Weighing benefits and costs. Understanding risks and assurances.

You've been selling for 20 years? How many of your customers have you had for longer than 3?

Now I can hear your mind churning, 'but I'm at a different company now! I don't sell the same thing!'. It doesn't matter. Sales is sales. And the best sales people foster relationships for years before they really sell the big bucks. And can go back to those same clients and sell different products and it's easy because those clients know them and trust them.

Ever get that little pang of jealousy wondering why that guy you know in sales plays golf every day with clients and doesn't seem to do much else? It's not because he's just that good. He's not. He might even suck. It's most likely bc he has been building relationships with those clients for years and they would buy a cactus as a new pillow if he asked them to.

This attitude of telling the little guy to piss off bc he isn't your type of client might make for some ok sales now, maybe you even have a shiny BMW, but it doesn't make for long term relationships with people who trust you. Once those people at that big company move on to bigger and better things, you'll be stuck grinding it out with whoever they replace them with.

I take it you work hard. You're certainly passionate. But after 20 years in sales, you shouldn't have to be working hard. Whether you changed companies and products every six months or still work for the same company, you should have been building relationships.

Instead you are content writing off the little guy as a waste of your time. The same senior management you grind it out to sell to now who was a little guy 20 years ago. And the same little guys who will be senior management in 10 - 20 years.

I imagine you'll still be grinding it out every day then also, instead of playing golf like you should be.

My churn rate is low precisely because I take time to learn what they want then provide what they need. I work with clients that are a good fit in both directions and got out of the "anything for a buck" game years ago.

I work hard building my businesses, but I don't have to work hard at sales precisely because of what you said - I've built relationships and skills that make it fun for me to sell. I work about 5 hours a day, travel a ton and play lots of golf. ;)

in the very original comment, it said "I do expect to hear about pricing on the first call, otherwise there won't be another call. Disclaimer: I have zero patience for abundant sales processes."

this person isn't asking about price because he/she is "little" and can't afford it. Even if the person is a big guy with a lot of $, he/she will still haggle you on price, because that's his/her worldview.

besides, it's unclear that a little guy with a "zero-patience policy" that fixates on price price price as a principle, will likely become a big guy some day.

Even if they did become a big guy some day, you would still have a lot of problems making money from them.

But I don't think goatherders wrote anything to indicate he was in that category. I read his comment as saying he wouldn't sell to anybody who was completely disinterested in a relationship, not that he wouldn't sell to a less senior person.

There are sales reps that play golf with clients. They've been selling to CxOs for years at some of the largest companies like IBM, Oracle, and now Google. They have the relationships because they've worked with the CxO before, selling another massive piece of software. It is not because they immediately shared pricing and cow-towed to whatever the prospect said at the very first meeting when the CxO was a Devops eng or a FTE without budget.

The majority of sales is opportunity cost and focusing your resources on the deals that matter. Working hard and fulfilling every wish of every prospect is a waste of time and the easiest way to fail in sales.