r/sales • u/ApplePrimary2985 • 1d ago
Advanced Sales Skills Looking for work? Just make numbers up.
I had a revelation today.
I cannot tell you how many companies I've worked for at different stages from seed series startups to mature organizations and they all inflate, fictionalize or obfuscate numbers. It turned me off of corporate into consulting and working with startups and growing companies. But that was the same story between executives and shareholders when it come to scaling.
I hate to say this, but it's come to a point in this environment where so much of it is falsified and fictitious. I'll give you a concrete example. I worked with an underwriter on a financing deal to a company. He told me a story about two founders recently. One founder had strong revenues, perfect credit score, and couldn't qualified for a loan. Another had multiple bankruptcies on file, an existing credit line (which was overdue,) and still qualified for a loan to pay off his delinquent debt, which he ultimately defaulted on. When the underwriter asked him about it and what he intended to do, the founder responded, "I'll BK it and do it again."
This is literally the job market. This is literally the economy. It's so far off the rails.
I've been applying for work with gross performance numbers, not including attainment, because a lot of my roles were founding or consulting where no metrics existed so I established these against industry benchmarks. After applying for so many roles which I was perfectly fit or even overqualified for with limited results, a recruiter finally replied, "I don't see any metrics."
I kind of assumed they would understand gross revenues and the significance per industry, but they don't. They just want a tidy package to deliver to their client, and the client wants a tidy package with a story to justify the hiring case. So just invent numbers.
People say this all the time, and I never took it seriously, thinking the activities and performance would speak for itself (largest deal/transaction I worked on was $350M, largest net new logo was $120M account, $30M in pipeline generated one year, a lot of this done by my own namesake with no-name companies versus the revops, marketing, and support of a multi-national conglomerate, but it doesn't matter.) I assume most people are just kind of adrift in brain-rot and easy access. So just make it so simple they don't even have to ask.
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u/Lionabp1 1d ago
Not a revelation, just common sense. ~40% of salespeople hit quotas and all companies demand “top performers”
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u/YeenBeen 1d ago
“36% of all sales people make up numbers about statistics online to prove they miss 100% of the shots they don’t take” - Wayne Gretzky - Michael Scott
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u/conaldinho11 1d ago
My last job in tech was at an AI startup. In hindsight I don’t think a single thing the CEO ever said was true.
The lying in tech is pervasive and goes way beyond just sales. Fundraising, recruiting, case studies, etc. all BS. I mean just look at all the calls for regulation from frontier AI labs right now trying to pump up their IPO exit price. All marketing BS.
This is anecdotal but more common than you’d think
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u/0x5589e5 1d ago
Read "Bad Blood" by John Carreyrou, it's entire tech description in one book, nothing changed. At some point I think people with a little more than no brains would start their own compaines and would never work in these dogshit places.
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u/ApplePrimary2985 20h ago
We can go one step deeper into how many of these companies, platforms and technologies emerge out of military research programs (namely, DARPA) then commercialized via CIA backed venture capital (LifeLog = Facebook, for example.) I suspect much of the same with these tech monopolies, as the ultimate mandate is a top-down centralized control grid.
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u/0x5589e5 19h ago
Sometimes I think it's just luck of qualification or by design. The system is built that way for salespeople that they should collect cash, nobody gives a shit about long run account consequences. While there was a better opportunitiy to sell something meaningful for the client there would be sold a project the client doesn't need, then an enitre team working on that would be put on a performance review by an hr gal they took from the streets during covid who doesn't know on which metrics this performance is actually measured.
The whole point of sales is you take cash without getting beaten / sued in these companies.
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u/ApplePrimary2985 19h ago
From my experience, it seems like a closed ecosystem supported by VC / PE (which was previously subsidized during zero interest rates) to tinker and toy with new technologies supporting the underlying and overlapping grid. The safest best is probably going the direction of Cloud/ML/AI as they will continue to use this as the supporting layer for the new control and surveillance infrastructure (think, flock cameras, CLEAR, fintech, social credit, etc, basically KYC for buying groceries/gas.)
I've already seen in-person the check-out free Amazon stores (Whole Foods) where they scan you in, you select your items, and walk out. Everything is done by verified identity tied to your digital payment platforms (Amazon, Apple-pay, etc.)
It gets even spookier when you look into the family ties of these "lucky" tech entrepreneurs (Musk, Zuckerberg, Gates, etc.) They're usually dynastic and the public story is a front-piece. It's a brave new world.
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u/0x5589e5 15h ago
Why would they allow talking Elon Musks and Trumps offering unique opportunities to invest in crypto on their platforms, if they control it?
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u/ApplePrimary2985 11h ago
Public buy-in. Bread & Circuses. It's no different than Rome. "Free games, free bread!"
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u/PostNutClarity5150 20h ago
Yeah. Just look at ai labs or space x TAM is actually in Internet and not space exploration
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u/FantasticTone8997 1d ago
You list a $350M transaction and a $120M net new logo, then quote the recruiter saying "I don't see any metrics." Those two things dont fit together. If your numbers were the problem, the objection would have been about size, not about them being missing.
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u/ApplePrimary2985 20h ago
There were metrics, just not per industry-tech specific jargon like "attainment" etc. I've done a lot of founding work with companies, so I'd actually help establish or beat against industry benchmarks.
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u/DeeJayDelicious 1d ago
Just put yourself in the recruiters shoes.
They have a checklist they're supposed to check against.
Everyone knows that these checklists are arbitrary and that sales performance is extremely dependent on random factors and product. Even if we all tell outselves it's down to individual performance etc.
But everyone has agreed the play the game.
They don't really care about the factual truth of what you say. They just want to check the checklist.
Honestly is rarely rewarded.
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u/0x5589e5 14h ago edited 14h ago
When sales people approach me sometimes I answer "I'm not qualified on timing, create a ticket in your CRM to reach me out in 3 months when I'll likely need it" on what they react very positively and some would say something like "Thank you, have a productive day".
What if you just ask them what in your checklist?
As a salesperson isn't that is what you need to do is asking questions?Why would you tell them about your experience, if they really need just to fill a checklist?
And on further stages just to ensure they're not farming for consults, you could also ask a salesperson when they ask you "what do you bring to the table" like "what the fuck do you already have so I won't bother you if I come up with the same?"
But be cautious, otherwise you won't be checked as a sheep.
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u/Chris_HitTheOver 11h ago
I was in an interview maybe ten years ago after getting a huge severance check. It was a good market and I was planning on taking my time finding the next role, but a friend of mine recommended a role at a startup in an industry I was experienced in so I figured if nothing else it was a good opportunity to get an interview rep.
Anyway, because I really wasn’t very interested in the role, I took the opportunity when they asked me if I had any final questions to ask “how would you sell me on this role aside from the comp and benefits? Why should I commit myself to this firm?”
The interviewer was dumbfounded. Stumbled all over themselves about being part of a team or some shit before circling back to the OTE.
The CEO took it upon himself to email me the next day to say they considered me a top candidate until I asked that question, and I should adjust my attitude if I ever expect to get another decent job.
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u/0x5589e5 10h ago
What do you think clients would do if you were a dentist and after x-ray you would ask "Why should I commit my time for such a procedure except pay?"
I meant here more that you would have to qualify a lead, the problem is nobody would give you numbers or processes until NDA, and without numbers if you're a proffesional you can't tell whether you could help or not. Imagine if a dentist would offer you to remove your tooth without looking at it completely or do something else and would tell that it would help and you just need to wire him x$
When there is nothing to show or to improve or to sell, no previous results and so on the problem is likely not worth solving at all, and likely everyone would be better off just sitting and resting at home, It shows disrespect to counterparties / candidates.
The whole point of sales is to erase information gap between not offer aware customer and remove objections.
It's called information assymetry, and you would face it regardless replying on job offers or selling directly.
If you give too much you would be able to hear "oh, thank you, we'll implement this ourselves", if you give too little nobody would treat you serious and won't give you any information back. It's a trust ladder with future information obligations to be carefully build.
When this information gap is erased you could just offer such a deal that if he's not an idiot he won't reject, when it's regardless whether you like each other it's rational to enter.
In a checklist scenario it's just a waste of time because these expectations aren't published.
If I would offer 1m$ a day (if I wasn't serious, maybe even as an agency recruiter with clearly no clue about the business) at sexiest_company_in_the_world would you really trade your knowdge and even tell about what exactly you did while I'm sitting with that checklist without even qualifying me whether I'm serious?
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u/Beginning-Ad-2762 1d ago
Companies will lie to you that x % of reps are hitting target and y qualified leads will land on your plate each month and sales enablement is always on hand to support you.
Give them a dose of their own medicine.
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u/Consistent_Rhubarb_5 21h ago
Im in residential but I couldnt imagine the stories told in b2b these days! Everyone's living in their own matrix of their minds basically until reality hits all of us in the face eventually in this economy.
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u/0x5589e5 14h ago
Also the fun part of working with companies inflating their numbers is when you're trying to sell them yourself, actually get information from them on volumes and your offer is supposed to increase that by X% and you ask for money of course which are smaller than the value, and then these idiots would reject that offer with nonsense objections just because they're ashamed to admit they lied to you.
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u/Minute-Style2677 1d ago
Small correction: it's "couldn't qualify for a loan", not "couldn't qualified". Same slip with "when it come to scaling" if you're doing a pass over it.
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u/bigbaldbil 12h ago
Not sure when industry your end but if you throw numbers around like you sold $350 million, no one‘s gonna believe that. $120 million account, what does that mean? Is it that that company generates $120 million in revenue for themselves or that the sale itself was worth 120 million?
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u/Zestyclose_Care_1078 1d ago
Been there, and honestly the recruiter's complaint was fair even if it stung. 'No metrics' usually means they cant tell whether you owned the number or just watched it happen, so write it as 'grew ARR from X to Y in 18 months' and reconstruct your best figures from memory if you have to. The $350M deal only helps you if you can defend it out loud in the screen.
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u/Representative_note 1d ago
Salespeople when they discover lying O_o