Tim Ferriss on Y Combinator and the Art of Pitch: 'Always Be Closing'

I was selling storage (Sun, not EMC) back in 2000. Sales guy made a fortune back then not because they were especially good, but because they were selling servers and storage into the hottest tech market the world had ever known. The hardest part of my job for a couple of years was just finding enough Sun gear to fulfill customer requests. I know more than a few guys that made ridiculous money for a couple of years. None of them have made it back to the income level. Most haven't even come close. I never had a client blow up so big that it got me into the "1%" but 1998-2002 were definitely very good years for my family.<p>EMC reps making $500K a year was much more of a market bubble than it was a indicator of sales ability and working hard. I think one reason so many tech salespeople job hop every 18 months is that they are looking for the next home run. I was guilty of it myself for a while.

It is beyond me why anyone would open with an example from the year 2000, the most artificial, inflated, unreal market in 3 generations. Salesmen were mere order-takers: They could spout whatever bullshit they fancied and still deliver increasing YOY sales.<p>Fluff meter is off-scale.

I don't know, I wouldn't use Glengarry Glen Ross as an example of something you'd aspire to. The play/movie is a criticism of the sleazy "sales animal" culture where the product doesn't matter, closing sales is equated to virility, and the players are so desperate for a sale they'd lie, steal and ruin other people's lives for it.

Isn't 'Always Be Closing' from David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross? (though more emphasized in the film adaptation than the script)<p><a href="http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/glengarry.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/glengarry.html</a>

Slightly off-topic, but if anyone wants to read an interesting blog about sales and sales techniques, I would recommend Sales Source by Geoffrey James in Inc Magazine:<p><a href="http://www.inc.com/author/geoffrey-james" rel="nofollow">http://www.inc.com/author/geoffrey-james</a>

I actually liked this blog post by Ferriss. I almsot didn't click on it because I don't like his schtick...but this was pretty decent.<p>Back when I worked in consulting for a successful, trendy dot-com era consulting company, they had a motto that we were all "working in marketing" and all of us, even the engineers, were always "selling". It was more philosophical attitude than anything, but made the engineers think a little bit when they were on site implementing tech.

I haven't read through all of it, but it seems to be excerpt from Randall Strossen's book, only the intro is by Tim Ferriss. Maybe the title should reflect that?

I went to look at a flat and it turned out that the agent had booked someone else at the same time to view the flat and then tried to turn it into an unpleasant contest for who could be the first to bring him a deposit, even going as far as saying that we could have a fight about it, even though neither of us had shown any issue with the other.<p>We were both just standing there open mouthed and staring at him, wondering if he was for real. I decided there and then that it didn't matter how nice the flat was, there was no way I was going to have financial dealings with someone who was that much of an arsehole and told the other guy that as far as I was concerned he could have the flat if he wanted it.<p>I eventually went with a place that was equally nice, where the agent told me that the only people he had had round so far weren't all that interested, so I could probably take a few days to decide.<p>So if you are going to always be closing, don't be a dick about it.

This is awesome, I'm going to get the book. Key takeout: "be sales animals".

No no no no quit it no just stop no no no no no please just no