Web Developers Can’t Sell. Sorry.

I would never tell a salesperson he/she can't code just because he/she is a salesperson.<p>That would be a foolish over-generalization.

I've found that the opposite is true. It is much easier for a tech person to learn selling than for a salesperson to learn technology -- and it's a whole lot easier to sell if you <i>start</i> by knowing what you're selling, and then build a case around that.<p>This piece is surprisingly fluffy. Of the five bullet points, the first is a cliché, and the second are so obvious that they haven't even reached that status.

I would really love to see more marketing articles on HN. There's a sweet spot for us hackers who aren't in a situation where we are ready to hire anyone and would like to know more about marketing to cement their plans. By us I mean me of course.

This is actually some good solid advice, for _anyone_ selling software.<p>But I look poorly on the use of link-bait titles. It's deceptive and ultimately annoying, particularly when it employs a generalisation.<p>After all, there are a myriad of different people involved in the development of a site. Many stake-holders and many opportunities for mistakes and misunderstandings. The basic point is this; there are many reasons why a site doesn't do as good a job of selling as it could. Blaming it on web-devs alone and their perceived inability to sell is horse-pucky. Frankly, most web-devs aren't employed to sell, they're employed to make things. Why should they cop it?

Yes, this is called specialization of labor. Plato wrote about it. Good advice, but something any hacker with a lick of business acumen already knows.

One thing that annoys me about sales people sometimes is that they always talk about "know your audience", but they'll almost never go "this is a technical audience, we need to talk in terms that technical people will respond to".

'Web developers' should be replaced with 'Engineers' and yes, for the most part, engineers aren't known for their marketing skills.<p>And as much as this is drilled into our heads over and over again: keep it coming. It's all too easy to forget the fundamentals..<p>Point #1: "Lead with benefits, not with features." was great.

She doesn't sound the least bit sorry.

She fails to heed point 2 herself - know your audience.<p>While management is more likely to write a purchase order for salespeak driven marketing than developerspeak driven marketing, if you're aiming at developers that might not be so true.<p>I'm less likely to buy, or ask for a purchase order for, an online source management system, for example, if it lists 'why we're so great', rather than features. As a developer, I would be looking for the feature set not some bullet-point buzzword list.

I disagree, I know people who is a "natural" with other people, without studying and have technical skills too. People like them, and buy from them.<p>Working in the industry I met a guy who was a very good mechanic, but really good with people. He started selling products while he worked as a mechanic. He become rich, and he didn't wanted to sell!!! People trusted him because they knew he was not going to trick them.

I wish someone would write "Web Designers Can't Sell", for that's probably a more useful reminder for many people who offer goods via a web page.

Yep. Classic stereotype and headline generation of an over-generalization to grab attention. Though she's wrong, she's right <i>some of the time</i>.<p>That said, it probably means she herself isn't too bad at marketing since, after all, it certainly grabbed quite the attention span here (and exactly the sort of crowd that would benefit from the knowledge she has shared).

Yup...sounds like this from @rishi. <a href="http://gettingmoreawesome.blogspot.com/2009/10/examples-around-web-of-focusing-on.html" rel="nofollow">http://gettingmoreawesome.blogspot.com/2009/10/examples-arou...</a> (There's examples here, at least.)

I am a coder and I can sell and know plenty of others who can. Learning to sell is much easier than learning to code.

Ugh marketing.

<a href="http://heroku.com/" rel="nofollow">http://heroku.com/</a>

Well, I know a handless woman that can write using her feets. Knowing that, I don't understand why a developer can't learn how to sell and vice-versa.