this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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Work Reform

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[โ€“] Skates@feddit.nl 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

For someone in sales, easy, you can look at the value of the contracts they bring in.

I would argue against this. As someone whose sales guys overpromise just to get the contract signed, in order to see how much they actually bring in I would subtract the number of overtime hours/additional effort we need to invest compared to their initial sales pitch. Or, you promised feature X is delivered in the first 2 years? Well when the customer doesn't get it and complains about it, that's going to be subtracted from your next signing bonus.

Listen, I know the job is made so that they bring in the most contracts possible and then the techs need to figure out the rest. But if the company constantly gets in trouble with the same few big-name customers in the industry (making them not want to sign with us in the future because of unrealistic promises), maybe it's time to consider that Sales' approach is sometimes detrimental?

I work in professional services, and this is so true. I feel like every new client I onboard and start implementing has promises in their contract we can't fulfill due to product limitations. Oh, it's supposed to do X out of the box? Nope, maybe we can customize it, but that's a weird niche requirement that's going to take a lot of discovery and architecting.