Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

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That was some good stuff. I wish we had more of this kind of content on HN. :-)

That said, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of studying materials from Chet Holmes (RIP), the author of The Ultimate Sales Machine. I got hold of a set of videos he did in conjunction with Anthony Robbins, where he talks about marketing and sales at great length. We[1] are currently working to implement his "Dream 100 / Best Buyer" strategy[2] now. How well it will work remains to be seen, of course, but the idea strikes me as pretty solid.

This marketing stuff turns out to be pretty fascinating. I've also learned a ton about market research in the past year or so, and am thinking about doing a talk on "Market Research for Startups" sometime soon, here in the RTP area.

[1]: http://www.fogbeam.com

[2]: http://www.resourcenation.com/article/marketing-tiny-shoestr...

To be honest, the reason such content is rare, is because nobody wants to share it. I make more money from using my skills for myself, than from consulting or writing books. I was publishing stuff little by little, but time constraints made me stop.

Another point is that everybody wants to learn what works, but few people ever put it to practice. The only person I have ever helped that has actually paid attention is Dan Shipper. And it was mostly helping him with the Firefly landing page.

I think it has little to do with "nobody wants to share it". The issue is that there seems to be some silent sentiment in this community that sales is...I don't know....less intellectual, a little "dirty" mayhap? And perhaps if you have to resort to (gasp) selling your product then it isn't good enough to sell itself. People hold on to the "build a wonderful product and they will come" mythology.....

Well, people who discover ways to make money don't really want to share it. Its a natural reaction and instinct to not do so. I do agree that sales, marketing, and or any type of business development subject is not very welcomed in this community. Reasons are various, but your guess is spot on. Business is seen as less intellectual, when it is actually way harder than writing code. But it requires one thing that few people here want to do: Communicate with others.

And yes, you are right. A great product does not sell itself.

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