> If you passed his desk around 2pm on friday? It would be empty.

And the flipside of this is that his desk is probably empty because he's on a plane, flying either to or from a potential customer's office.

Sales people travel a lot. Now, you might think "oh sweet, I'll get to see all kinds of exotic locales". Unfortunately, that's not what business travel is. You will get to see three things: the airport, your hotel room, and your potential customer's conference room. If you're lucky, you may also get to eat at a nice restaurant. You won't have time to sightsee and be a tourist.

It's very tiring. You go from the airport to your hotel room, drop off your suitcase, maybe change your clothes, then head over to the potential customer's site, spend all day schmoozing them, maybe go out to eat after, and then go to your hotel room, pass out, and wake up first thing in the morning and go back to the airport. Then you repeat the whole process the next day.

It's a lifestyle very few people can tolerate.

Are there sales positions that don't involve travelling all the time? Yeah, it's called inside sales. Inside sales is basically working at an outbound call center. It's a fancy name for telemarketing. It doesn't pay nearly as much as outside sales, because most companies that use inside sales only use them for their smallest accounts, and the work environment is its own kind of shitty. You're going to have a manager walking the floor all the time to make sure everyone's on task at all times. You know how in IT/software you might spend half your time goofing off on HN or wherever else and only doing a few hours of work a day? Yeah, that's not going to fly in inside sales. I used to work next to my company's inside sales department... I remember hearing the head of inside sales tell one of the ISRs "Any time not spent on the phone, writing an email, or in a meeting is time wasted". Later on, I heard him tell the same ISR that he needs to write and develop his sales pitches at home on his own time. Inside sales is the entry level; it's what young sales people who don't have any experience or their own list of contacts do. Once someone has built up a rolodex and gains enough practical experience how to sell things, they leave inside sales and move up into outside sales.

That is not for everyone. I'd rather be with my family on Sunday afternoon.

Btw, the people they're selling to aren't salespersons (the client) and they're in the suite too.

Should have read this first.

Don't have to be sales to do that. Be the customer. I turn down stuff all of the time, because my down time is worth more to me than free drinks and food in the private box, especially if I don't care about that team or sport.

> "Once we finish signing the paperwork, everyone else is worthless." It is true.

I think that's a fairly myopic, though unsurprising, point of view from the sales perspective. There's tons of work that goes into making a viable product that gets the paperwork to be signed. Programmers, teams, etc. are just as (ir)replaceable as sales staff; when you have the right combination, everything works well. Handshakes and signatures are the final step of making a deal, not the defining ones. From a bare financial point of view, once the paper's signed, you can change your company all you want, but unless the product/service continues to be well-made and add value to the customer, the money's not going to keep flowing. Engineering talent is not exactly fungible.

I'm in the IT services biz and while sales is a huge part of the process, they're selling our ability and our reputation which is based on our track record for quality execution. We don't sel them on "we're good at JavaScript" but we do sell on "we can design and develop high-quality technology products".

And yet, the sales person's paycheck for that hypothetical deal is still worth the same money.

I am a product manager at a large Enterprise software company and as such deal with salespeople daily. No amount of money will convince me to take on that job. Some salespeople make a lot of money, but most salespeople fail to meet their numbers and are scraping by in their average salaries, as most of their pay comes from commissions. You also are at the risk of layoffs constantly. Don't meet your numbers, laid off, slight downturn in business, underperforming sales staff let go. Not to mention the amount of client schmoozing you have to do and be ok with being treated like a door mat at every client location. Plus the soul crushing travel. I have tremendous respect for the sales folks who have made it. It is a difficult job with high rewards, but also high risks.

Any advice for engineers interested in trying sales?

I am an engineer, and used to do sales. I never liked sales enough to get really good at it, partially because I wanted to spend more time figuring out how to automate by job than do my job. But I have some general observations based on my experience:

- the lower the base salary, the crappier position (until you are so good you want a lower base and higher commission)

- a 100% commission job is not a job, it's "I decided to start a business AND give a huge piece of my earnings to someone else!" (until you can value why splitting your revenue is a good deal for you)

- finding people to sell to is not the same skill as getting them to buy from you

- if someone can teach you everything you need to know about the sales job, you are also easily replaceable

- if you have to pay to work there (such as paying for a desk, professional licenses, etc.), that job is gonna suck

- you're more likely to be successful if you don't have to convince yourself people need what you are selling

- some sales jobs are not pure selling (for example a full desk recruiter brings in clients/jobs to work on AND finds the candidates to fill those jobs)

- while this is a sarcastic comment, on some days you will think to yourself "the world is full of stupid people, and I talk to all of them"

- if you don't get motivated by making tons of money, sales is gonna feel like a real grind

I wouldn't get bullied into some inside sales or account management crap position.

With an engineering background:

https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/sales-engineer-jobs-SRCH_KO0,1...

I don't disagree. It's an option to consider. There are also customer-facing roles that are more technical (systems engineers, solution architects, etc.) and various gradations between those and sales generalists.

With that said, a couple caveats.

1. There are definite personality and skill sets that fit well with sales--or at least the sort of outside sales job one would aspire to. Some of this can probably be learned but it comes more naturally to some people than others.

2. Sales tends to be very performance-oriented. On the one hand, it means it may be easier to land a sales role. On the other hand, you have to make your numbers or you won't be around long.

> the ability to bring immediate value to a company

> Once we finish signing the paperwork, everyone else is worthless

Looks like the only interest was getting paid, not actual value.