20 Things I Learned From The Sales Meeting

I doesn't have to work, as long as it's pretty

Welcome to the meeting. Let the lies begin.

PowerPoint is proof of functionality

#15 in sales handbook: "If you're not positive, 'Yes it does that!'"

No sales meeting is complete without a Paradigm Shift.

Sales Engineers. The ugly truthful side of the sales teams. "My SE is sick...don't mind him."

Free pens and coffee cups. The real reason we go to sales meetings.

When pitching to a network engineer, "This product keeps the bad things out" might need to be expanded on.

Why do I continue to ask questions when I know there are no straight answers?

#45 in sales handbook: "When cornered use the phrase 'Heuristic learning software aptitude'" and continue.

"Are there pie chart generated reports?" The question your manager asks.

When in doubt, don't clarify, confuse. See #5

The inevitable question from the clients "When is SP1 coming out?"

In sales pitches there is no mention of CPU or memory or bandwidth usage.

Me: "How much bandwidth?" Sales Guy: "I think it needs at least a 128k circuit!"

The upgrade to 11.03 solves the problems created in 11.02. 11.04 creates troubles we will not be able to resolve until you upgrade to 12.0.

Why is it you haven't upgraded from 11.01 again?

Sports analogies don't fly in a room full of geeks. "What's a forward lateral?"

The best part of the sales meeting is the adjournment!