Great article ! One of the bold things we did at the B2B tech company I last worked at is we took out individual sales compensation for the salesteam and just gave them a base (higher) salary. I've heard of other companies give the sales team a collective sales bonus rather than individual ones.
What that did for us was they became much better team players, easier to work with and the entire company got better at helping them close deals :)
I loved this piece! As an Asian woman in sales, I could relate to some of the hardships with connecting to sales people (and also how obnoxious we can be, sales people never stop talking lol). Most of all, I think this takeaway is so important - we will thrive in the environments that play to our strengths. Sometimes trying to push through something unnatural is only going to slow us down. Love to see your evolution here Chao! Though I don’t think you give yourself enough credit as a conversationalist!
…”if you introspect and figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are, perhaps you can create a company that plays to rules emphasizing your strengths and that makes your weaknesses irrelevant” - really strong advice…imagine all the time effort and lift one might spend on trying to do something not suited to their efforts…if your business does ever need to expand in wide uncharted ways at least let it come naturally…it should be interesting to see if the expectations of ai making workers more broadly functional backfires because of the inherent power of niche…
…also sorry that seems dismissive and rude but i can’t think of a single example in human history where the powerful worked to make the less powerful more powerful…i may be a cynic tho…
Hmmm, maybe I don’t quite understand your perspective: I see lots of people becoming extremely powerful by making the less powerful more powerful. Iconic examples would be Edison, Ford and Jobs? Haven’t the light bulb, cars and personal computers made us all more powerful?
...sorry was listening to a lot of rage against the machine last night...i'm not sure if the computer has given us more power or if it has just given us more computer...those are great leaders and great technologies but the gaps between haves/have-nots seems statistically to be increasing...that said the speed of access to information has massively increased and knowledge is indeed power...i keep watching the commercials for APPLE and GOOGLE a.i. where they remove things from reality and help people "remember" things they "forgot" and it makes me feel like the point of the tool isn't to enhance reality but to alter and erase it...again so much rage against the machine... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWXazVhlyxQ ...appreciate you brother!...
Appreciate you and your perspective too, CansaFis! I am still more of a techno-optimist and what you said reminded me of the quote from the Whole Earth Catalog “We are as gods as we have to get good at it”
Nice to see the polished conclusion in the piece. Liked how you talked about using internet features to skirt around salespeople — to your advantage. Seems like it worked out great!
“internet features to skirt around salespeople” Heh, yes I am glad you caught this. When I started this piece, it was with the thought: 20th century was about middle managers managing people, but 21st may well be about everyone managing bots and how we learn how to do that. Ended up dropping that whole section 😭
I enjoyed this piece, particularly the candor and self-awareness. It’s true that one of the benefits of starting a business is the founder’s ability to create the rules. I’d offer a corollary: every business has rules and culture, even — and especially — if the founder doesn’t manage it. If it isn’t actively managed, it may not be the culture or rules you want, so embrace the rule-setting!
Awesome lesson, and an awesome story Chao.
Very glad I got an early sneak peak at this one.
Very much one of my favorite opening lines, but I also forgot to mention to you that your ending made me laugh!
Oh no - now I have a new streak to maintain: to make Sandra laugh with each piece!
Fr, best opener
me too
i don't recognize this chao
Recognize this?
Oh I get it… not my proudest moment 😬and maybe the emotional reason for writing this out
Chao! This is fantastic. Your best essay yet in my opinion. Absolutely loved the storytelling and the message. Restacked! More like this please!
Right?! And to think he was initially holding out on this one! We gotta keep Chao's writing going!
100%
Thank you - you two have probably encouraged and shaped my writing the most ☺️
Chao, I don’t know how I missed this but it’s fabulous!
Thanks Kathy and hi from Hokkaido!
Great article ! One of the bold things we did at the B2B tech company I last worked at is we took out individual sales compensation for the salesteam and just gave them a base (higher) salary. I've heard of other companies give the sales team a collective sales bonus rather than individual ones.
What that did for us was they became much better team players, easier to work with and the entire company got better at helping them close deals :)
What a cool idea to align team incentives
I loved this piece! As an Asian woman in sales, I could relate to some of the hardships with connecting to sales people (and also how obnoxious we can be, sales people never stop talking lol). Most of all, I think this takeaway is so important - we will thrive in the environments that play to our strengths. Sometimes trying to push through something unnatural is only going to slow us down. Love to see your evolution here Chao! Though I don’t think you give yourself enough credit as a conversationalist!
You're are so kind, Michelle - even when I'm unkind to salespeople. It's one of things I regret a lot and hope I have learnt from that experience
…”if you introspect and figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are, perhaps you can create a company that plays to rules emphasizing your strengths and that makes your weaknesses irrelevant” - really strong advice…imagine all the time effort and lift one might spend on trying to do something not suited to their efforts…if your business does ever need to expand in wide uncharted ways at least let it come naturally…it should be interesting to see if the expectations of ai making workers more broadly functional backfires because of the inherent power of niche…
Thanks CansaFis! I was wondering the converse: if we could delegate more to AI agents then maybe we could focus more on our niches?
…who is going to pay for that lol…
…also sorry that seems dismissive and rude but i can’t think of a single example in human history where the powerful worked to make the less powerful more powerful…i may be a cynic tho…
Hmmm, maybe I don’t quite understand your perspective: I see lots of people becoming extremely powerful by making the less powerful more powerful. Iconic examples would be Edison, Ford and Jobs? Haven’t the light bulb, cars and personal computers made us all more powerful?
...sorry was listening to a lot of rage against the machine last night...i'm not sure if the computer has given us more power or if it has just given us more computer...those are great leaders and great technologies but the gaps between haves/have-nots seems statistically to be increasing...that said the speed of access to information has massively increased and knowledge is indeed power...i keep watching the commercials for APPLE and GOOGLE a.i. where they remove things from reality and help people "remember" things they "forgot" and it makes me feel like the point of the tool isn't to enhance reality but to alter and erase it...again so much rage against the machine... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWXazVhlyxQ ...appreciate you brother!...
Appreciate you and your perspective too, CansaFis! I am still more of a techno-optimist and what you said reminded me of the quote from the Whole Earth Catalog “We are as gods as we have to get good at it”
Nice to see the polished conclusion in the piece. Liked how you talked about using internet features to skirt around salespeople — to your advantage. Seems like it worked out great!
“internet features to skirt around salespeople” Heh, yes I am glad you caught this. When I started this piece, it was with the thought: 20th century was about middle managers managing people, but 21st may well be about everyone managing bots and how we learn how to do that. Ended up dropping that whole section 😭
I enjoyed this piece, particularly the candor and self-awareness. It’s true that one of the benefits of starting a business is the founder’s ability to create the rules. I’d offer a corollary: every business has rules and culture, even — and especially — if the founder doesn’t manage it. If it isn’t actively managed, it may not be the culture or rules you want, so embrace the rule-setting!