The Confident General: The salesperson in perspective

As your career as a software developer evolves, you will hopefully advance your technical skills and knowledge. You have probably heard that technical expertise is no longer enough to really progress - you have to increase your general business knowledge, including understanding the interaction of all the roles and departments within the enterprise.

From a developer's point of view, there is probably no enterprise personality more interesting and puzzling than that of the salesperson. As the old adage goes: developers are from Mars and salespeople want to sell Venus at an unreasonably low price on an impossible timeline. Recounting my many experiences with salespeople brings to mind a story from a land far away on an occasion many eons ago. It is the story of the confident general.

One morning the general summoned his soldiers together for a meeting...

General: First of all, I want to thank everyone for being here for this important meeting. There are figs, honey mead and bagels on the table behind you. Help yourself. Ok, so I'm going to go over these PowerParchment slides; stop me if you have questions. Basically we have declared war on a neighboring tribe...

When the general finished his presentation the soldiers were quiet for a while until one spoke up.

Soldier: Um, could you go back to the sheet with the information about the size of their army?

General: Sure, you mean this one that describes how we share the spoils of victory?

Soldier: No, no. The one before that...

General: You mean...hold on...this one?

Soldier: Yeah. It says there that they have five thousand soldiers?

General: Give or take.

Soldier: But there's only twelve of us.

General: Well we all know it's not purely a numbers game.

Soldier: Yeah, but....

General: Look, when I talk to generals from other tribes, do you know what I tell them? I tell them I have the best damn soldiers in the land. I wish you could see their faces when I tell them about you guys. I have no doubts that we are the leaders in our field. I wouldn't have declared war if I wasn't sure we will be successful.

Another Soldier: So are you going with us?

General: No. I would love to, but I can't. The firsthand experience you guys will be getting...I envy you. But the Commander would go ballistic. He needs me to declare war on other tribes.

Another Soldier: Twelve against five thousand...?

General: Five thousand give or take. Look, let me show you something. This is a spearhead with our tribal coat of arms engraved on it. We're giving these out to other tribes that are interested in being our war partners. I want you to have this. You are literally like the first person getting one of those.

Soldier: Um, thanks....

General: Look, guys, I don't want to leave here thinking there's this prevailing "can't do" attitude. We have to start thinking about fighting smarter, not harder. I believe in you all. I just want you to believe in yourselves. Hold on, that's my carrier pigeon flying this way. Sorry, I have to take this. Come here, Blackberry. Good bird...