In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work

Reactions to the article and writing style

• Strongly polarized: some found it one of the best, funniest, most honest pieces they’d read; others called it overwrought, empty, or “wannabe edgy.”
• Several noted it works more as memoir / life story than as practical sales advice.
• A few questioned the narrator’s reliability, especially around the “No. 1 telemarketer” claim and self‑reported illegal behavior.

What counts as “elite” sales

• Many distinguish between:
  • One‑off, high‑pressure, low‑recurrence sales (telemarketing, door‑to‑door, car lots, storm-chasing contractors).
  • Long‑cycle, relationship and domain‑heavy sales (enterprise SaaS, telecom infrastructure, consulting, specialized B2B).
• “Elite” in the second category is described as: deep customer/industry knowledge, problem‑solving, trust building, accurate requirements gathering, and being closer to a strategist or consultant than a script‑reader.
• Multiple anecdotes: good salespeople making engineers’ lives easier, rescuing projects, or driving decades‑long accounts.

Ethics, manipulation, and legality

• Many see telemarketing in the article as outright fraud: skipping mandated disclosures, exploiting information asymmetry, and treating customers as marks.
• This fuels broad cynicism: “most sales is about pushing things people don’t need,” with car dealers and realtors common examples.
• Others push back: good sales matches real needs to good products and can be genuinely value‑creating, especially with repeat business and reputational consequences.
• Several note that low‑recurrence, low‑diligence transactions structurally reward sleazier tactics.

Psychology: feelings, trust, and relationships

• The article’s punchline (“it’s about how you make people feel”) gets extended:
  • Some agree and generalize it to all relationships.
  • Others argue the real core is trust; making people feel good is one route to that.
• A number of commenters describe practical techniques: listening, mirroring cadence, affirming people’s choices, structuring interactions so that saying “yes” feels like consistency with their self‑image.

Luck, structure, and broader social critique

• Thread frequently notes the role of timing, product fit, and macro conditions: even great salespeople can’t beat a dead market, while mediocre reps can look brilliant at a dominant vendor.
• Several pick up on the article’s wider thesis: modern life is saturated with sales‑like behavior—ads, algorithms, “personal brands,” gig work—and economic precarity pushes everyone toward constant, sometimes demoralizing, self‑promotion.