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Justin Offermann

AMA: Comfy.org Head of GTM, Justin Offermann on Sales Soft and Hard Skills

June 16 @ 10:00AM PT

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  1. As a hiring manager, what do the best sales candidates have in common?

    Justin Offermann
    Justin Offermann

    ComfyUI Head of GTM • Jun 16

    They did the homework before the call. They ask sharp questions back. They can walk me through one deal they personally ran, messy middle included, not "we as a team." How they handle pushback in the interview is exactly how they'll handle a buyer. I'm screening for curiosity and grit, and for people who treat the interview itself like a deal: research, discovery, close.
    413 Views
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  2. When joining a new team, is it better to have the right soft skills and have to learn the hard skills of the job? Or vice versa?

    Justin Offermann
    Justin Offermann

    ComfyUI Head of GTM • Jun 16

    Hire for soft skills and slope, train the hard skills. You can teach the product and the process. You can't teach curiosity, work ethic, or stomach for rejection. Caveat: in a technical product, willingness to go deep is itself a soft-skill signal. So it's not really either/or. I take soft skills plus rate of learning over a stronger hard-skill resume almost every time.
    5,415 Views
    1 request

  3. What hard skills are must haves to be a sales leader? What are nice to haves?

    Justin Offermann
    Justin Offermann

    ComfyUI Head of GTM • Jun 16

    Forecasting you can defend. Pipeline math. Deal inspection. Comp and quota design. And the ability to run a deal yourself so you're not leading from theory. Nice-to-have, though increasingly must-have on a lean team: RevOps fluency, marketing literacy, real product depth. On a small team the line between must and nice disappears. You do all of it.
    374 Views
    1 request

  4. How do you retain good talent, especially when sales roles are in such high demand across the industry?

    Justin Offermann
    Justin Offermann

    ComfyUI Head of GTM • Jun 16

    Comp matters but it's rarely the real reason people leave. Top reps stay where they're winning, where the product is strong, and where they're still growing. Give them big problems and real territory. Don't cap them. Make the path forward visible. Attrition is usually a broken product, a bad manager, or a dried-up market. Pay fairly enough that comp is never the reason, then fix the actual thing.
    391 Views
    1 request

  5. How can someone from a different field transition to sales?

    Justin Offermann
    Justin Offermann

    ComfyUI Head of GTM • Jun 16

    Lead with the expertise you already have. The strongest transitions I've seen are people who know an industry cold and then learn the selling motion, not the reverse. The mechanics of selling are teachable. Real credibility with a customer's problem is not. Be the person in the room who actually gets the customer. Build the sales muscle on top of that.
    359 Views
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  6. How do you build a frame work for building manageable metrics associated with Soft Skills?

    Justin Offermann
    Justin Offermann

    ComfyUI Head of GTM • Jun 16

    You can't measure "communication" directly, so measure proxies. For discovery: multi-threading rate, stakeholders engaged per deal, conversion from discovery to next stage. For trust-building: response rates, meeting acceptance, deal velocity. Layer in call reviews scored against a simple rubric so it's observed, not vibes. One hard rule: don't pick metrics that turn into theater. Tie every soft-skill metric to a leading indicator that actually correlates with closed revenue, or cut it.
    367 Views
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  7. What intangibles separate the top sales reps from the rest?

    Justin Offermann
    Justin Offermann

    ComfyUI Head of GTM • Jun 16

    Not charisma. The best can hold tension without flinching. Sit in the silence. Ask the uncomfortable question. Push back on a buyer instead of folding. They're genuinely curious, not performing interest. They run process when nobody's watching. And they think in the buyer's incentives, not their own quota. They understand where the money actually moves on the other side. Ownership is the through-line. They treat the deal like it's their own company.
    371 Views
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  8. I get a lot of critical feedback from my boss and I don't always know what to do with it or how to improve. Sometimes I don't even agree with the feedback. What should I do when I don't think the feedback is correct?

    Justin Offermann
    Justin Offermann

    ComfyUI Head of GTM • Jun 16

    Separate the signal from the delivery. Even feedback that lands wrong usually has a kernel, so ask yourself what would have to be true for this to be right. If you still think it's wrong, say so. But bring evidence, not defensiveness. Correct the frame, don't argue the person. Track patterns too: one person's feedback is an opinion, three people saying the same thing is data. Don't reflexively comply. Don't reflexively reject.
    2,211 Views
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  9. What advice do you have for recent graduates that want to go straight into sales?

    Justin Offermann
    Justin Offermann

    ComfyUI Head of GTM • Jun 16

    Pick the company and the manager over the comp. Your first manager shapes the whole arc. Get reps early; volume is how you learn. Be coachable without being a doormat. Know the product cold. And understand that year one is brutal and most people quit right before it clicks. Don't be most people.                                                                                                                                            
    376 Views
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  10. What are the most important soft and hard skills sales professionals can build to become successful in their field going forward?

    Justin Offermann
    Justin Offermann

    ComfyUI Head of GTM • Jun 16

    Soft side: discovery, clear writing, building trust fast. Hard side: AI fluency is table stakes now, not a differentiator. The rep who can run their own research, build their own assets, and operate like a one-person GTM team wins the next five years. Underneath all of it: pipeline discipline and CRM hygiene. Unglamorous, non-negotiable.
    361 Views
    1 request

  11. What are the most important sales skills or perspectives that others inside an organization could benefit from that would improve their day to day work?

    Justin Offermann
    Justin Offermann

    ComfyUI Head of GTM • Jun 16

    Discovery. Asking good questions is a superpower for PMs, engineers, and designers, not just reps. Thinking in the other party's incentives. Writing clearly. And the discipline of follow-through. Sales is mostly structured curiosity plus follow-through. Every function gets sharper with both.
                                                                                                                                                                                                  
    375 Views
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  12. What's the best way to break into the tech industry as a sales professional?

    Justin Offermann
    Justin Offermann

    ComfyUI Head of GTM • Jun 16

    SDR/BDR is the obvious on-ramp but it's not the only one. Pick a company whose product you actually understand, get fluent enough that they can't ignore you. Domain affinity beats a polished resume every time. Don't chase the logo, chase the motion. Get in early somewhere moving fast, where the product is technical and you can build real depth. That depth compounds. I'll take someone obsessed with the space over a brand-name AE with no curiosity, every single time.
    361 Views
    1 request