Why do techies/coders avoid marketing guys.

A lot of startups would be interested in providing their services to people. And it would soon become clear to them that the lot toughest to appease/impress are the techies and programmers. 

 

These guys won't talk at all, trying to find a sloution on their own. They don't seem to care about the time and energy spent to find a solution that someone else could have easily provided. A normal/non-geek manager often listens to these salespeople and takes their as they seem fit. This lack of communication becomes frustrating and often forces one to wonder what went wrong.

 

Here is a brief summary compiled from a discussion in a forum that I happen to be attached to.

• Sales people are not usually technically literate, at least they don't stand a chance infront of a geek. They make for it by making stuff up. This leads to the client distrust, and ends up in a failed discussion.
• Coders usually don't believe on the word of mouth. They would actually like to see the product in person. An exhaustive summary of the product is what they would prefer.
• Sales people use sales tactics, (aka social engineering). Coders, mostly, are bright enough to see through it and the effort has negative impact. Not to mention it makes sales people look like an idiot.
• Coders and techies usually have higher IQs than the sales people. They are usually not ready to talk to a dumb person who is trying to make money off them. The best sales people for these clients would be developers themselves, as they know exactly how the brains work as well as technical details of the product.
• Coders are very efficient and consider verbal discussions with sales people a waste of time. They would rather read an email and decide within a few minutes wether to make a deal or not.
• Coders are not social animals and use their words frugally. Combine it with impatience and you have got a hard to please client.
• Sales people usually focus on the best aspects of their products while techies are interested in its limitations.
• Coders/techies usually figure out the limitations of the product on their own. If in trouble, their peers would help them out. So using sales people to lure them is pretty useless. 
• Plus, when the startup grows, so does its sales team. These new sales guys can never understand the product as well as the developer does, and convincing a techie  client becomes very difficult.