I don’t often read nonfiction, but I was interested in learning more when a few weeks ago, my teammate dropped a quote and asked for our opinions on it and how it applied to a sales discussion we were having:

“There are many advantages to a customer-centric approach, but here’s the big one: Customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied, even when they report being happy and business is great. Even when they don’t yet know it, customers want something better, and your desire to delight customers will drive you to invent on their behalf.” Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon.com, Inc. 2016 letter to shareholders

Within my work in Automattic as a whole, I think it’s a bit difficult and unfair to take the successes of places that ship physical products in-hand and replicate it our daily work. For example, Temu is racking it in hand-over-fist because they’re spending millions in marketing to drive sales. That still doesn’t mean they won’t be the next Wish.com, being sold for pennies in four years.

I’m not a world-class seller, but Bezos is right (gross): that people are never satisfied even when they have something in their hand– but it’s difficult to do investigative and hard-hitting sales pitches when someone can just close the chat window.

I did find that Daniel Pink’s book, To Sell Is Human, was an interesting guidebook for navigating modern landscapes of selling, and I found it an refreshing resource to review as part of learning about sales here at WordPress.com. I liked that Pink emphasizes the importance of customer collaboration in sales pitches, and urges us to invite our customers to contribute ideas and solutions. In an era of heightened consumer awareness and access to information, honesty and transparency have become essential for successful selling, leading to the rise of caveat venditor— or seller beware. (Is this actual Latin? Not sure, and I don’t know Latin enough to check!)

But: if someone can Google or ask a chatbot for the information, you need to be more appealing and honest to the customer than Google. You have “the capacity to help others see their situations in fresh and more revealing ways, and to identify problems they didn’t realize they had”. And also, you probably shouldn’t have a chatbot that outright lies to your customers, too. That’s also important.

Pink also introduces the ABCs of Selling: Attunement, Buoyancy, and Clarity. This is overall really important advice, and the main “meat” of the book, aside from the fact that the word “attunement” consistently has a red squiggly line under it whenever I read it– but I suppose this book can’t be all perfect.

In short, though: Attunement involves understanding the perspective of the customer and adapting communication styles accordingly, even in online interactions. For example, you should always be perspective-taking, or repeating back word-for-word some points the person you’re speaking to has made, and also trying to slightly changing your way of speech to match theirs— are they being friendly or formal? If they’re panicked, you need to be the calm assurance. If they’re friendly, be friendly back and be human.

Buoyancy focuses on maintaining your selling resilience and belief in the products you’re selling and recommending, while Clarity emphasizes the importance of curating information and framing sales as experiences (I’m able to run a site, store, or blog!) rather than transactions (I need to pay money to run a blog… it’s more money if I want a store, too.).

Pink always advocates for a more holistic approach to selling, rooted in empathy and understanding of the customer’s problems, and a more human-first approach (“What can I fix?”) and to see the customer as a real person with feelings, thoughts, and needs.

In short, imagine me waving a flag like “I ❤️ people who run WordPress!”

But honestly: To Sell Is Human makes respectable strides in emphasizing the power of authenticity and collaboration in modern sales. By embracing honesty, transparency, and a customer-centric mindset, we can not only succeed in selling great products and solutions, but also build lasting relationships based on trust and mutual benefit.

And that, I think, fits wonderfully into Automattic’s creed: I am more motivated by impact than money.