Jet Sarmartkoon - MD
Most websites are just dead screens — they don’t sell, they don’t connect. In this opening chapter of my 23-year journey, I share the real-life lessons that helped turn my website into a true digital salesperson.
Turning Your Website into a Salesperson: My 23-Year Journey
Over the past few years, I've been shopping online more and more.
But there's something about it that keeps bothering me — and not just as a customer.
Whenever I see a business spending money on ads and leading me to a poorly built website, I feel a strange kind of frustration.
Not frustration for myself — but for them.
It's hard to explain, but it feels like a waste.
A waste of their marketing budget.
A waste of a good product.
A waste of effort.
I know how it feels because I’ve been there too.
I'm the type of person who tries not to buy from Shopee, even when it's cheaper.
I want to support small businesses directly whenever I can.
But more often than not, the experience drives me right back to Shopee again.
Sometimes the ad leads me to a homepage that has nothing to do with what I wanted.
Sometimes it leads to a messy product page.
And sometimes — even when I actually want to buy — the process is so complicated that I just give up.
Each time it happens, I can’t help but wonder how many customers like me they’re losing every single day.
I’m not writing this to criticize anyone.
I’m sharing it because if you’re a business owner running ads and wondering why it’s not working — you’re not alone.
And maybe, just maybe, my story can help you avoid some of the mistakes I’ve had to learn the hard way.
What I’m about to share isn’t some theory or strategy from a marketing book.
It’s a collection of lessons I learned the hard way — by doing, failing, fixing, and repeating.
These are lessons that helped me transform my own business,
and helped my clients find real, lasting success through digital marketing.
Not tricks. Not shortcuts. Just real-world experience.
If you’re a small business, a growing company, or even a larger company that still feels like you’re "guessing your way through" digital marketing — this is for you.
Especially if you care about doing things the right way.
If you believe in offering real value to your customers,
and you want marketing that feels ethical, honest, and sustainable.
If you and your marketing team can truly understand what I’m about to share,
you’ll have a powerful tool that can transform your website into your best salesperson.
But if your business is about pushing low-quality products, unhealthy trends, or chasing quick sales at the customer’s expense —
then this isn’t for you.
This isn’t about finding new tools or fancy techniques.
It’s about finding the heart of selling first.
Here’s something I realized over time —
and it changed everything for me:
If your marketing team doesn’t know how to sell, no website, no ad, no campaign will save you.
It doesn’t matter if:
If nobody on your team truly knows how to sell,
none of it will matter.
All you need is one.
Just one person who truly understands how to sell — not aggressively, but honestly.
If you have that person, take good care of them.
They are worth more to your business than any marketing tool.
If you don’t have that person yet — don’t worry.
Because the story I’m about to share might help you build that skill in yourself or find it for your team.
Even if you already have someone good at selling,
what you’re about to learn can help you unlock 10 or even 100 times more potential.
I didn’t start out good at selling.
Not even close.
I come from a technology background.
I started at the bottom — building basic websites for a few hundred baht.
Cheap websites. Simple websites.
And I hated selling.
It felt confusing, stressful, like it belonged to a different world.
I believed that if we just made good products, clients would automatically find us and say yes.
Of course, real life doesn’t work that way.
As my business grew, I moved into more of a management role.
I wasn’t building websites directly anymore.
I started seeing the bigger picture — and one thing became painfully clear:
We didn’t have a real salesperson on our team.
Everyone was good at technical work.
But no one could sell.
Whenever we sent someone to pitch a project —
we lost the deal.
Over and over again.
Until I had no choice.
I had to do the thing I hated most.
I had to step up and learn how to sell.
At first, I just tried little things.
Reading a few articles.
Watching how others did it.
Trying to figure it out bit by bit.
And slowly, something shifted.
I realized that good selling isn’t about pushing products.
It’s not about smooth words or clever techniques.
It’s simply about this:
One human being, trying to sincerely help another human being.
That’s it.
Sales happens when there’s trust.
When there’s understanding.
When there’s a real connection.
Business is just the framework around that connection.
One thing that helped me tremendously —
and I didn’t realize it until much later —
was being a buyer myself.
Buying things.
Getting disappointed.
Feeling ripped off.
Feeling regret.
Feeling grateful when something actually exceeded my expectations.
The more I experienced those emotions,
the more I understood how customers feel.
And that understanding became my greatest teacher.
It taught me something that no sales book ever could.
After years of struggle, I finally saw it clearly:
Customers buy when they truly understand your product —
and they trust you.
That’s it.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
It doesn’t matter if your product is amazing, cheap, or revolutionary.
If the customer doesn’t understand it, they won’t buy.
If the customer doesn’t trust you, they won’t buy.
Simple.
But not easy.
In the early days, we were always trying to sell hard.
We would throw tons of information at the client.
Show off our technology.
Talk about how many websites we had built.
How many years of experience we had.
And every time, the client would feel overwhelmed.
Disconnected.
Because they didn’t care about us.
They cared about what we could do for them.
And we were missing the point entirely.
Once I understood the importance of customer understanding,
everything changed.
I stopped rushing to pitch features.
I stopped flooding clients with technical specs.
Instead, I focused on guiding them step by step toward understanding.
And once they understood, the sale happened almost naturally.
No pressure.
No hard selling.
Just clarity.
And trust.
Sometimes, they didn’t even ask about the price.
Because they already knew the value they were getting.
I had one client who started with a website project worth just 70,000 baht.
Over time, as they grew in trust and understanding,
we upgraded their website again and again.
Today, their latest project with us was valued at over 1 million baht.
Same client.
Same business relationship.
The difference?
Understanding.
Trust.
Step by step.
If you want to sell — really sell — you need to create two feelings in your customers:
That’s it.
If you create those two feelings, everything else becomes easy.
If you miss them, everything becomes a struggle.
And your website?
Its main job isn’t to look pretty.
It’s to build those two feelings — as quickly, honestly, and clearly as possible.
In the next chapter,
I’ll show you exactly how to build understanding and trust into your website —
so that it stops being a dead screen,
and starts becoming your best salesperson.
See you there.
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¹ Shopee is a popular online shopping platform in Southeast Asia — similar to Amazon, but more focused on local sellers and mobile users.
² Currency Note: 70,000 baht is roughly ~USD $1,900.
³ Currency Note: 1 million baht is approximately ~USD $27,000.