Why I'm Bad at Customer Service, and Hate Doing Marketing
"Let the work speak for itself."
Let the work speak for itself.
Last night, a student in the group asked me:
"Wanfeng, is this course really useful? Can you give me a discount?"
I replied: "You can take a look at the course syllabus and student reviews."
He asked: "Can I preview it first?"
I said: "There are free public lessons on Bilibili. Watch them first to see if it suits you."
He didn't say anything else.
I don't know if he ended up buying. But I know he left.
And I'm not sorry at all.
The Year I Graduated from Law School, I Almost Delivered Food
Many people think I'm doing pretty "well" right now—400K+ followers across platforms, 1,000+ stars on my open-source projects, running an AI programming bootcamp. As if everything came naturally.
But I rarely tell the other side of the story.
My undergrad was in Electronic Information, my master's in Intellectual Property (law). The day I graduated from law school, I was full of confidence. I went to interviews in a suit and got turned down everywhere.
No lawyer's license, no connections, no resources.
Beijing is huge, but there wasn't a single seat for me.
During the most down-and-out days, I even interviewed to be a livestream host at an internet company—a law master's, selling goods in front of a camera.
Can you imagine that?
Sometimes I wonder: if I had stayed on that path, where would I be now?
At 23, I Decided to Start Self-media
The turning point came when I was 23.
I realized something: I knew Python, and I was good at explaining complex technical topics in simple terms. That was my strength.
So I registered a public account and started writing technical articles.
On the first day, 38 followers.
All of them were relatives and friends I had asked to follow me.
I remember those 38 numbers clearly—because I stared at them for a long time, not knowing what to do next.
But I didn't stop.
I kept writing. Kept sharing. Kept turning programming problems into plain English.
One year later, my public account had its first strangers following.
Three years later, I crossed 100,000 followers on Bilibili.
Five years later, I released the open-source project python-office, hitting 1,000 GitHub stars in 2025.
Now, 400,000+ followers across all platforms.
But There's One Thing I've Never Been Good At
Over the years doing self-media, I've always had a sore spot:
I'm bad at customer service, and I hate doing marketing.
Not that I can't—it's that I hate it.
Do you know what questions I get asked most often?
"Wanfeng, how do I install Python?"
"Wanfeng, what should I do if this code won't run?"
"Wanfeng, what's the difference between your course and other people's?"
Every time I get these questions, a thought flashes through my mind:
I've already written about this.
Written in articles, covered in videos, listed in the syllabus.
If you read my content and trust me, you'll come naturally.
If you read my content and still have questions, that means I didn't write clearly enough.
I should go back and revise the article—not stand in front of you explaining who I am, how great I am, and how much I'm worth.
The Moment I Hate the Most
Let me give you an example.
Once, a student added me on WeChat and asked:
"Wanfeng, I want to learn Python. What do you recommend?"
I said: "Take a look at my AI Programming Bootcamp. It's designed for beginners from zero."
He said: "How much?"
I said: "Scan the code to learn more."
He said: "Can it be cheaper?"
I said: "No discount."
He said: "Forget it, too expensive."
Then he left.
At that moment, I admit I felt a twinge of discomfort.
But then I asked myself a question:
Did he actually read my content?
No. He just saw the price and left.
What does that tell me?
It tells me my content isn't strong enough to make him ignore the price.
The problem is mine, not his.
But it also tells me we are not the same kind of people.
I attract people with content. He filters people by price.
We were never meant to meet.
Sales and Content Are Two Completely Different Paths
I'm not saying sales is bad.
Sales is a craft. Being able to sell a comb to a monk, sell garbage as treasure—that's a skill.
But it's not my path.
The underlying logic of my content is a different set of rules:
I prove myself through content, through articles, through videos.
You read my articles, you decide for yourself that it's good, that it makes sense, that Wanfeng the programmer is reliable—
You decide to buy on your own. That's the most comfortable state.
Conversely—
You come and say, "Wanfeng, how's this course?"
I say "It's great, great. Look at this syllabus, look at these student cases, look at these results…"
You hesitate, and leave.
Then I keep talking to you, keep explaining, keep proving myself…
The whole process makes me uncomfortable.
And I think the process itself reveals a truth:
Your content isn't good enough. Your articles were written for nothing.
The One Thing I've Learned from Years of Self-media
Looking back at all these years of self-media, my biggest growth isn't how many followers I gained, but realizing one thing:
Good content doesn't need to be explained.
Li Ziqi disappeared for three years, and when she came back, she was still on top.
The best products don't have salespeople chasing you down. Word of mouth does the work.
The best articles don't have to argue with you in the comments. They let the content speak.
Final Words
If you're a creator, a programmer, a freelancer, an indie developer—don't waste your time being a salesperson.
Spend that time making your content 10× better.
Spend that time writing one more article that someone will bookmark.
Spend that time building one more thing that people will tell their friends about.
The market rewards those who insist on making the work itself better, not those who insist on telling people how good their work is.
Let the work speak. Always.
That's the only sustainable strategy in a world where everyone is shouting.
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