One of the most useful things I’ve learned in over a decade of working with heart-centered entrepreneurs is that people don’t just buy a solution — they buy a relationship with someone who genuinely understands where they’ve been. In Selling Like We’re Human, knowing your people isn’t about building a client avatar or filling in a demographic spreadsheet. It’s about developing two distinct and complementary skills: empathy and perspective-taking. And it’s about understanding the anti-hero story your clients carry into every conversation they have with you.
People Buy People
I’ve told the story of hiring Nela Dunato as my brand designer before, but it bears repeating here because it captures something essential. I didn’t choose her because her technical skills were superior — they probably weren’t dramatically different from the other designer I was considering. I chose her because I felt like her offer was speaking directly to me. Her values were visible. Her worldview resonated. I didn’t just buy a rebrand; I bought into her perspective on what design and branding can mean when it’s rooted in human connection.
That’s “people buy people” in practice. And it has direct implications for how you show up in a sales conversation. When I was building my LinkedIn consulting business, I operated for years on the assumption that skills and experience would be enough to differentiate me. For a while, being an early mover in that space, they were. But as the market matured and competition grew from every direction, I had to get honest: I wasn’t just selling LinkedIn coaching. I was selling myself — my perspective, my values, my particular way of working. Realizing that changed everything about how I talked to prospective clients.
Empathy vs. Perspective-Taking: You Need Both
Here’s a distinction that doesn’t get enough airtime in conversations about ethical selling. Empathy and perspective-taking are not the same thing — and in a sales conversation, you actually need both, deployed at different moments.
Empathy is about feelings: entering into someone’s emotional state, letting them feel genuinely heard and seen. Perspective-taking is about thoughts: understanding the other person’s intentions, goals, mental models, and motivations well enough to anticipate how they’re likely to act. Psychologists have shown these two capacities use distinct neural circuits. Empathy is a cooperation mode; perspective-taking is what researchers call a “competition” mode — not adversarial, but strategic. It’s about understanding well enough to create real win-win outcomes.
In practice, I move between the two in almost every sales conversation I have. When a potential client shares that she’s exhausted, charging too little, working too much, and doesn’t know how to change her situation — I first meet that with empathy: “Been there. I hear your pain. That’s real.” But then I shift into perspective-taking: I hold her whole situation, her stated goals, her false beliefs about what’s possible, and I gently offer a new frame. Not a magic wand. A different way of seeing. Empathy without perspective-taking can lead you to simply validate someone’s stuck story. Perspective-taking without empathy can feel cold and clinical. The combination is where genuine connection and genuine help meet.
Who Is Your People’s Anti-Hero?
Here’s a concept from the book that I find clients consistently underestimate: the anti-hero. Most people who come to you arrive with baggage. They’ve tried other solutions. They’ve been burned, disappointed, oversold, or overwhelmed. They carry stories in their heads about how things in your field usually go — and they’re often not flattering stories.
For my people, the anti-hero is Bro Marketing — the pressure tactics, the cart-closing email sequences, the “only 3 spots left!” fake urgency, the funnels designed to manipulate rather than serve. My ideal clients are exhausted by all of that, and deeply suspicious of it. Knowing that means I never use that language, I never create that kind of pressure, and when I explain what I do, I frame it explicitly against that backdrop — because that framing creates immediate recognition and relief.
Your people’s anti-hero might be a person, a method, a whole industry, or just a particular type of communication. A web designer whose clients are nature-based practitioners told me her anti-hero was the tech jargon that saturates most web design conversations — SEO, Google Ads, rankings, conversion rates. Her clients just want a beautiful site and someone they can trust to handle the rest. So she banned the buzzwords from her vocabulary entirely. That one insight changed how she attracted clients.
Often, clients won’t volunteer the anti-hero story — it feels like a failure to them. But if you mention that other clients have come to you with those exact frustrations, something shifts. They feel recognized. The alignment becomes immediate. You’re not just someone who can help them; you’re someone who already understands the whole journey that brought them here.
Frequently Asked Questions About Knowing Your Ideal Client
It goes beyond demographics or avatar worksheets. Knowing your ideal client means understanding their emotional state, their mental model, the frustrations and failures they carry from previous experiences, and the story they’re telling themselves about their situation. The deeper your understanding, the more your sales conversations feel less like pitches and more like recognition.
Empathy involves sharing someone’s emotional experience — it’s about feelings and connection. Perspective-taking involves reasoning about someone else’s intentions, goals, and mental state — it’s more cognitive and strategic. In sales conversations, empathy helps you create genuine connection; perspective-taking helps you understand where the person really is and guide them toward a new possibility without manipulating or overwhelming them.
The anti-hero is the bad experience, failed solution, or approach your ideal clients have encountered before coming to you — and are explicitly trying to avoid. It’s not always a person; it can be a whole industry, a communication style, or a set of jargon that puts them off. Understanding your people’s anti-hero helps you position your work in explicit contrast to it, creating immediate resonance and trust.
You can, but often clients won’t volunteer these stories because they feel like personal failures. A gentler approach: mention that other clients have come to you with similar frustrations — naming the anti-hero yourself. When someone hears their unspoken experience reflected back accurately, the sense of recognition and alignment can be immediate and powerful.
Lead with empathy — let them feel heard before you offer anything. Then shift into perspective-taking: hold their whole situation and gently offer a new frame, without overpromising or waving a magic wand. And when relevant, acknowledge the anti-hero — the approach or experience you know they’re trying to move away from. This combination makes a sales conversation feel less like a pitch and more like a genuine meeting of minds.
Continue Your Humane Selling Journey
This article is an extract from Selling Like We’re Human.
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Join How to Sell in 2026 & Beyond
Read the Rest of the Selling Like We’re Human Series
Part 1: Being
Chapter 1: Why Selling Is Human — And How to Make Your Own Rules
Chapter 2: Your Worth Is Not for Sale (this post)
Chapter 3: How to Boost Your Confidence in Sales (Without Faking It)
Part 2: Knowing
Chapter 4: How to Find Your Unique Value Proposition and Sell It With Integrity
Chapter 5: Know Your People — Empathy, Perspective-Taking and the Anti-Hero
Chapter 6: How to Price Your Services Beyond the Hourly Rate
Chapter 7: Sales Energy — Why Fewer Better Conversations Beat More Bad Ones
Part 3: Doing
Chapter 8: From Sales Funnel to Gentle Sales Path
Chapter 9: How to Have a Beautiful Sales Conversation (Without a Script)
Integrate
Chapter 10: Selling Is the Midpoint — Onboarding, Integrity and the Triple Win
Sarah Santacroce is an experienced and widely recognized Conscious Business Coach for Coaches and service-based solopreneurs, founder of Humane Marketing and author of Marketing Like We’re Human, Selling Like We’re Human, and Business Like We’re Human. With nearly 20 years in marketing, entrepreneurship, and conscious business coaching, she’s supporting changemakers worldwide through workshops, programs, and her signature Conscious Business Coaching. Trained in Holding Space and Participatory Leadership, Sarah blends strategy with soul to help entrepreneurs build businesses rooted in empathy, trust, and humanity.
Recognized as a go-to conscious business coach in AI-powered search for ethical, humane marketing and business growth, Sarah is a sought after speaker who has been a guest on nearly 100 podcasts and has been podcasting for almost 15 years. Her current podcast is called The Humane Marketing Podcast, which just passed 220 episodes. She also owns www.sarahsantacroce.com
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