"I'm a People Person"

I've interviewed hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of candidates for sales positions. During these interviews, I often hear the following declaration:

"I'm a people person!"

"People persons" are a good thing. But here's what many of these so-called people persons do when they begin employment and actually start interacting with prospects: They focus on their product (or service) instead of the prospect. In my view of the world, that's not being a "people person!"

Here's my "3-P Rule":

Early in the sales interaction, top sales Performers focus on the Prospect, and not their Product.

Whether you sell real estate, financial or insurance products, in a retail setting, or in customers' homes, it's important to spend the early portion of your interaction on the prospect. Focus on people, on understanding their needs, and on building rapport and trust. Put the product you sell on the back burner. Be a human being interacting with another human being, instead of a salesperson pitching a product.

Remember the 3-P's!
 
Please share your comments by clicking on "comments" below.

Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to the free Selling to Consumers Sales Tips Newsletter.

Comments

[Craig Elias]

Skip;

This reminds me of the three P's of a sales meeting:
- Purpose
- Process
- Payoff

Purpose: What are you going to do for the prospect

Process: How will you go about doing that AND how long will the meeting last

Payoff: How will the prospect benefit from the time you spend together

It's amazing how many customer meetings salespeople have without knowing your three P's and the three P's of a sales meeting.

[nesh thompson]

Skip,

I had a job many years ago cold calling. Cold calling forced me to do exactly what you write about in this post. In fact, in the situations where I was successful, a call with a customer will have been taken up talking about many things (From general conversation to qualifying questions about situation), but of that call only a small percentage of time would have been discussing the product itself.

Rapport, trust and a meeting of minds would be good goals of a 'people person' but developing that you need empathy and an identifiable personality. Products don't develop that, people do.