People Buy From People

A few weeks ago, little orange flags began popping up in my yard—and also in yards throughout the neighborhood. To a tech geek like me, they could mean only one thing: fiber-optic internet was coming. Sometimes, I get excited about the silliest things.

It wasn’t long before a steady stream of glossy mailers began arriving in my mailbox. One of the new providers was making its pitch with expensive, professionally designed one-sheets that touted faster speeds, greater reliability and the promise of a better online experience.

Most of those mailers never made it inside. My garbage can happens to be on the path from the mailbox to the house.

Then came a knock at the door.

Two young men from a competing provider were standing on my porch. They introduced themselves, explained that fiber was being installed in the neighborhood and asked a few questions about my current internet service. We had a conversation. I asked questions, got immediate answers and looked the people representing the company in the eye.

I bought from the company that sent people to my door. It wasn’t because they offered a lower price or promised substantially faster speeds. I bought because their approach felt personal.

I’m sure both companies believed they had developed robust customer-acquisition strategies. Both had likely calculated the potential return on their investment. One concluded that sending polished promotional materials to a highly targeted area was the best approach. The other looked at the same compact group of prospective customers and decided to send people to talk with them.

McKinsey research found that 71% of consumers expect personalized interactions, while 76% become frustrated when those interactions don’t happen. The firm also found that faster-growing companies generate 40% more revenue from personalization than slower-growing competitors.

Personal contact can be far more persuasive than we realize. Research reported by the Association for Psychological Science found that an in-person request was about 34 times more successful than an email request. Although the study involved requests rather than purchases, its lesson applies to selling: we tend to overestimate the persuasive power of scalable, text-based communication and underestimate what can happen in a real conversation.

A PwC consumer study reached a similar conclusion. It found that 82% of U.S. consumers expected to want more human interaction as technology advanced.

Technology can make the sales process more efficient, but efficiency alone does not build a relationship. In a world where you can “prospect” a hundred clients with a single email—and where our phones are inundated with recorded “Hey, I’m following up…” messages—you can be the difference-maker.

In meeting after meeting with RAB members and committees, the difficulty of earning prospects’ attention and securing meetings is a recurring concern. Maybe prospecting is harder today because we’ve become too reliant on technology for the part of the sales process that requires human contact. Sending 1,000 emails may create activity, but activity and prospecting are not necessarily the same thing.

The next time you’re building a prospecting strategy, ask yourself: Where is the person in this process? Are you simply sending information, or are you creating an opportunity for a conversation? Can the prospect ask a question, express a concern and feel heard?

At RAB, we teach salespeople to have a valid business reason (VBR) for contacting a prospect. A strong VBR isn’t about you or your company. It starts with something relevant you’ve learned about the prospect’s business. Its purpose is to start a meaningful conversation and earn the opportunity to meet.

As a self-proclaimed tech geek, I’m not arguing against technology. It can create awareness, accelerate processes and help us reach more prospects. But technology alone cannot build the trust, wisdom and confidence that human contact creates. People are trusting you to help guide their businesses toward better outcomes.

You’ve heard me quote the Borrell research showing that the average small- and medium-sized business is contacted by 37 media reps a month. THIRTY-SEVEN! Of course, your product still needs to perform, and your pricing still needs to make sense. But when competing offers start to look alike, the deciding factor may be the person who shows up, listens and makes the experience feel personal.

People buy from people.

Think Big. Make Big Things Happen.

Jeff Schmidt is the SVP of Professional Development. You can reach him at Jeff.Schmidt@RAB.com. You can also connect with him on X, YouTube and LinkedIn.