A good looking young guy with the friendliest smile came to our door saying he wanted to talk with my husband.

I heard him say he just came from our neighbor’s house and Bob thought my husband would be interested in what he had to offer.

We don’t have a neighbor named Bob and it seemed obvious the young man was selling something.

David usually doesn’t give much attention to salesmen. That’s putting it mildly. It would be more accurate to say if someone came to the door saying he would give us a dollar for every quarter we had David would say, “not interested.”

I expected David to dust the young man off in a hurry. Instead they stood there smiling and chatting like two old friends. They were talking about how much prices are rising and what that’s doing to our standard of living. David really seemed to be enjoying the conversation.

I was surprised when my husband brought the young man inside. Eventually I heard him talking to David about solar panels.

It was a bigger surprise that David seemed interested.

But there they were, figuring how much we were spending a year for electricity. I heard the salesman say with solar instead of paying for electricity we could sell the electricity we didn’t use back to the electrical company.

I kept waiting for David to say he wasn’t interested. Instead, my husband agreed to have another person from the solar company come tomorrow.

The follow-up person wasn’t brimming with personality like the first guy. Instead it was an officious woman with an off-putting air about her. The first thing she did was pull out a form for my husband to sign. This time, it didn’t take David long to say he wasn’t interested.

I realized what I had just witnessed, besides the surprise of seeing my husband’s interest in something he never cared about.

It was a perfect example of a good salesman who knows how to relate to people and another one who turns people off.

It made me recall my sales classes in high school. It’s been decades since I had the class but I could vividly recall how helpful that class was.

Mr. Kreishner instilled in us that everyone is a salesman, not just those who make a living by selling something.

What we all have to sell, he said, is ourselves. In almost every encounter we have with people we are selling ourselves, whether we realize it or not.

Since we were seniors who would soon be applying for jobs we had to know how important it was to sell ourselves.

Those in charge of hiring will first evaluate us before deciding if we are right for the job, the teacher said.

He offered simple techniques to help us make a good impression. One important thing to master, he said, was maintaining eye contact with the person doing the interviewing.

It sounds like such a simple thing but I actually know a guy who kept getting passed over for promotion because he never looked anyone in the eye.

Mr. Kreishner’s class also taught us how important it is to project an air of confidence.

Whether you’re looking for a job or a friend, you’ll make a better impression if you come across as someone with confidence, he said.

He cautioned us that there’s a difference between having confidence in ourselves and overdoing it.

Nobody likes a know-it-all.

I know a few people who are a know-it-all and I’m sure you do too.

In that high school sales class we each had to take turns trying to sell something. It didn’t matter what we tried to sell. What was important was how we did it.

While I was recalling that sales class I had the privilege of having one of my favorite salespeople come to my house. I needed to replace the main window in my house and I needed someone I could trust. Fortunately, Leo, a close family friend for decades, has one of the top rated window companies in southwest Florida.

I was so pleased that he personally came with his crew to do the job. And I was ever-so-pleased with their work. The entire crew was so nice that it was like having a few friends over.

I told Leo I was also interested in having a hurricane shutter for my new window.

“No, he said. “I’m not a salesman.”

I was confused when he said that. He is one of the best salesmen I know.

What he meant was he isn’t the kind of salesman who will sell someone something they don’t need. With my new hurricane resistance window, I don’t need a hurricane shutter.

Right then and there he demonstrated why he is so good at what he does. He puts his customer’s needs over profits. No wonder I admire the guy so much.

In everyday life, we have instances where we need to be somewhat of a salesman. As my sales teacher told us years ago, people will always be accessing us as they first get to know us.

Like Leo told me, caring about others instead of focusing only on ourselves is one honest and true key to selling our most important commodity. Ourselves.

Contact Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net.