Your Customers & What They Are Thinking

I recently attended a 2 day sales training workshop presented by sales guru Jack Daly.

During the session we spent a great deal of time considering the different personality types of people.  The research shows that there are 4 main personality traits that go into someone’s decision making.  People can be more assertive, less assertive, logical or emotional in their decisions.  So what is the relevance of this in terms of sales?  Let me explain.

The reality is that almost every business sells something, which by default means that there are people in your business that are salespeople.  The basic fundamentals of this is that each business has a product or a services that some type of customer wants or needs to buy.  A sale occurs when there is an agreement between the buyer and the seller on the value of the product or service.  Salespeople need to understand the personality type of the customer to whom they are selling so that they can make it easy for them to make a decision.  Logic says the easier that a salesperson can make it for a prospective customer, the more sales you will make.  This is where understanding personalities come into play.

Consider the personality types and the categorisation that naturally follows.  Someone who has an assertive personality that uses logic to make decisions is what is known as a driver.  A driver is a person who is results driven, is impatient, talks fast, is big-picture oriented and generally quick to make decisions.  They don’t like small talk or people being late (although they often are themselves).

The direct opposite of a driver is someone who is amiable.  This type of person is generally less assertive and make decisions based on emotion, not logic.  These people are warm and inviting, tend to take a back seat in group situations are more softly spoken.  They like small talk, low pressure and generally take a lot longer to make decisions.

If you are a driver and you are trying to sell to someone who is amiable without adjusting your own behaviour and style then you will scare them off.  In the same way if you are an amiable person trying to sell to a driver without adjustment they will most likely to tell you to stop wasting their time with all your ‘fluff’.  It just doesn’t work.

As such, if you want to be successful in sales you need to understand yourself.  What type of person are you?  Secondly, you need to develop skills around identifying the traits of your customer.  Thirdly, and only the most successful salespeople do this, you need to adjust your style (be a chameleon) to suit.  If you can master this you will without doubt improve your sales results.