One of the most challenging things to learn as a sales person is how to accurately read your prospect. It is easy to bring your personality to each sales interaction; but a good sales practitioner is capable of adapting their approach to the personality of the prospect.
This article will explore common interactions in the sales cycle that should be adapted to match the personality of your potential client to avoid frustration.
What are the most common personalities?
The DISC Assessment categorizes people into four common personality styles:
D (Dominance): Very direct and confident. This personality is about accomplishing results and can be very blunt and straight to the point.
I (Influence): Very friendly and optimistic. This personality places importance on influencing others, and is enthusiastic and collaborative.
S (Steadiness): Patient and a calm manner. This personality is sincere and dependable, and doesn’t like to be rushed.
C (Conscientious): Competent with an emphasis on quality. This personality enjoys independence, wants all the details, and doesn’t like to be wrong.
An untrained sales practitioner can burn opportunities by failing to adapt to the buyers’ personality. This article will offer a few suggestions to improve on your sales interactions by learning how to recognize and adapt to someone’s personality.
Adapt your sales approach to the personality of your prospect
Building rapport and asking questions are an important part of the sales interaction. One sure-fire way to annoy a client and burn the deal is by failing to recognize their behavioral style.
If you (as the sales person) have an easy-going “S” type personality and you are talking to an aggressive “D” type personality, it is very possible you may annoy the buyer (if you don’t adapt to their style). This is not advocating that you have to change your personality. But, you should definitely adapt your approach to their personality. In this scenario, it would be better to get right to the point, and explain very concisely the bottom line.
Here are a few tips you can use to adapt to the different personality types:
Dominance: You should go into the interaction with a lot of confidence and energy, get right to the point about how your product or service can help them.
Influence: You should definitely try to have a friendly and amiable conversation. Focus on how your product or solution will help their company.
Steadiness: Definitely slow the pace down and make sure to carefully (and patiently) explain the details of your product or service.
Conscientious: Be careful to avoid questions that sound criticizing and make sure to lay out all of the details; a little humility and compliments goes a long way with this personality type.
Provide data and stats according to their personality type
It can be easy to fall into a routine of just sending every prospect a case study and assuming that this is enough. However, everyone makes decisions based off different factors. If you are able to accurately read the personality of the prospect, than you could provide data and marketing collateral that is most likely to get them to buy.
Here are a few generalizations of metrics to provide to different personality types:
Dominance: Get right to the point with info that shows successes like a case study (but a concise one).
Influence: They like to see validation by other customers such as a testimonial or endorsement.
Steadiness: A case study that thoroughly explores how your solution solved a problem could help win this personality over.
Conscientious: They like to see info that is grounded in facts. In their case, provide data that backs up your success rate.
Do you have any good sales question tips? Feel free to reach out to us with questions, or how you use sales questions to get prospects to open up.
