Sales is never boring because every sales opportunity is different.
You meet with a different person or a different personality style. The need is different so your solution must be different.
What is the best way to respond to all of these differences?
Communication.
Yet there is a myriad of ways to communicate.
How would you describe your communication style?
Would you rather ask questions or do the talking? Do you consider yourself skeptical or curious? Is your style direct or indirect?
A direct style says “see me in my office at 5pm.” An indirect style says, “I’m not sure how busy you are this afternoon, but I was wondering if you could stop by my office about 5pm.”
Which sounds the most like your style?
Everyone is wired differently. Our personality style signals the way we communicate with others. There’s no right or wrong way, but there is the customer’s way. If you want to really connect, you need to talk in a way that they can hear it.
The problem is that it’s natural for us to talk the way we prefer it, and it can be hard to switch to the style our customer’s prefer. If I’m a sociable person that likes to start a conversation with small talk, that’s what I’ll do. But if the customer has no desire for small talk, then I’m off to a bad start.
People with high emotional intelligence are typically very strong communicators. As Stephen Covey once said, “seek to understand, then be understood.”
We need to focus our attention not only on what the customer is saying but why they are saying it.
As you may have read in my book, Four People You Should Know, “We still need to correctly hear the entirety of what the customers are saying: what they intend to say, and what they unconsciously communicate by how they say it. We need to listen for two components: What is said (the facts), and how it’s said (the feelings.)”
For each of the four personality styles, you need to consider how they best receive our message.
Those with a Blue personality are most receptive when you are sociable, warm and open, talk about people and relationships, maintain good eye contact and speak figuratively.
With the Gold personality, your approach should be to watch the time and stay on task, be direct with your language and pay attention to etiquette.
The Green personality prefers communication that is succinct, factual, logical and detailed. Give them time to think and ask questions.
The Orange personality enjoys communication that is concrete, big picture without much detail, fast paced with stories and analogies. Let the Oranges do most of the talking since they enjoy being the center of attention.
Realize that left-brained Golds and Greens are more task oriented, objective and serious than the Blues and Oranges who are right brained. Blues and Oranges are relationship oriented and more subjective in their outlook.
When we adjust our approach for the different personalities, we have a much stronger chance of connecting, building rapport and gaining trust and respect.
Sales is such a fascinating and exciting profession! As long as people are making important purchases, they’ll be seeking to do business with people they can trust. The goal is to build a long-term relationship that results in repeat business over an extended period of time.
Sales IS really all about communication.
How you approach prospects or customers will be a huge factor when they decide whether or not to do business with you or your competitor. If you want to have a successful and lucrative sales career, remember to always approach them in their style.
Good selling!
Stu
For more information on communication styles, read this Mark Murphy article from Forbes.
0 Comments