One thing you can count on in the world of sales is that every salesperson has the exact same time each year to achieve your goals: 365 days.

The question becomes: how do you maximize your time for the best possible results?

The Role of Personality Styles 

As I’ve written before, my Four People Personality Styles adds a new dimension to how people buy and sell.

The Styles help you understand how each style—Blue, Gold, Green, and Orange:

• Makes decisions
• What they value
• How they prefer to communicate
• What motivates them to action

Today I’d like to focus on another dimension, which is how each Style views time and how they manage it.

Why Time Management Is So Challenging 

In a fast-changing world we need to understand what our priorities are.

We are bombarded every day with information from multiple sources, and we are multi-tasking more than ever. With technology advancing at an incredible rate, it seems like we are skimming the surface on many of the projects we tackle without the time to focus and go deeper.

We get emails, calls, and LinkedIn messages by the minute to be sold tools we might never need.

Focusing on the right tasks is critical to managing our precious time.

Four Styles, Four Views of Time 

Each of the four personality styles looks at time very differently. Some styles might not even think about time, while another will live by it.

Let’s see how each style views and manages time:

Blue – The Relator 

• Priority is to spend time building relationships
• Pleasing others is at the top of their list
• Thinks in terms of time invested in people, not time spent on tasks
• Will focus more on people than on the clock
• If a customer has a need, their schedule will get set aside
• Risk: may run late because they prioritize connection over deadlines

Gold – The Director 

• See time itself as a priority
• Often feel they never have enough time to manage daily tasks
• Treat time as something to be scheduled, budgeted, and respected
• Like routines, clear deadlines, and being on time (often early)
• View time as a finite resource and get stressed if others waste it
• Success measured by time efficiency
• Risk: can become rigid or inflexible when the calendar rules their day

Green – The Detective 

• Views time as a tool for research, problem-solving, and deep thought
• Values using time to increase understanding and tackle customer challenges
• Excels at going deep into issues and asking the right questions
• Prefers flexibility to think things through, not rigid schedules
• Will take the time they need to “get it right,” sometimes at the expense of speed
• Risk: can lose track of time when absorbed in analysis or projects

Orange – The Activator 

• Sees time as fluid, to be enjoyed in the moment
• Thrives in the “now” and dislike being boxed in by schedules
• Prefers flexibility and spur-of-the-moment opportunities over a rigid plan
• In reality, they are quick, adaptable, and responsive under time pressure
• Risk: may be seen by others as procrastinators

Understanding these differences can help you not only manage your own schedule more effectively, but also appreciate how your clients and colleagues may approach time in very different ways.

Final Thought 

Consider your Personality Style the next time you assess your pipeline—and then use your strengths to create success for your clients!