There are basic fundamentals in sales that we all understand. We sell solutions that customers buy. We need to find the right prospects with needs. We need to work hard to satisfy current customers and to find new ones. We need to provide great customer service. We need to cold call, warm call, advertise, social network, blog etc etc to get our names out there. But one little piece of the puzzle is often overlooked. This would be paying attention to what type of personality the prospect or customer you are working with has. Some customers will react positively toward higher pressure than others. Some react positively toward an more subtle and easier approach. Some of them want to be nurtured and flooded with information prior to purchasing anything. Some even want to give us a hard time just to see how we handle situations and what type of personalities we have. It is not an easy job to figure out the personalities of your prospects. This takes a lot of patience, time and experience. I suggest reading a book called Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. It discusses how all of us have an innate ability to "size" people up in the "blink" of an eye. Where we can understand how a person ticks more effectively in a second than having a relationship with this person for many years. For example, if you ask friends of yours, what do you think of my marriage? They are most likely going to respond with honest answers with not much emotion. But if you are asked the same question, you will respond differently with emotion and most likely defend yourself and maybe not speak all of the truth. Sooo, the point I am making is we all have the ability to figure out personalities in a few seconds of talking to someone. Try this the next time you are out and about. Try to identify quick and current characteristics of the person you are with. This will not be an overnight thing to master. However, I will guarantee if you trust your instinct and pay more attention to what your mind is telling you about a prospect it will help you position yourself as "the" salesperson the customer should be dealing with. In addition, you will set yourself aside from all of the other salespeople that are not understanding "how the customer thinks and what his personality is".
God Bless those that have endured pain from Hurricane Sandy!
Shawn
