DISC Analysis & Behavioral Selling: Know Your Audience, Increase Sales

Last week I was working from home when the doorbell rang. Since I live in a fairly off-the-beaten-path, suburban neighborhood, imagine my surprise when I opened the door to a salesman, eager to sell me a bottle of floor cleaner. Now I’m not a big fan of unsolicited sales calls. As a high "C," I don’t like awkward chit-chat with strangers, and I never make a purchase without researching it first. Like, never. Not even floor cleaner. Not even when it’s a ten-year-old looking to sell me coupon books so his baseball team can buy new uniforms. I’m always a real grump when I open the door to someone selling something. A million questions always enter my mind: Why are you here? How do I know I can trust what you’re selling? Is it a good deal? And if I buy something from you, will you come back again to bug me in the future?

When the floor cleaner salesman came to my door, clearly he was trying his hardest to be charming. He smiled, flattered me, and tried to engage me in personal small talk. He was clearly a high "I" personality type and took great enjoyment in striking up conversations with potential customers. His enthusiasm was impossible to ignore, but I just wanted him to get to the point: What was he selling? Why is it a decent product? How is it a good value? It took everything I had not to shout at him, “I’m a personality type "C!" Stop talking to me!”

If only I could have explained the ins and outs of DISC analysis to him. Maybe that would have helped him realize his style of selling was completely incompatible with my DISC style of buying. A "C" personality like me will never be charmed into buying from an "I" personality. We don’t care about charming. We want facts.

DISC analysis of your personality style reveals a great deal about who you are, what you like, and how you’re motivated. There’s the dominant "D," the influencing "I," the stable "S," and the compliant "C." Each of the four major personality types have different fears, desires, and natural aptitudes. Interestingly, these same fundamental components of personality are the triggers in which sales people should be using when talking to you. In sales:

• Personality type "D" likes you to get to the bottom line and fast.
• Personality type "I" wants to like you and for you to like them.
• Personality type "S" wants to be able to trust you.
• Personality type "C" likes information and lots of it.

As a customer, you know how frustrating it is to be on the receiving end of a well-intentioned, but completely unconvincing, sales pitch. Good sales staff know how to read a customer’s personality type and can adapt their own personality style to better match the needs of that customer. Using DISC analysis to mold and adapt sales techniques so they are personally tailored to the client’s personality type is often the key to closing more deals.

For more information on your customer style, your instinctive sales style, or to learn how to become the salesperson your customer needs you to be, check out our online Selling With Personality course. It covers everything you need to know about how DISC analysis can be used in sales to establish rapport, build trust, motivate others, and close more deals.

(And no, I didn’t buy the floor cleaner.)