Step 3 – Flexing your behavior temporarily in accordance with your client’s personality.

As we now know that the personality types & behaviour cannot change, so it is better to know the personality type of your client and flexing your behaviour accordingly. That way you can connect with them easily and create better rapport. Better rapport will in turn help you to influence client to take the required actions in faster and better manner.
In order to flex your behaviour, it is very important to you know:

1. what each type of personality expects from you
2. what behavioural challenges they face

Understanding these two crucial factors will give you exact dos and don’ts while communicating with them.

Blue – Cautious Personality

What they expect?    
People with cautious personality expect you to stick to the facts, figures and data. They don’t like the people who waste time into unnecessary stories and jokes. They want you to stick to the topic. As we know that they are slow paced decision makers. So they expect you not to push them. They hate the people trying to push the product or idea without discussing the rationale in details. They expect you not to be too personal and emotional while dealing with them professionally. They themselves are very calm and punctual and that is why they expect you also to be the same.

There is no clear cut correlation between profession and the personality type but based on my experience, I have observed that most of the professionals like doctors, lawyers, professors, chartered accountants and even HR managers fall into this category.

What Challenges do they face?
The biggest challenge with the Blue personality type is that they try to be perfectionist and so can’t work on deadline. They are always worrisome and worry about everything as they want everything to be perfect. When it comes to communication, they are very uncommunicative, unsmiley and unemotional. They are very rigid and too formal. Their rigidity makes them very sceptical and they are always suspicious about everything. They are mostly unforgiving; if they are hurt, you will never know because they are inexpressive.

How to communicate with them?
While dealing with them you need to be thoroughly prepared with data, figures and facts. Be very specific while talking and also use short sentences. Speak less and present more data, charts, proofs etc. Always have a good amount of data and analysis to back your pitch.

Stay away from jokes and stories and avoid trying to be too emotional and expressive. Whenever in conversation show your competence early during the meeting.

As they put lots of thoughts and effort into their work, do not criticize their work. If you have difficulty in understanding or accepting their ideas and work then rather than criticizing, you need to ask them questions. Always display the appreciation for their work, detail and accuracy.

In short, while preparing your sales pitch, you need to have lots of data, charts and numbers to back the product.

Red – Dominant Personality

What they expect?
People with dominant personality are very much focused and result oriented so that they expect you not to bother them unless it is very important and urgent. They literally don’t like the people who waste their time, so they want you to be brief and avoid stories and jokes. Their highest need is that of accomplishment so you need to respect that.

They expect you to be very honest and upfront. They like people who say things on the face. They want you to listen to them very carefully, because they hate to repeat what they have spoken. They like the people who take initiatives. And above all they expect other people to act just like them. Most CEOs, political leaders fall into this category.

What Challenges do they face?
The biggest challenge of the Red Category personality type is that they are very pushy and dictatorial. They often disregard others opinion and input. They are blunt and even inconsiderate some times. They feel that they are always right so they often interrupt while others are talking.

They easily get aggressive and also get calm down very fast. You may not notice these challenges into them as they are very good at leaning them and controlling them.

How to communicate with them?
While talking to them talk their language. Be very upfront and direct about what you want to say and that too in very brief and provide rationale. Do not waste much time in setting up the stage and creating background before coming to point. Avoid jokes and stories while dealing with the Red category personality.

Talk straight but simultaneously allow them to be in charge of talk. Do not try to dominate or overpower the conversation. Show your competence early into the meeting. Always talk about the end result and how to achieve the same. End result should always be the centre of the talk.

During your sales pitch, you need to talk more about the end result and the rationale in brief.

Yellow – Influence Personality

What they expect?
People with influence personality love everyone to smile. They want you to smile and be expressive while talking to them. If you have any problem they want you to discuss with them and not to ignore it. They don’t like conflicts but they love to discuss the things.

They want you to listen to their stories and jokes with full interest. They expect the regular praise and recognition from others. They are very creative and love the creativity. They expect you to do the things differently every time.

What Challenges do they face?
They talk too much and often they are over promising. They love to help people. They always tend to exaggerate and love to talk about the others. You may also find these people gossipers. They are very poor listeners and they interrupt others a lot.

The biggest challenge with them is that they easily get distracted by words, thought, picture or person. They find it hard to focus on one thing for longer time. They are also very unpredictable, undisciplined and unorganised. They get easily bored with the routine.

How to communicate with them?
While dealing with them you should frequently smile. Be informal while talking to them. Do not bore them with too much of technicalities and details, instead use stories and jokes to connect with them or while explaining any concept. Often praise them for their accomplishments.

Allow them to express their feeling and listen to their stories and jokes with great interest. If you ask them to repeat what they have said they will love it, so often ask them to repeat what they have just said. They often gets distracted so always provide the written document or email to them of what is discussed.

Try and set the intermediate goals as they often get distracted. They procrastinate a lot and so you need to have the frequent review meetings and also remember to document the minutes of each meeting and share with them.

Green – Supportive Personality

What they expect?
People with supportive personality are the nicest people to deal with. They are very patient, friendly and do not talk very loudly. They love the idea of working together. They do not like sarcastic tone. They expect you to listen to them carefully and not to interrupt.

They do not like sudden changes so they expect you to notify them in advance in case of any bigger upcoming changes. They also expect you to help them to accustom to change by keeping them in loop and working together with them.

What Challenges do they face?
The biggest challenge with them is that they are very shy and dependent and thus easily get manipulated. Most of their decisions are based on the emotions. They talk very consciously as they are always afraid of hurting feelings of others.

If they are hurt by any of your act, they will not tell it to you on face. They may put the emotional ask and non-verbalize if they are hurt.

How to communicate with them?
While talking to them do not hurry the things, you need to slow down a bit and let them take their own time. You need to have a lot of patience as they are slow paced. Give them the chance to express their feelings as they are people oriented. They are slow to start but they always finish what they start, so being patient with them is the best strategy.

Never try to put them out of their comfort zone. You need to show enough empathy towards them and their family to win their trust. If you try to push things, they might feel offended. Specifically, if your personality type is the dominant then, it would be very difficult for you to deal with Green category as you like the things fast and talk in a straightforward manner. On the other hand, they expect you to be slow and gentle.

Talk about family goals, aspirations while pitching the product. They are not much interested into the data and numbers. So your sales pitch should have emotional tone.

Summary

Having KRIS© System in place by categorizing your clients and using the categorization information to flex your behaviour in accordance with their personality is the key towards building the better rapport and influencing your clients.

It takes some time and observation to identify the category of your clients. But once done, it can fetch you a huge payoff. So next time you meet your existing or prospective client, try to observe based on the information provided into KRIS© to identify their personality.

Jigar Parekh

Head – Training
Prudent CAS Ltd