It really pays to know the personalities of those you are selling to. It will give you an edge over competitors who sell well clinically but miss the opportunity to connect emotionally. In today's episode, Dr. Croner shares a selling story where one salesperson went above and beyond to understand his prospects' personalities and connect emotionally. Listen now to learn how you can do the same.
 
 

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At SalesDrive, LLC, we help companies perfect the salesperson hiring process by offering a variety of tools, like a sales assessment and psychologically-based interview guides, that aid companies in never hiring a bad salesperson again. SalesDrive was founded in 2005 based on the single biggest frustration many companies face, selecting sales candidates who interviewed well, only to flame out when placed on the line. Dr. Croner reviewed more than 90 years of academic research as well as his own work in conducting intensive behavioral interviews and discovered that high-performance salespeople shared three innate personality traits. After identifying a gap in the marketplace, he went on to develop The DriveTest® sales assessment. The only sales assessment to measure the three non-teachable traits necessary for new business acquisition.
 
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[00:00]  Katherine Abraham: Hello and Welcome to the Sales Psyched podcast, where we discuss strategies for leveraging psychology within the world of sales. Each episode is hosted by Dr. Chris Croner, who has a PhD in clinical psychology and has spent his career helping companies around the world build stellar sales teams.

[00:20]  Let's get started.
 
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[00:30]  Chris Croner: Dr. Chris Croner here. Time for a story about personality.

[00:34]  In terms of psychology, it really pays to know the personalities of the people you're selling to, because it can give you a huge edge over competitors who sell well clinically but missed the opportunity to connect emotionally. Here's a personal selling story from one of my friends.

[00:52]  He was with a large commercial real estate firm and they were pitching the property management and leasing of a prestige office building in Chicago. 60 stories. Premium location. A real beauty.

[01:07]  The trouble was that the new owners were headquartered in New York and we're not familiar with the nuances of the Chicago market. So, they invited everybody to pitch the business, a proverbial all day beauty contest, with one firm coming in after another. Plus, several of the firms were well-known nationally and my friend's firm was local, so the odds of their winning the deal weren't great.

[01:36]  So, my friend needed to figure out an edge and he found it when he called around and asked about the guys who were flying in for pitch day. First of all, although they were representing a large Japanese bank, these guys were Americans and they were from New York. And New York, often meant no nonsense and a very low tolerance for bs.

[02:04]  My friend also made arrangements to be the last team to pitch. Which by the way, you should always do. And he lined up a team of tougher people able to stand up to the New York way of communicating. Then, since my friend figured his chances were low anyway, he decided to put in the kicker.

[02:24]  When it came time to meet the setup was exactly the way he thought it would be. He bumped into a competitor on the way out who looked like they had been put through the wringer. When my friend's team went into the room, it was smelly and disheveled with food and drinks all over the place, and the prospects were exhausted and burned out.

[02:50]  So, here's how he started the meeting . . . "Guys, you've had a long day and I'm sure the last thing you want to do is hear another dog and pony show about another real estate firm. Tell you what," he reached into a brown bag he brought and pulled out two, six packs of Heinekens, he said, "I know it's six o'clock in New York, why don't we just pop a few beers, we'll throw out our PowerPoint presentation and let's just kick around about how we are going to lease the crap out of your beautiful, new building." Except he didn't say crap. He used a synonym that starts with "S."

[03:33]  So, there was a long pause. My friend wasn't sure he wouldn't just get dismissed and the younger guys were looking at their leader for guidance. Their leader nodded and said, "Did you bring an opener?" My friend reached into his jacket pocket and pulled one out and gave it to him. He popped open a beer and game on.

[03:57]  They won the assignment and were forever referred to as the Heineken guys.

[04:04]  Obviously, when I heard this story, I knew I had to share it with you. Certainly, knowing your audience allows you a huge opportunity to distinguish yourself on an emotional level. I also like the way my friend sized up his odds and determined he had to take a higher risk to land the account. Not playing defense and actually leveraging fear to higher performance, in this case, through enhanced creativity is a trait shared by the highest performance athletes and salespeople.

[04:42]  For those of you Hunter salespeople watching, study your quarry and customize your tactics to fit the hunt.

[04:53]  See you next time. 

 

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[04:57]  Chris Croner: Thank you for listening to the Sales Psyched Podcast. If you haven't already, please be sure to click the subscribe button and leave us a five-star review. If you found this information helpful, please consider sharing it. We'd love your help in spreading the word.
 
[05:14]  Until next time, take care!