Learn the DISC personality profiles. Looking back, I wish I would have learned it so much earlier. It’s a great tool to give you insight into your personality and show you how others are similar and different. If you treat everyone as if they make decisions like you do, you will not connect with 75% of the people out there. And of course, that makes you much less effective.
I suggest taking the free DISC assessment from Tony Robbins. Our team uses this during the hiring process to help understand potential new teammates and for training our team understand their clients.
My mistake early on my career is that I treated everyone as if they made decisions like I did. I’m a high S, I’m a high C, and I am slow to make decisions. I need a lot of information to process. Since I thought others were just like me I would slow them down thinking I was doing them a favor. And I think I actually lost some clients that way because I just wasn’t moving at their speed. I wasn’t fitting their their method or their styles.
Here’s some quick car analogies I picked up on the for different personalities.
- D – Big SUV – Get out of their way, they have things to do and they are going to get them done.
- I – A convertible. It doesn’t matter which kind as long as the top is down so they can wave at everyone.
- S – Mini-van – Does everyone have space? No one’s bothering anyone? Climate control is good?
- C – Honda Sedan – Economical, good consumer reports rating, good gas mileage, will last forever.
You’ve heard of Ready, Aim, Fire right? Here is how the different personalities see that.
- D – Fire, Ready, Aim
- I – Ready, Aim, Talk
- S – Ready, Ready, Ready
- C – Aim, Aim, Aim
The D’s are quick to make decisions. Unfortunately they are often quick to change them and don’t care or notice that anyone around them gets whiplash.
I’s are tough because they like to talk about everything but not necessarily what you need to cover. It’s hard to nail them down sometimes. And they will tell you positive things because they want to be liked but be wary, they might not follow through.
S’s like stability and that makes it tough for them to make decisions. Safety and stability first.
C’s like, sorry, love data. They often get overwhelmed in it sometimes and can get caught in paralysis by analysis.
Now, unfortunately most people have two of these traits that are motivators in their mind. With me being 99S and 99C, I’m difficult to sell on most everything and you need to treat me like a cat. Tell me I have a short window to decide and we are done. Blow off my request for more information by saying it’s not important, we’re done.
With a D, if you tell them, “You have to do this,” you’re likely done as well. They are the best person to give options to decide. The are the decider, not you in their mind. By the way, this stuff applies to kids to which is why we have our team learn this stuff. It will help you get along with a lot of people just by understanding them.
There are some good books that break this down pretty well. I know a few real estate companies train this and there are other organizations that train it as well.
Go learn it!
