How does it feel to be sold by you? How Your DISC Style Affects Customers

Have you ever considered what it feels like to be sold by you?

You know what you intended to communicate. The customer experiences how your words, energy, pace, questions, and direction actually land. Those are not always the same thing.

DISC is a behavioral assessment built around four primary Styles—Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Compliance—and I use it to help salespeople understand how their natural behavior may be experienced by customers.

What I love most about DISC is that once you know and understand it, you cannot unlearn it. Once you understand the strengths and challenges associated with your Style, you can become responsible for how those qualities land with other people.

Dominance

Know that your drive toward a result will be appreciated by some customers and may feel like too much to others.

Your focus on getting things done now can be difficult for customers who are more deliberate and reflective in their decision-making. Your abbreviated communication style can also be a challenge for someone who wants more information before moving forward.

Your direction is valuable. Pay attention to whether the customer is ready to receive it.

Influence

Your charm and playfulness will be welcomed by many customers and may be seen as unserious or flighty by others.

Relying heavily on personality may make customers who are afraid of making a mistake wonder how much you really know.

Your enthusiasm is contagious, however, and can be the catalyst that helps someone make a decision now rather than waiting.

Use your energy, but make sure it is supported by knowledge and a clear process.

Steadiness

Customers welcome how much you care about them and their decision-making process.

Your desire to stay connected can help you build a large and loyal customer base. Your approachable nature can reduce customer concerns and allow them to take action.

Be aware that your careful approach to moving forward may slow down customers who are able and ready to close today.

Your patience is a strength. Do not allow it to become avoidance.

Compliance

Your vast knowledge and information make you a salesperson customers can trust during the selection process.

Your due diligence is helpful, but it can also hinder the customer’s ability to move forward. Watch that you do not slow the process by adding more data than the customer needs to decide—and decide now.

Accuracy matters. So does momentum.

For salespeople:

Objectively evaluate your interactions with customers.

When possible, lean into the quadrant opposite yours to identify areas for development.

If you are a strong Dominance, lean into Steadiness to build your empathy and patience with others—especially customers and co-workers.

If you are a strong Influence, borrow from Compliance by preparing carefully and following the process.

If you are a strong Steadiness, borrow from Dominance by becoming more comfortable directing the customer toward action.

If you are a strong Compliance, borrow from Influence by building connection before delivering all the information.

For sales managers:

Use DISC to observe your sales associates with customers. Engage them in an honest self-assessment of those interactions, and then offer specific actions that will broaden their effectiveness.

Do not simply tell someone to “be more confident,” “connect better,” or “stop talking so much.”

Those are observations, not coaching.

Effective coaching identifies the behavior that needs to change and the action the salesperson must take the next time.

Your own Style also affects how employees experience your leadership.

Your direction may feel clear to one employee and abrupt to another. Your patience may feel supportive to one person and indecisive to someone else. Your attention to detail may create confidence—or make the team feel micromanaged.

This is one reason I use DISC in leadership consulting. It gives leaders a practical way to understand what is happening between people and identify the behaviors interfering with communication, accountability, and performance.

TWO FREE DISC LEARNING SESSIONS

Tomorrow's free DISC session focuses on understanding yourself.

Next month, we will turn our attention to the customer. You will learn how to identify behavioral clues and adjust your communication, pace, and approach without becoming inauthentic.

You remain yourself. You simply become more intentional about how you communicate with the person in front of you.

Now, go take a good look at yourself!

Oxo,
Jody