Stop trying to sell like someone else

Are you so focused on correcting your weaknesses that you have overlooked what you naturally do exceptionally well?

You do not need to become a different salesperson to become a more effective one. You do need to know what you naturally do well, where that strength can work against you, and how to use it more intentionally.

DISC is a behavioral assessment that identifies four primary Styles—Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Compliance—and I use it to help salespeople and leaders recognize, develop, and apply their natural strengths more effectively.

Every DISC Style has strengths that are important in providing an excellent customer experience and producing results. Get to know yours—and lean into them.

Dominance

Your strengths:
Fearless. Willing to be uncomfortable to make the sale. Focused on results.

Maximize your superpowers:
Use your focus on results to direct customers toward an outcome.

Stay intentional and look for clues that indicate whether today’s outcome should be a sale or an appointment. Then direct the customer toward the appropriate action.

Your ability to move things forward is valuable. Make sure you are directing the customer rather than rushing them.

Influence

Your strengths:
Energetic and enthusiastic. Able to connect with a variety of people. Willing to ask for the sale.

Maximize your superpowers:
Your skills of engagement are legendary. Your ability to make a stranger an acquaintance quickly is your superpower.

Continue looking for ways “in” to connect with the customer, but keep the focus on them and resist making the conversation about yourself. Your natural enthusiasm and encouragement can help customers who struggle with decisions make theirs more quickly.

Stay with them. Do not give up.

Steadiness

Your strengths:
Approachable. Willing to help. Patient with the decision-making process of others.

Maximize your superpowers:
Your genuine interest in other people is heartfelt and visible. You make people comfortable, and they trust you.

Lean into those abilities so the customer will allow you to lead them—and then do it. The connection is the vehicle. It is not the point of the interaction.

Use the trust you have created to help the customer take the next appropriate action.

Compliance

Your strengths:
Strong product and process knowledge. Follows rules. Produces accurate orders.

Maximize your superpowers:
You know how things work and have an uncanny ability to build a process that executes an outcome.

Do that with your customers. Know the process they need to follow to make a good purchasing decision, and then lead them through it. Do not stop until the sale is completed or the appropriate next step is scheduled.

Your knowledge creates confidence. Use it to create movement.

For salespeople:

Know what you are naturally good at and become even better at it.

That feels natural and authentic because it is.

Continue developing your weaker areas, but do not spend so much time trying to become someone else that you overlook the strengths you already possess.

Make your strengths extraordinary.

For sales managers:

Know the strengths your sales associates possess and encourage their development.

Discuss those strengths in your one-on-one meetings and observe them on the floor. Show your salespeople how their natural abilities can serve them, benefit the customer, and improve results.

Then celebrate the successes created by using those strengths intentionally.

This is also important when building a team.

You do not need an entire team of people who behave the same way. You need people whose strengths support the work, complement one another, and can be developed through effective management.

DISC can help companies improve interviews, evaluate candidates more thoughtfully, understand existing team dynamics, and identify where leadership behaviors need to change.

But an assessment alone cannot manage a team.

Managers still need to train, coach, engage on the floor, help salespeople overcome objections, help them close, and identify the specific actions that will improve their performance.

That is what makes the numbers move.

The Fall Sales Management Cohort Begins October 7

Understanding your team through DISC is valuable.

But knowing why someone behaves a certain way is only part of the job. Managers still need to know how to coach them, train them, hold them accountable and help them improve.

That is what we work on in my Sell It or Schedule It™ Sales Management Training Program.

The next cohort begins Wednesday, October 7 at 12:00 PM ET and is designed specifically for sales managers and business owners in upper-end home furnishings showrooms.

Over five months, we focus on the management activities that actually move performance:

Coaching and developing individual salespeople
Running more effective one-on-ones and sales observations
Training consistently and reinforcing skills on the floor
Managing goals, metrics and accountability
Protecting margins and growing profitable categories

Your enrollment includes 20 live group sessions, monthly private coaching with me, a DISC and Driving Forces assessment, and full access to the Sell It or Schedule It™ online program for you and two members of your sales team.

If you are ready to stop managing on instinct and start leading with a system, I would love to have you join us.

Learn More & Reserve Your Spot

Or, if you want to talk through your team and see whether the program is the right fit, schedule a time to chat with me.

And one quick DISC reminder: next month’s free Sales Skills session will focus on recognizing and adapting to your customer’s DISC Style.

Now, go lean into your superpower!

Oxo,
Jody