Stop selling the way YOU like to buy

Serve Customers the Way They Want to Be Served

People buy based on how they experience the world: their emotions, their pain, their preferences, and their motivations. Those preferences often align with their DISC style, which means HOW they want the interaction and process to go matters just as much as what they are buying.

Dominance: Move quickly, give fewer details, present the best option, and make transitions efficiently.
Influence: Bring energy and enthusiasm, engage with them, and compliment their choices.
Steadiness: Create a consultative, collaborative experience and be patient with them.
Compliance: Be specific and accurate. Don’t wing it, and if you don’t know the answer, say so.

This is about giving people the experience THEY want to have when they are the buyer. Don’t get trapped in “I don’t sell this way.” Expand your repertoire of selling behaviors so that you can sell effectively to more people, rather than limiting your effectiveness to the people who happen to buy the way you prefer to sell.

For salespeople: See adapting as an advantage and a welcomed challenge. Choose a customer whose style feels noticeably different from yours and intentionally change one thing about your pace, communication, or approach. You are giving your customers the best version of you by being reflective and adapting to who they are and how they want to be served.

For sales managers: Your customers are also your sales team members. Coach them in the way they are most open to being coached, rather than simply coaching in the way that is most natural for you and your DISC style. Ask yourself whether this person needs you to be more direct, more collaborative, more enthusiastic, or more specific.

Our next Monthly Sales Skills session takes another skill that requires behavioral flexibility and practice: The Power of Silence, on Wednesday, October 21 from 3–4 PM ET. Silence is not absence. Silence is presence, and it is one of the most underused tools in selling. We’ll look at why silence increases trust, clarifies objections, elevates your professionalism, and gives the customer space to think and choose.

[REGISTER FOR THE OCTOBER SALES SKILLS SESSION →]

If you’re a designer working with retail clients in a showroom environment, this one is for you too. The session is approved for 0.1 CEU credit at the general business, basic level. You’ll need to attend live to receive your certificate. If you’d like to use the session for CEU credit, simply reply to this email and let me know.

Now, go be flexible in your service delivery!