Drew D’Agostino joins us on the podcast this week to share a ton of insight into what the key personality types sales reps will encounter are like. Everyone is different, which means they respond well to different things and different types of information. As sales reps, it’s our job to understand this and make sure we put our best foot forward, with each type of person to ensure we have maximum success. Drew lifts the lid on some surprising data on which personality types are very common in specific roles that sales reps are prospecting to…

In This Podcast You’ll Learn:

• Giving Group Presentations
• Understanding Key Personality Types & What They Care About
• Thinking Like A Buyer

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Giving Group Presentations

Drew D’agostino: There’s a few specific things I picked up on my own over the past few years doing meetings like that solo. I’m more on the side of being introverted, so I’m not a naturally charismatic in front of groups.
The biggest thing in front of a group is actually not that you’re speaking to multiple people. You’re actually just speaking to one person and you have an audience. Looking at it through that lens changed my career and my life. Even though parties or a dinner, recognizing that at any given moment, if you’re the one speaking in a group, you’re not addressing the group.
If you are addressing one person with the knowing that everybody else is hearing you and you can switch who that person is. That’s changed my public speaking changed how I approached dinner parties, everything as a salesman.

And it really is fundamentally different. And then when you go into it with that perspective, all of a sudden the one on one communication stuff really actually comes in handy in front of groups because you can adjust.Without going through the whole Crystal methodology, if you see the C personality type in a position of authority it doesn’t matter how many enthusiastic people on their team there are who are getting really emotional and excited about something. If this doesn’t make sense at a really brutal logical level, it’s not happening.
The people who are enthusiastic, they’re going to sing your praises, they’re going to be champions, but you can really focus your meeting on the details on the logical reasons of why this works and be talking directly to that decision maker as opposed to getting caught up in maybe a lot of the more fun brainstorming type of discussions that might be happening in the periphery.

Understanding Key Personality Types & What They Care About

John Barrows: Are there generalities that you’ve seen in personality types based on title and role in industries?

Drew D’agostino: There are certainly trends. Software developers is a good one, you’re going to have a lot of Cs. You would expect that. Interestingly, the second highest is I though, and you wouldn’t think that because that’s the more creative type, but just that’s just how the numbers go.
You tend to tend to be either one of those. In sales there is a overwhelming majority of people who are higher on the both D and I. So just think about the top of the DISC and the lower end. But interestingly, just anecdotally from talking to sales leaders, they are very curious about this for hiring. It turns out that when I would ask sales leaders about their top rep and it’s usually an S. Most people are D’s and I’s but it’s usually an S who’s the top rep.

And it’s my own theory that I just think because there are so few. It’s actually the skills associated with being an S, the steadiness, consistency, constantly following up, caring about relationships, knowing who knows who. All of that stuff is really important for where sales is going. And I think, and you’re also dealing in a less competitive field because everybody’s trying to be the most charismatic or the most driving, the most assertive in the room.

Thinking Like A Buyer

Drew D’agostino: I can speak from my perspective as a buyer in those situations. So often my business partner and I, if there’s a major decision when we’re buying he really takes the lead on drilling into things. I know he’s there and I actually can turn off my critical thinking, a little bit. And I do go into more ideas mode because I know that he’s there, he’s going to point out the flaws and I can relax a bit. Okay. If he’s not there, I have to go into this mode where I’m not super comfortable with. But I can do it of pointing out the problems and trying to figure out risks.

If he’s there, I kind of view him a little bit as the bulldog in the meeting. So if he’s challenging the rep on something, I’m not really emotionally invested in it as the rep might be because I know this is just Greg being Greg, he’s asking the right questions. I do like to see how the rep will respond to that. I’m trying to think of what I would actually through in that situation where this probably means a lot more to the rep than it does to me in the situation. You know, his specific answer to the question. Honestly I think it comes down to just transparency and honesty. Like saying no, actually I don’t know the answer to that and Nope, we don’t do that next question.

That’s a wrap. Join us next time

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