More Business Columnists

• Stacy Sacco: Savor 'Cheese' book's lessons on tackling change
• Randy Burge: Locally grown foods grow in popularity
• Stacy Sacco: Want to develop a situation card?

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

I recently had a sales representative stop by my office to make his sales pitch for his products and services. Of course being an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico's Anderson Schools of Management where I teach professional selling, I'm always a bit critical of someone else's sales presentation.

This gentleman's presentation was no exception. I'm sorry to say, he made a couple of major mistakes worth noting.

First, he talked too much. Sales is really more about listening. How else can one identify a prospect's needs or problems? As the Greek philosopher Epictetus once said, "We have two ears and one mouth, so that we can listen twice as much as we speak."

Worse yet, this sales representative followed a script which didn't allow for any flexibility or help build our relationship. When I did try to ask a couple of questions, he basically ignored them so he could get back to his memorized sales presentation.

Beyond building his "active listening" skills to solve both of these problems, he might also want to take a course in personality styles. There's a long history of research on the types of people one encounters in sales situations and how best to communicate with each style. The idea is to either mirror your prospect or at least adapt your presentation to the needs of their communication style.

One of the more popular approaches, the Merrill-Reid method, categorizes four types:

Drivers are objective-focused. They know what they want and how to get there. They communicate quickly and will want you to get to the point. Definitely come fully prepared with delivery dates when you meet with a "driver."

Expressives are natural salesmen or story-tellers. They are warm and enthusiastic and excellent communicators. Since it sometimes seems that they would rather talk about things than do them, you'll need to politely nudge them to sign a contract.

Amiables are kind-hearted people who like to avoid conflict and can blend into any situation well. Since that also means they want to please, they can appear wishy-washy, so you'll need to assure them that making a firm decision regarding your product is the right one.

Analyticals are highly detail-oriented people and will want all the facts before making a decision. Be sure to proof any materials you present since they'll catch any typos. And don't embellish your sales presentation. Just the facts, ma'am.

There are a number of other methods or programs that I've encountered that also split sales prospects into a similar four types.

One of my favorites is the Color Code Personality Test which was authored by Taylor Hartman. He breaks the four types into red, yellow, white and blue. See Thecolorcode.com for a free test to determine your color.

In her book "Personality Plus," Florence Littauer identified the four types as Sanguine, Melancholy, Choleric, and Phlegmatic. There's also the DISC Profile which splits the four types into Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Cautious. Another is DESA: Dominant, Expressive, Solid and Analytical.

Most of these are based on Carl Jung's original studies in the early 1900s on personality types which has since been popularized by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Test (Knowyourtype.com) and Keirsey-Bates Temperament Sorter (Keirsey.com).

Among the more novel are training programs that split the types into characters from such well-known writings as Jane Austen's novels (Emma Woodhouse, Lydia Bennet, Elizabeth Bennet and Marianne Dashwood), Charlie Brown cartoons (Lucy, Snoopy, Charlie Brown and Linus), the Bible (Paul, Peter, Abraham and Moses), and "Gilligan's Island" (Skipper, Gilligan, Mary Ann and the Professor).

For something nearby, Tod Novak, a local motivational speaker, trainer and sales expert, offers training based on the four types portrayed as birds. In his estimation, I'm a "Peacock." See Thenovakgroup.com for more information.

Sacco is vice president of marketing at Kirtland Federal Credit Union, and an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico Anderson Schools of Management and at Webster University.