Targeting to Your Buyer’s Style

How would you like to know the secret formula to connecting and influencing at a deeper level?  Are you wondering how to target more effectively to your customers? Influencing buyers is not about manipulating them. It’s about establishing more effective communication. One of the best ways to do that is to apply the same concepts learned from team-building personality assessments like DiSC, MBTI, StrengthsFinder, etc. to help you improve your marketing and sales process. Today we’re going to talk about how you can put a filter of buyer intent on top of four personality types your buyers are likely to have. This filter will help you better communicate with prospective clients and customers. You’ll be able to more accurately target to your buyer’s style, which will result in more sales, more referrals, and more success for your business. Watch the episode below or read the post, depending on your preferred learning style.

Now what do I mean by “buyer’s style?” Your buyers have a main buying personality, and when you communicate in their style, you’ll produce better results.

In your career, you’ve probably been exposed to some type of personality assessment. Typically during the hiring process, or maybe a team building exercise. You’ve maybe taken tests like the DiSC profile, Meyers and Briggs, or maybe Strengths Finder. There’s a ton of them out there, and they all do a pretty good job. But this isn’t about hiring or team building. It’s about applying the same concept to understand your buyer’s personality and to help you improve your marketing sales process.

Warning: this is not about manipulation. It’s about communication.

Now 20 years ago, I was certified as a DiSC trainer, and I used it to build high performing sales and marketing teams. Now for those of you unfamiliar with what DiSC is, it’s a behavior assessment tool that centers around four basic traits.

DiSC Personality Types

Dominant

That’s people who are assertive, results-focused, and impatient.

Influential

People who are outgoing, persuasive and optimistic.

Steadiness

People who are patient and structured.

Conscientious

People who are precise and accurate.

 

Over the years, I’ve adapted those concepts to the buying process, and I’ve identified buyer styles, which I call intent. You see, buyers have a main intent. Let’s take a look at those four quadrants again, and this time I’m going to apply the intent to each one.

Buyer’s Intent

Dominant

Their intent is to get it done.

Influential

They want to have fun and socialize.

Steadiness

They want to get along.

Conscientious

They want to get it right.

 

The goal of this is to recognize the buyer’s intent so you can match it with your communication style. Let’s say you’re selling to someone who is dominant. You need to focus on getting it done. You need to think about how can you be direct, focused, and show them how your product and service is going to help them get the result they want.

Now let’s say you are selling to someone who’s influential. Well, you better socialize, you better take time to ask them about their family and what they did this weekend, and what do they want to do, and what does the world look like in the future. Because if you don’t socialize with them and have fun, they’re not going to do business with you and they’re not going to listen to what you have to say.

Let’s say you’re selling to someone who has steadiness as their main buyer intent. That means they want to get along. You better position your product and service to make it easy for them. If they think that your product or service, or doing business with you is going to create conflict, they’re not going to buy from you.

If you’re selling to someone who is conscientious, their main buyer’s intent is to get it right. That’s what they’re thinking, “How do I get it right?” Well, as a sales and marketing person, you’ve got to make sure that the information you give them is accurate, detailed, and supporting. So if you make a claim, you better support it.

Someone like me, since I want to get it done, you can just tell me, “Hey Ford, this is how we’re going to get it done.” And I’m like, “Here’s my money. Let’s go.” But someone who is conscientious, they don’t think that way, so you need to make sure that you tailor your approach to getting it right.

Becoming more familiar with DiSC assessments is going to help you recognize the traits and start adapting your style to be in alignment with your buyer’s style.

If you want to take a deeper dive into DiSC profiles, I’m going to suggest that you take your own assessment. It’s going to give you great insights into your main style, as you think about it from a buying perspective. It’s also going to help you discover how to tailor your marketing and sales approach to the specific buyer’s intent.

Here’s your action step for this week’s episode. Think about your top clients. Which main buyer intent do you feel applies to most of your selling situations? Come up with the way you would sell that particular style. Tell me what you come up with in the comments below.

Sep 12, 2017

Author: Ford Saeks, Business Growth Specialist, Keynote Speaker, Author and Consultant. Helping you find, attract, and keep your customers. Find out more about Ford

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