Coffee and Mismatched Buying Personalities

I was recently having breakfast at one of my favorite brunch restaurants in downtown Indianapolis. It's a little spot I like to go to on Saturday mornings and grab a seat at their open breakfast bar while I eat and read a good book or do a little brainstorming.

The restaurant tends to be busy on Saturdays (as you can imagine), and this one morning there happened to be a gentleman sitting across from me. He was working very intensely on his laptop and had already ordered his breakfast.

While he was sipping his coffee and getting work done, I watched as the waitress started coming up to him about every five minutes and asking if he was OK or if he needed more coffee or anything else. This happened again and again.

As this went on, you could see that he began to get more irritated and more agitated each time she came up and asked.

She also began telling him all about her day and things going on in the restaurant, and you could see that he just did not care. But, she didn't seem to pick up on this and kept doing it until he finally told her that if he needed anything, he would let her know.

I know what you're saying to yourself right now, "Shad, this is a nice story and I'm glad you were enjoying your breakfast, but what does this have to do with selling?"

The key lesson to take away from this story is to ask yourself: "Are my people doing the same thing to prospects when they are selling?"

  • Are your people not recognizing the personality of the potential buyer they're dealing with (and aligning to it)?
  • Are your people not realizing how buyers want to be communicated with when buying from you?

When this happens, you'll see your people have a hard time getting prospects to trust and share information with them, because they are not effectively building rapport. You'll see your people focused on themselves and wondering what they did wrong --and not focused on how they can align their message with the prospect's personality and buying style.

A good prospect is someone who will share more information than they have to because they trust the person, and because they believe that by sharing the information it will help that person to help them.

We've all heard the phrase, "People buy from people they like." But, while building a relationship with a prospect is important, here's the real key to effective rapport building: People buy from people who are like them.

Help your people to focus on the prospects and matching their personality types, and you will see it become easier for your people to discover how to truly help those prospects.

Shad Tidler

Connect with Shad Tidler

For 25 years, Lushin has guided business leaders toward intentional, predictable growth.

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