Making MBTI Work For Sales Teams – Part 2
Moving to scale 3 – Thinking to Feeling
This series of short papers is focussed on the application of MBTI understanding to sales and the vital missing piece of the jigsaw in most MBTI based training for sales – understanding the natural preferred style of the customer and flexing our selling to better connect with them.
For each of the MBTI ‘scales’ we are considering three ‘BIG QUESTIONS’ which sales teams need to answer in order to flex their style with confidence as shown below –
- How do we spot the ‘scale’ position [ or style type ] with confidence
- What selling style/techniques will a customer with this preferred style type best respond to
- How should we communicate to better ‘connect’ with a customer of this type
We will now consider the above questions for the third MBTI ‘scale’ – Thinking to Feeling
Firstly a reminder of what we mean by Thinking versus Feeling in the MBTI context. This scale is all about the basis for our decision making – whether we make our decisions for emotionally driven reasons [ Feeling ] or rational/logical reasons [ Thinking ]. An example often used in MBTI training is that if finding a badly injured animal at the side of the road. Would you kill the animal in order to put it out of it’s pain/suffering [ a Thinking response ] or wrap your arms around it, comfort it and look to move it to a veterinary surgeon as quickly as possible [ a Feeling response ].
This scale has obvious application to sales – the key to good selling is to understand the core motivators of your customer contacts and to match your product/service benefits against motivators. Knowing that a contact is driven by emotional [ Feeling ] motivators rather than logical [ Thinking ] ones should radically change your whole pitch.
Let’s now consider our three BIG QUESTIONS in turn –
1. How do we spot this characteristic with confidence
THINKERS LOOK FOR:
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FEELERS LOOK FOR:
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Now let’s consider what selling style/techniques a customer with this style type best respond to ?
Utilise the guidelines below when selling –
THINKERS:
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FEELERS:
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Finally we focus on how we should communicate to better ‘connect’ with a customer of each preference –
THINKERS:
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FEELERS:
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As stated previously – it is a congruent combination of several of the above ‘flexes’ which will create a truly powerful selling argument – one which both sells effectively whilst building rapport and trust progressively.
In our training delegates practice both spotting types accurately and flexing their selling approach to connect powerfully with customers.
The above list is by no means exhaustive – look for other ‘clues’ in speech, body language and social preferences to help you.
2. Effective selling to extraverts vs introverts
Utilise the guidelines below when selling –
Extraverts:
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Introverts:
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3. Communicate better to connect more effectively
Extraverts:
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Introverts:
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A word of caution – look for congruence in customer communications – sales people need to find several clues to type before deciding on their flexing.
In our MBTI training we simulate both the spotting of types in ‘real-world’ situations and the flexing of delivery to better connect with customers.
In the next article we will consider the Myers Briggs Sensing to Intuition scale and how knowledge of your customers type can allow flexing of selling style.
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Read more about:
He is an expert in B2B Customer Experience and Customer Management. This includes CM strategy development; execution of improvement plans (incl. organisational modelling for customer management); programme design; and partnership & alliance development.
Mark's applied work across FMCG, industrials, medical devices, financial services, business services and construction has led to organisations making, significant improvements to their customer management. A large focus of this work has been moving organisations up the Trust Ladder to enable them to benefit from reduced cost to serve, while continuing to innovate and deliver mutual value.
Mark is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and Member of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management. He holds an MBA in strategy from Henley Business School.
