Getting to Know Yourself

Many people have personalities that are well suited for sales and working with people.  Sanguine types, for example, tend to get along with everyone.  They are positive-minded, optimistic and cheerful who can easily create bonds and establish trust and respect with many types of people.   

How well do you know yourself and your own personality?   Are you naturally interested in people and what they have to say?  Are you good at listening?  Are you a great communicator?  Do you make friends and business associates easily?  Are you able to adjust yourself to live and work with different types of people?  What if you’re not born with the ability to get along with people?  Can you still be successful in a sales career?  

Anyway you answer, the good news is that you can improve on your ability to get along with people.  By educating yourself, doing some self analysis, utlizing the right tools, books and resources, you can get to understand your own personality and the types of people to which you naturally gravitate.  Then you can start to work on expanding your comfort zone and learn how to get along with just about every type of person that comes your way.  

Suppose you are a dominant personality type, like a choleric.  You are generally extroverted in nature and prefer to be in charge.  As a result, you feel more comfortable with, and have naturally gravitated to, submissive people, such as phlegmatic or melancholy types.  These are generally the kind of people you live and work well with.   

In a sales or business career, you don't have the option to pick and choose your customers and business associates as easily as you can in a social setting.  To benefit the sales process, you will need to adjust your thinking, behavior and actions and reactions to meet the needs of the customer.  It is not so difficult to do if you have the right kind of tools.   

Here are three actions to take in order to adjust your sales presentations to the type of customer or business associate that you're working with: 

Learn more about how to assess your personality and the personality of others

Browse books on people, personality, sales goals and more.

You can be assured of this:  The more that you know yourself and become a master at eliminating the peaks and valleys of your personality the easier it will be for you to build business relationships and the more successful you will be in your sales career.

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