Unlocking Sales Success: Harnessing the Power of DiSC

How well do you know your team or your clients? How do they work best, what motivates them, what gets in the way of them achieving success?

As a business psychologist I spend a lot of time helping business owners understand the power of DiSC profiling. Most of the time people have heard of DiSC and some may have used it for team or employee development or as part of recruitment.

However, DiSC is hugely powerful when used as part of your sales process too.

Put simply, if you follow these basic principles relating to DiSC in your (sales) meetings then you will increase your chances of success and positively impact your conversion rate.

Prepare for meetings with their communication style in mind.

The ‘D’ Profile – Are they a D?

Here’s what to look out for, As a D profile you are fast-paced, task focused – it’s all about the results.

Therefore, keep the pace high, start with the most important points and make sure you stick to time.

Keep to high level information, tell them specifically what you are offering and how much it will cost them but also how it will benefit them.

The ‘I’ Profile – Are they an I?

I’s are influential, expressive, interested in you – they thrive building relationships.

Be prepared to have a lengthy meeting and for it to be a more chatty and free-flowing discussion, they will want to spend time getting to know you and what type of person they are.

You can likely expect them to share stories about their life and to ask you to explain how what you are offering can help them.

The S Profile.

As an S you are steady paced, people focused, shy – stability is important to you.

Again, be prepared for a longer meeting as you will need to allow time for them to listen and to ask lots of questions to help reassure them about any decisions that they need to make.

Remember that they are trying to get to know and trust you, but they won’t tell you a lot about them personally. Instead, they will want to know what support is on offer and how you help the people you work with.

The C. Are they a ‘C’ Profile?

As an C profile you are conscientious, clear cut – you are analytical and detailed.

With these meetings make sure to finish the meeting just before the time you said it would finish not a minute or two over.

Be prepared for lots of questions about how long things will take, deadlines, milestones etc and ideally have a detailed written document for them to take away.

Using DiSC Profiles; Make the Sale Easy

The Latin definition of sales is ‘to serve’, which means helping them to buy what they want.

The simplest way to make the sales process easier is to speak their DiSC language, so that you give them the relevant information they need to make their decision.

What does speaking their DiSC language look like?

D Profile:

Any materials or information you want to present needs to be high level information, if you imagine the dashboard of a car, it only holds the most important data.

Share the most important and relevant facts and figures needed to make a decision. In a sales context what are the costs, benefits and when will the project start and finish?

I Profile:

Once you have started the conversation and built trust by asking about them it’s a good idea to share stories about the work you have done with clients and the benefits that the clients have had.

Try not to go into too much detail and if talking about numbers and measures choose ones that relate to people.

S Profile:

Like the ‘I’ profile you need to build trust. They are interested in how what you are offering will affect people and their own ability to do what is important to them and to serve their customers.

Remember that they like to reflect and so are unlikely to agree a decision there and then. To smooth the sale process, check if anyone else needs to be involved in the decision-making process and ask them to give you a time that you can follow up with them.

C Profile:

These profiles would like to see you have done your preparation and so it is helpful to have a detailed written report full of information and analysis if relevant.  It is also helpful to have a copy of your terms and conditions and agreements.

Like the S profile they will be unlikely to decide there and then so giving them a copy of these documents to take away and digest is sensible. To smooth the sales process get them to agree a time frame for you to follow up by asking ‘if I call you at the end of next week with that give you enough time to make a decision?’

In summary you need to stick to their language and understand how your language might be perceived by others. Remember that you have two ears and one mouth for a reason, listen carefully to what they are saying and the questions they are asking and adapt your language as necessary. Watch your sales increase and start working with more of your ideal clients.

For help understanding your profile, interacting with others, and increasing your sales start with one of our Discover Your Potential sessions just like Clare at Meta4 Business Coaching did.

Guest Blog by Joanne Wharam, Smart Support for Business