DISC is a psychology of personality that can be used to understand people and apply it to sales and customer relationship management.
In the past, the admin himself often had misunderstandings about many aspects of work. This time, we will talk about the admin’s perspective during a period of his life working in a sales position.
“Sales are easy jobs. They are similar to delivery people, following up on documents. It’s not difficult at all.”
“Technical knowledge is so-so, still have to rely on us for help regularly” or “Actually, our products are already great, our support team is all great, no need for sales, the products can sell anyway”
“All day long, you don’t do anything. You just say you go out to meet customers. I don’t know if you actually go out or not. Haha.”
This is a story told by a senior who told the admin when he first started working at his first job (from now on, the admin will refer to himself as “I”).
Because I was curious about what sales work involves, I asked this senior senior because he should know well since he has been with the organization for about 15 years as a senior engineer. I believe that his answer will definitely give me clarity.
After receiving this answer from this person, I have a bad attitude towards sales work. I think this kind of work is not interesting, the nature of the work is lousy and not worth doing. In any case, I will definitely not choose this line of work because it will not allow me to grow and advance.
And what’s worse, because this senior often told me that salespeople are bad in this way and that way, the result made me dislike the salespeople in the company.
Years passed … I had to face a big change. I was transferred to become a sales person.
What I don’t like, the job I don’t want to do is being a sales person. But why was I transferred? Or was this clearly bullying? (At that time, I thought so.)
My boss at that time told me that I should try sales because I had been working in the technical field for a while and should try something new. But I was still a big mouth and told my boss, “I don’t like sales. It doesn’t challenge my abilities because the work looks easy.”
The boss replied, “Oh really? If the job is easy, let’s prove it to see if you can do it.” I immediately asked, “How do we prove it?”
The boss replied, “Try it for 6 months. If you can sell your work within 6 months, you can come back to your original position. Or if you want to continue being a salesperson, you can.”
I replied, “I won’t be able to sell my work in less than a month. I’ll prove it to you. But please keep your current position, boss. I’ll come back and continue. I definitely won’t be a salesperson anymore.”
Boss: “Sure, then start working as a Sales Engineer next month. Go learn from the department head and do your best. I’ll be waiting to see your results.”
5 months have passed with the position of Sales Engineer and learning the work in the sales department.
The result is sales of zero.
I couldn’t make a single sale. I made a proposal to dozens of customers, but I couldn’t close any sales. What’s going on? The sales work that we’ve seen salespeople do, it looks easy and comfortable, and we’ll get the job done, but when we actually do it, why can’t we close any sales?
In my mind, I thought that the problem might be because we don’t understand the company’s products? But that’s unlikely because I’ve been working in the technical field for many years and am already an expert and experienced in the company’s products.
Or do we not understand the internal workings of the cell? It is unlikely to be the case because the working procedures of the cell team are simpler and not as numerous as our old unit. This should not be an issue.
So where did we go wrong?
While I was sitting here thinking of a solution, a senior salesperson came up to greet me. “How are things? Have you sold any yet?”
I replied, “No way, sir. Sales is much harder than I thought. I tried everything, and I still couldn’t sell a single job. Or maybe I really can’t do it.”
Senior Salesperson: “I understand. Let’s do this. Tomorrow, I’ll go see a customer. If you’re free, I’d like you to come with me.”
“Yes, but how should I act, sir?”
Senior Salesperson: “You are my follower. Please pay attention and listen to me when I talk to each customer. And don’t interrupt or make any suggestions.”
“okay”
The next day, I went on a trip with my senior salesperson.
We met 3 customers in the same day, which was great. The senior sales person showed us how to manage our time effectively.
After finishing the third one, on the way back to the company, the senior sales person asked me, “From the three customers we met, what did you see and learn?”
“The three customers have completely different personalities and characteristics.”
“ The first customer gave us a very short time to meet. The customer spoke bluntly, spoke quite loudly, asked questions directly, and was good at negotiating. He didn’t just lower our price, he also asked for freebies. I was afraid that he would ask why I came with you. He might think that it was useless to come.”
“ The second client seemed cheerful, easygoing, and friendly. I noticed that he liked to chat about things that were not related to the work we were offering. We only talked about work for a short while, probably not even five minutes. It seemed that he liked to chat about personal matters more than work.”
“ The third customer seemed quite quiet. He seemed to prefer listening rather than talking, because I saw you talking most of the time. This customer took quite a while to explain our products, and whenever this customer had any concerns, I explained them in detail.”
The senior salesperson then asked me, “How do you see me talking and dealing with these three customers?”
“We use completely different methods.”
“ With the first customer, I showed them that the offer we gave them was the best, better than anyone else they had ever received. I also linked it to the benefits of our product, that if the customer bought it, it would help them reach their cost reduction goal more easily. I saw the customer’s face when I mentioned this. They nodded and smiled immediately.”
“ With the second customer, I talked a lot about family and children. Sometimes I would go back to work and ask for their opinion on our products. I also asked for their ideas on how to improve our offering to make them as satisfied as possible.”
“And with the third customer, I spent a lot of time talking. I clearly noticed that you explained our products and work systematically, step by step, slowly. And I didn’t try to pressure the customer to make a decision or buy our products immediately. I also told the customer that if they still didn’t understand or had any further questions, they could ask me to explain more.”
Senior Salesperson: “At this point, you should have a clear picture, right?”
“Customers are people. People come in many forms. We are one of them. We cannot use our preferred methods to communicate or negotiate with all types of people.”
“We have to understand, read the customers, and then choose the communication and negotiation methods that are suitable for them. The rest will be easy.”
“See, sales is actually not difficult. But what’s difficult is reading people and winning their hearts.”
“Thank you very much, brother. Now I understand my problem. One day of meeting with the customer gave me the answer I needed.”
Almost two weeks after that day, I sold my first job. For this technique, I have to thank the advice from that senior salesperson who opened my mind and gave me a new perspective. And from the day I sold my first job onwards, I chose to follow a new career path, which was sales. And it was this career that created a lot of success for me, until I became an executive of an organization.
If I hadn’t given myself the opportunity to try that day, if I hadn’t given myself the opportunity to open my mind to learn from other people, I certainly wouldn’t be here today.
In fact, what the senior sales person showed was similar to the DISC theory used to look at people.
“Applying DISC theory to sales work”
The DISC theory is a psychology of personality. He uses it to measure and divide normal human behavior into 4 types:
D (Dominance): This is the type of person who likes to control, give orders, is straightforward, to the point, strict, and likes competition, etc. [This type is exactly the same as the first customer that my senior and I met.]
I (Influence): This is the type of person who likes to socialize, is talkative, especially about themselves, is enthusiastic, likes to imagine, is open, and likes to express themselves, etc. [This type is the same as the second customer that my senior and I met.]
S (Steadiness): This type of person is sincere, calm, likes to care for others, is indecisive, is not decisive, likes safety and does not like risk, etc. [This type is the same as the third customer that my senior and I met.]
C (Compliance): This type of person is meticulous, likes clarity, is reasonable, adheres to rules, likes perfection, likes things to be done step by step, and does not like socializing, etc.
This means that if we know ourselves, know our customers, communication or negotiation is very easy. The desired sales will definitely be achieved easily.
“Sales are not meeting targets, or sales are not good, or customers are not satisfied.”
This is the main problem that salespeople or sales managers often encounter.
The DISC is very useful. It can be used to evaluate our customers and our team. It answers the questions of closing sales and managing customer relationships.
For more articles on self-development, please visit:
9 Ways to Build and Develop a Growth Mindset for Working People
