Why every sales warrior should master DISC.

Why every sales warrior should master DISC.

If I could change one thing about my time building great sales teams, I would intensify the use of the DISC behavioural assessment model. In the world of remote work, adoptin the DISC model makes even more sense.

It would be wrong to describe DISC as a personality ‘test’. That suggests there is a pass mark and everyone should target the same desirable outcome. The impact of DISC is the opportunity to recognise behavioural preferences for ourselves and adapt to those of colleagues and people we sell to, buy from or partner with.

Every salesperson is a behavioural assessment practitioner. Some are masters, many have a passive understanding and operate on auto pilot. Some are content to simply be on transmit and hope for the best.

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DISC promotes a deeper understanding and common language to engagement strategies that challenges perceptions and bias. Here are five reasons DISC should be at the centre of any sales and account development strategy.

The business goal is advocates

Winning new customers is one measure of success but the bigger goal is to develop those wins into loyal customers and, ultimately, advocates for your people, products and company.

Salespeople will talk about becoming trusted advisors but to become genuinely trusted, and develop advocacy, the team must engage with internal and external teams at a level that consistently encourages the development of ideas and builds lasting rapport and trust

We can expect that the people and priorities that drive a relationship will change over time. Advocacy then, is increasingly dependent on embedding skills that help to build rapport and engage prospects and customers in a way that matches the aspects of communication they value the most.

It’s not about you

Every salesperson knows there might be just one opportunity to influence a buyer or decision maker. Most salespeople are prepared for this and are routinely diligent, professional and confident in their own ability. They will understand the market they are selling to and know their pitch inside and out.

But if there is no personal connection with the buyers then the impact of this knowledge and experience could be reduced to little more than a ‘table stakes’ talking brochure.

Recognising the cues that signpost communication and behavioural preferences is a skill the best salespeople use to adapt their own engagement strategy. DISC offers a baseline to prepare for meetings and calls, provoking ideas to address perceived differences in styles and align to how the buyer wants to receive and process information rather than how the seller wants to share it.

Airwaves are overloaded

Despite an overwhelming focus on personalisation, outbound sales activity is awash with content marketing strategies and ‘sequences’ that address everyone and, often, no-one. Buyers are overrun by inbound messages and confused by the proliferation of new and adopted language. Volumes are high but impact is typically low.

Salespeople have an obligation to make their personal interactions distinctive to ensure they, and the brands they represent, stand out as contributors a buyer is choosing to be influenced by. If your salespeople cannot reach this level of engagement, they may be adding nothing to your sales strategy.

Buyers know more than you do.

Buyers are typically professionally qualified and, most often, better prepared than the salespeople they meet. And they should be! While salespeople engage, educate, influence and nurture lots of prospects and customers in parallel, buyers research and engage a few suppliers for specific projects.

By the time they meet a salesperson they understand all their options, strengths and weaknesses, benefits and negotiation points. They will already have decided what information they will and won’t share. The seller has less time to influence the buyer and must act fast to make a difference.

It’s here that Salespeople earn their reputations. Buyers can quickly be labelled as arrogant or pedantic and opportunities become stuck or qualified out based on a lack of available information. Maybe that’s the right answer, instinct and experience count for a lot, but a recognition of behavioural preferences and a willingness to listen and ask questions can help guide the buyer’s own perception and understanding to a more favourable outcome for the seller.

An engagement strategy with DISC profiles at its core will increase the chances of unlocking more information by pushing the salesperson to consider how best to adapt to the behavioural preferences they encounter.

The best salespeople leverage resources.

The best salespeople and entrepreneurs have many talents and attributes that give them the tools to succeed. The one they all have in common is the ability to motivate and leverage other people.

They control the internal resource market; commanding the best pre-sales support, communicating upwards to generate confidence or manage expectations, effortlessly gaining licence to do things differently.

They do the same with prospects and customers; adapting messages to engage different people and teams, changing pace seamlessly and finding ways to discover and validate new information.

Among their many recognisable attributes is emotional intelligence. In varying degrees, they have the ability to adapt to environmental changes without being dislodged from the path to success.

Margin notes...

Challenge your own sales team. How do they engage to make the life of a prospect or customer easier, more productive, interesting or simply more fun? How do they engage to ensure the corporate or personal brand is regarded as distinctive by the customer?  

The very minimum that the adoption of DISC will do is support and challenge the design of an engagement strategy. The best salespeople are never on auto pilot. They recognise the cues for behavioural preferences in the environment they find themselves in and know how to adapt.

DISC should be embedded into the sales operation, starting with the onboarding process, and used as part of the prospecting and account planning activity. Don’t spend hours justifying decisions made using data and trends without demanding to know how you are going to connect personally with prospects and customers.

Previously published on Medium.

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