Associator vs Dissociator

Another bank holiday weekend post. It’s a five day break here in Cape Town.

I’ve been going for the odd run along the prom and like I always have done, I listen to music all the way.

I find it helps get over those difficult first few minutes. The ones where everything aches and you struggle. Until you hit your rhythm and you’re motoring happily along.

Accoridng to this expert on the effects of music on exercise,

listening to music while running can boost performance by up to 15%

Leaving aside the obvious point that I now realise why I prefer to work listening to music (and losers tend not to), it is his conjecture that the elite are associators, whilst the rest mainly mere dissociators, that grabbed my attention.

I immediately thought that this could be the same in selling.

An associator focuses inwardly. The dissociator looks at what’s going on around them. With the latter, perhaps the word ‘distraction’ was deliberately revealing.

I wonder if the parallel is that the selling elite concentrate on the inward. That which they can influence and control. They think of their own process. What the problem is they are setting out to resolve. And only that prospect’s direct reaction to that change.

Whereas the also-rans find their stimulus outwards. What is the competition up to? How are Marketing helping (hindering)? Where’s the winning product roadmap? The prospect says jump and I willingly respond how high.

As a huge advocate in process, I’d always recommend you assess where you are against these two poles. If you sense you’re not wholly an associator, then you can easily slip in a couple of personal reminders to understand what you do that works and replicate them across all deals.