Introvert, Extrovert & Ambivert Buyers
Susan Cain has been on quite the global plugging trip. Not only on telly in England, but her people have even placed PR here in SA.
Are introverts the next incarnation of the geeks to inherit the earth?
Well, I was less interested in that as the impact of this on buyer psychology.
When starting my solution sales journey I sold to bean counters and screwdrivers. What today you can call CFOs and CIOs. And all levels leading up to such exalted C-Level status in their empires, or is that departments?
The theory went that as reps we were extrovert, whereas the buyers were introvert. And if misunderstood, this caused much friction for us.
Yet when I took her test, I was ambivert. I nearly fell off my chair. Thankfully, “In many ways, ambiverts have the best of both worlds, able to tap into either pole as needed“.
So what intrigued me, is when you encounter an introvert (and if the instinct is right that most “technical, forensic” people are so) what are the best stimuli or approaches to tap into to get them whirring on your wavelength? Removing the aforementioned friction?
Alas, answers are not readily forthcoming. Steering the conversation onto cats is clearly not a long-term winner.
So, how about these as ideas?
- They like to work alone and without interruption. So give them tasks to do which allow this.
- Ensure you hold one-on-one meetings as well as your wider forums.
- Write a long, detailed analysis for their perusal and edit.
- Avoid excessive (or indeed, any) front talk.
- Publicly praise for work done.