The Secrets of Selling, 2nd Edition

chapter

2

How to assess the character

of your prospect quickly and

accurately



How to make these judgements



The most common reasons why people misjudge the

characters of others

You must look into people, as well as at them.

Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773), correspondent

It is natural to assume that other people see things the way we

do. However, if you present a group of people with a straight-

forward piece of information, they usually have very different

reactions to that information. (Think how journalists, presented

with the same information, report it so differently.) Imagine the

sales advantage you would have if you knew in advance how

each individual prospect would react to a given piece of infor -

mation. It is very easy to gain that advantage. Here’s how.

The need to judge others quickly and correctly

There are many methods by which you can understand a

person’s character. Most of them work by checking for particular

traits in that person’s character, because when such a trait is

identied it is usually possible to predict how that will react

in specic situations. The chief failing of these methods is that

psychologists have now identied nearly 5,000 personality traits,

Part 1



Sales meetings and sales proposals28

and one human simply cannot run that many checks in the  rst

few minutes of meeting another human. There is just too much

information to process in too short a time and too many colours

in the spectrum.

What you need is a quick, easy-to-use method that gives you a

reliable and accurate diagnosis of a person’s character when you

 rst meet them and, fortunately, there is just such a method. It

works by concentrating your analysis on just two of those 5,000-

plus in uences that affect human character, and the reason it’s

effective is that those two in uences are the ones that most

affect human character. This method involves you judging where

a person’s character sits on two scales. Once you have judged

the correct position on each scale, you will understand approx-

imately 80 per cent of their character. That is all you need do.

Here are those two scales:



The  rst scale determines the degree to which someone is

introverted or extroverted (Fig. 2.1). Psychologists see this as

the single most signi cant measure of human character. You

have to judge where on this scale a person sits.

Mid-point

Introversion Extroversion

Figure 2.1 Introversion/extroversion



The second scale determines the degree to which someone

is task-oriented or people-oriented (Fig. 2.2). Psychologists

see this as the second most signi cant measure of human

behaviour. (Task-oriented people tend to be logical, objective

and analytical. The people-oriented tend to be more

emotional, subjective and personal.) Again, you judge where

on this scale the person sits.

292



How to assess the character of your prospect quickly and accurately

By combining the two results you can then place the person on

the following chart.

The building blocks of modern psychology: the four

main ways people behave

Mid-point

Task-oriented People-oriented

Figure 2.2 Task-oriented/people-oriented scale

People-oriented Task-oriented

Introvert

Extrovert

Carer Analyser

Socialite Achiever

Figure 2.3 The four main ways people behave

This method of de ning character was  rst developed by

Hippocrates (460

BC–377 BC). He was the  rst to notice that people

nearly always behave in one of four ways (Fig. 2.3). Despite its

age, no better method for quickly de ning character has yet been

invented. Indeed, this part of his work is still the building block

for most modern psychology.

The reason this test works so well is that it allows you to put the

detail to one side and concentrate on the big picture. You only