Dealing With Different Types Of Buyers Part 3: The 'Cool Blue' Buyer

Last week I published the first 2 articles focusing on dealing with different types of buyers, with a brief description of the Insights Discovery methodology and an overview of how to recognise and deal with a buyer who has high levels of 'Sunshine Yellow' or 'Earth Green' energy. In today's post I would like us to turn our attention to the 'Cool Blue' buyer. 

The diagram below, shows the model and a brief overview of each of the 4 basic types.

So the 'Cool Blue' buyer, sometimes known as an 'Analyst' has the combined preferences of 'Introversion' and 'Thinking', so some people may feel that these people are all about numbers, spreadsheets and data but let's have a closer look....

How can you recognise an ‘Cool Blue’ Buyer?

Look for clusters of signals from the following…..
Body language: Professional / Reserved / Calm / less animated / Minimal eye contact / Hard to read - good 'poker face' 

Appearance: Smart / conservative / Tidy and ordered / Desk is systematic with info accessible / Not fashion conscious

Style: Structured / Likes detail / Prepared / Safety first / Wants thinking time / Cold

Voice:  Considered / Measured / Monotone / Doesn’t waffle / Can be questioning

What is an ‘Cool Blue’ Buyer like?

•  They lack assertiveness and responsiveness.
• They distrust salespeople if they lack precision.
• They like to analyse and compare everything.
• They like to take their time and are wary of making quick decisions.
• They deal in facts and prefer things to be objective rather than subjective.
• They tend not to be confident in social situations and hate small talk.
• They avoid risk taking and like things to be followed up in writing and in detail.
• They can find salespeople to be intimidating especially if they feel under pressure.

How should you deal with an ‘Cool Blue’ Buyer?

• Don’t push them into making quick decisions.
• Take your time - Slow down.
• Take action rather than words to demonstrate helpfulness and willingness.
• Stick to specifics - Cool Blue buyers expect salespeople to exaggerate.
• Their decisions are based on facts and logic and they avoid risk, so make sure there is solid rationale behind your proposal.
• They can often be very co-operative, but established relationships take time - so invest this time!
•  Tackle their potential objections head-on and consider telling them what the product/proposal won't do - they will respect you for it, and they will have spotted the deficiencies anyway.

So, again, this is just a brief insight into how using 'Insights Discovery' methodology can help you when dealing with different buyer types, hopefully though, this has been of interest to you and you will look out for the final post on this subject, to build your awareness and understanding of the other buyer types. If you missed the first 2, please search for them within my profile.

As stated before, at TCE we use Insights Discovery as a core element within many of our capability engagements, which our clients are finding extremely relevant and value adding for their commercial teams.

If you would like to find out more on how we could support your capability building plans, please contact me direct - I would love to hear from you.

Also, if you have found this post to be of interest, please like and share.

Good luck with those customer interactions!

Dean
07766 005913