How Understanding Personality Types can Boost your Networking Game

In our last newsletter edition, we shared our insights and top tips about the power of networking events, why you should go to them, and how to pick the right ones for you. This month, we wanted to help you with the next step: connecting and relating to a new audience.

We know that each of us has a unique personality, character traits, likes, dislikes, aversions and expertise. Going to deliberately meet new people can seem overwhelming, exhausting, and useless, especially when there's enough life to manage both inside, and outside of work. But what if we could reframe this? And by understanding a few key elements of human personality, dramatically increase your network, leading to increased referrals and ultimately, increased business growth?

Companies and business owners can fall into the growth trap of reclassifying their staff from real people into numbers, titles, and positions. This is especially common when in a period of growth and frankly - is an early sign of impending cultural damage which inevitably impacts retention rates, productivity and the capability of a business to deliver.

Treating your people like people is more important than we're able to stress through a simple newsletter. Just think about the experiences you've personally had over the years... Think about the times you went out of your way to help someone inside or outside of your organisation, and the times you've gone out of your way to actively not help someone. What was the driver of your help or hindrance? Most likely, them. Their personality, how you clicked, their behaviour, tonality, and whether "you just kind of liked them", or really, really didn't.

People are the key to both success, and failure of a business. And the more we understand each other and ourselves, the more effectively we can manage culture, momentum, and the power of connection and good old-school village mentality, leveraging the power of referral.

Leads generated from referrals boast a conversion rate 30% higher than those from other marketing avenues. A referral could come directly at a first meeting, the weeks or months following or 12 months down the track. It's important to nurture your relationships as you never know when that call might come in. Referrals, come from people. Real people. With real personalities.

Let's Talk Personalities

So let's learn about personalities. We highly recommend Allison Mooney's book: Pressing the Right Buttons (and also check out her in-office team-building experiences!) and will use her analogy today.

There are four key personality types we like to use to understand the people we work and live with:

• Circle - also known as a Peaceful
• Square - also known as a Precise
• Triangle - also known as a Powerful
• Squiggle - also known as a Playful

While we're all a mix of all of them, we tend to lean into one stronger than the others, and so does every other human being we interact with on a daily basis. Here's a quick summary of each shape - which one are you?

The Circle, our Peacefuls:

These beautiful humans are the Teachers, Therapists, Nurses and Mothers of the world. They're the ones to meet you for the first time and hug you long and hard, like a long lost relative. They make you feel warm, welcome, safe, and will give you the shirt off their back - or the last spring roll from the networking event table. They're also the ones looking incredibly disheveled because frankly, they value their personal comfort more than the silly "what I should wear" rules of this society.

Circles are incredibly emotional creatures and if you hurt their feelings, they'll remember it. They can be seen as over dramatic, emotional, unreliable, and weak - however possess and incredible ability to connect with others due to their innate ability to truly listen to, and care about everyone they meet.

The down side to this nurturing, caring, compassionate side is they can become overwhelmed with everyone else's business, and not have enough to give themselves, or the task at hand. They can spend a whole day getting absolutely nothing done. However, their intuitive abilities can spot opportunities and forge deep connections leading to long lasting relationships, but they are also known for holding a grudge, forever.

Circles can be difficult to connect with as they can come across quiet, shy, uninterested, and it can be interpreted as rudeness when in fact, their self consciousness can get in the way of them showing up fully, especially around strangers. Their default is to nurture and care for others, so pairing them with a stronger personality like a Triangle can be advantageous as long as they both understand and respect one anothers differences. It's easy to talk over a Circle, so giving them space and time to share ideas without cutting them off will give them a chance to share everything they've got in that deeply thoughtful, very perceptive, and attentive mind of theirs.

The Square, otherwise known as Precise:

Think Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants, and Engineers. These are our detail-oriented folks. They are always on time (or exactly 5 minutes early), reliable, and dependable. They are the ones in the office who know every detail, down to the page number, date published, and relevance of the author's background.

Tidy, predictable, and reserved, you can usually spot a Precise by their practical, single toned, high quality, many-use, not mass produced outfit without any bells and whistles. They will not enjoy a warm hug, and would prefer a short handshake, and will ask factual, critical and incessantly detailed questions as they begin gathering data about you immediately, if not sooner. Their love language is detail. Lots of it.

Our Squares require facts, facts, and more facts and will struggle in loud or free-flowing environments. They want the meeting agenda ahead of time, and will flinch internally if a meeting goes overtime or diverts to a direction not previously discussed. They're not good at being put on the spot, but are excellent at time management, planning, finding details others missed, and creating solutions using pragmatic, rational and practical approaches.

Understanding that this personality type isn't trying to be rude, negative, cold or abrasive, rather it's about knowing who exactly you're communicating with. When pairing a Square with more emotional people such as our Squiggles and Circle personality types you're naturally going to have some differences which, when understood can help how you frame conversations.

The Triangle - or Powerful:

Probably your boss, the business owner or the organiser of the event you're at. Triangles are known for their direct, get-it-done, pointed way of attacking everything. They're interested in efficiency, speed, and results. These are the people you meet, and 5 seconds later, they're pitching you their business and have figured out 17 different ways you and they can partner together to achieve world domination.

Triangles are fantastic leaders, but can be seen as abrasive, uncaring, and can step over people without realising, simply because they're moving so fast they don't often stop to slow down for others. Triangles are all about moving forward, so can struggle when paired with all 3 other personality types as each have a slower cadence than they prefer. Triangles are also incredible at solving problems and are well positioned in leadership or project management roles. Give them a tedious task, and they'll probably find 12 other ways to do it - better, faster, and more efficiently... and will then promptly quit to find another challenge worthy of their very short attention span.

Triangles will tend to automatically lead a group, whether they're asked to or not, so if you have a junior Triangle make sure you give them a specific role they feel valued in so they don't take over the whole project. Triangles are likely to take risks, similar to Squiggles they have the ability to bounce right back, but, like Squares can be very self-critical, so make sure you give a Triangle lots of positive feedback and encouragement to keep them confident and thinking sharply.

The Squiggle, or Playfuls: as Allison says, you can usually hear these people before you spot them. They're loud, vivacious, and tend to easily grab the attention of everyone around them. They tend to wear outfits that stand out and tell wild stories that go on, and on, and on, and never seem to go anywhere - but will make you pee yourself a little as you belly laugh at the level of insanity and audacity.

They're perpetually late, but are so enthusiastic, friendly, and likeable that their optimism rubs off on everyone around them. They're probably the creative in your team, or your entire marketing team in general. They have many ideas, often in one loud, unstopping sequence, and are guaranteed to leave a networking event with a pocket full of business cards, and a best friend on every side of the room.

They're a huge asset to the morale of your business and will liven up any office, but can also be perceived as loud, distracting, unfocused, and a little annoying if paired with an opposing personality type. They're perfect in the role of end of year party organiser, wild ideas person or company networker, but will struggle in a role requiring detail, structure, or without any interaction with others.

Pair them carefully as a Square or Triangle can help them create a little more structure, but a Circle and a Squiggle will go around and around, getting nowhere, having fun, but driving everyone else insane.

Now it's time for you to read the room (literally)!

Understanding who you are is your first step. Understanding who everyone else is will change your life. When you walk into a room, meeting, or event, being able to read people and understand why they're behaving the way they are, how they're likely to perceive you, and how they need to be communicated with will free you from a lifetime of expending energy "trying" to connect with someone.

By understanding personality types, you can simply show up as your brilliant self and connect on a person-to-person level, leaving the corporate business communication to flow naturally and eventually once you've made a new friend. We know it sounds backwards, but by relaxing into a room and just being yourself, you're going to be more approachable and more open to a normal conversation, which will inevitably lead to a real, long-term connection.

People do business with people they know, like, and trust. So every time you hold space for someone new you're meeting, and simply letting them be them, you're adding a potential referral to your database - all without the pressure of "needing to meet someone".

So there you have it - the secret to adding a whole new lead pipeline to your business without just good old-fashioned people skills.

Let us know your personality type!