Understanding People with Behavioral Styles

This morning, I demonstrated understanding people using behavioral styles to a BNI chapter using a big rig story.

Noah Smith, our family moving expert, had an emergency need for someone to drive a big rig across the country. Noah was out of drivers and so was asking a fellow BNI member, someone he trusted, to help him out. He would give them some instruction and a manual.

I asked 4 people, whose behavioral styles I identified, in the audience what they would need to help out Noah. Their answers:

The Examiner: “I would want to first know where is the gas pedal, the brake pedal. How is this different from a car? What are the different gauges that I need to know? I would read the manual.”

The Promoter: “Just give me the keys, I can’t wait to start it up and see how it goes!” [Looks at examiner] “I can’t believe you’d read the manual!”

The Nurturer: “I would want to know what the emergency is. Where are we going? Do we have a map? What are the stops along the way?”

The Go-Getter: “Give me the keys. I’ll figure it out.”

The lesson here is that if we know someone’s behavioral style, we will know how they want to be treated. Almost 75% of the people you meet in business and in life will use different words and have different basic priorities than you. If you don’t recognize the style of the people you meet, you could be leaving tons of money on the table in your sales, motivating referral connections, and building valuable business relationships.

By making people comfortable with you and communicating with ease means identifying and understanding their style so that you can treat them the way they want to be treated.