DISC Profile & DISC Personality Test Blog

What Is The Best DISC Style For Sales Hiring?

2012-01-27T11:06:00.000-06:00

What Is The Best DISC Style For Hiring In Sales?

I am often asked what is the best DISC Style or DISC personality type for a sales person. Should we hire a high "D", "I", "S", "C" or a combined style like a "ID" or "DI"...? There is no single answer. No one DISC profile of the ideal sales person exists. It really depends on the type of business you are in, the type of selling that is required and/or desired in the job you are hiring for. Factors that come into play include, but are not limited to:

industry type
business type
type of sales interaction taking place:
- phone
- direct sales, in-person
- internet based
- cold calling
- warm calling
- new or existing accounts
- relationship selling
- hard sell
style of of sales program:

SPIN Selling
IMPACT Selling
Solution selling
etc....

Be Careful What You Wish For

It is common for clients to contact me and say they are hiring for sales and therefore they need to screen for a "DI" or "ID" because they want an individual that is motivated by results or the bottom-line (commission/money). This sales candidate should also be an independent self-starter and good with people. That sounds good on the surface (fits many sales people stereotypes) and will likely get you some good high performance sales people, but what is the downside of hiring the obvious? Well, this type of person may be driven by their bottom-line and not yours. They may not be a team player. They may not only be competitive against your competitors, but also completive towards other sales people within your organization. Remember what motivates them. If they are highly successful they are likely the same types of sales person that other sales organizations are looking for and are likely going to be pursued by head hunters and executive recruiters. DISC can help you understand if the candidate is predisposed to acting independently or whether they are more of a team player. It does not measure values, morals or loyalty.

Let's be honest. Each DISC pattern can sell and can do well in certain sales situations, just as they can be disastrous in other situations. There are many people, like myself that get turned off when they are feeling sold to. I don't want to play the game of someone asking me about the weather in Chicago or my about my family when they don't even know them (or me for that matter). I don't want to feel pressured by someone if I don't act before midnight tonight. I want my questions answered. I want information. I want a good deal. I don't trust the high "I" sales person or the high pressure "D". But those are my issues, however, if I am the buyer, it is my issues that matter.

All DISC Styles or Profiles Have Advantages and Disadvantages

Some examples of both the strengths and weaknesses of the various DISC personality types in the next one or two blogs entries, but here are some quick thoughts.

An "I" may be the kind of people person you think you want as a sales person, but they may not deal so well with rejection. They may take it personally.

A "D" may be great when it comes to staying focused and get to the bottom line, but who's bottom-line are they most interested in, the clients' or their own? They may understand that it takes 98 "no"'s to get to three or four "yes's". They may try and control the sales process which some clients may want (an "S"), but others may feel manipulated by the same behavior (a "D" client).

A "S" sales person my be intimidated by a "D" client and avoid soliciting such clients or come over wishy-washy to them. The "S" sales person may avoid asking for the sale and closing the deal. Yet if you are looking for a sincere and no pressure sales person this is your type.

A "C" can explain why this is a wonderful product and focus on benefits, but the "D" buyer does have time for all these details and may get frustrated. The "I" buyer is more interested in benefits and how it makes them feel, rather than the features and what is does.

Generalizing the DISC Sales Styles
If you want to do a quick generalization of the DISC selling styles we can say that: The "D" and "I" are more action oriented The "I" and "S" are more relationship oriented The "S" and "C" are more dependability oriented The "C" and "D" are more competency oriented With "D" putting more emphases on results "I" putting more emphases on enthusiasm "S" putting emphases on sincerity "C" focusing on quality So you might extrapolate from this that in individual who is comfortable in the "I" or "S" style my do well in Relationship Selling. And a "D" may do better cold calling and an "S" warm calling.

Generalizing the DISC Sales Styles

If you want to do a quick generalization of the DISC selling styles we can say that:

The "D" and "I" are more action oriented
The "I" and "S" are more relationship oriented
The "S" and "C" are more dependability oriented
The "C" and "D" are more competency oriented
With "D" putting more emphases on results
"I" putting more emphases on enthusiasm
"S" putting emphases on sincerity
"C" focusing on quality

So you might extrapolate from this that in individual who is comfortable in the "I" or "S" style my do well in Relationship Selling. And a "D" may do better cold calling and an "S" warm calling.

Again, What Is The Best Personality Type For Sales?

In my opinion the best personality or behavioral style or type has little to do with DISC. What I want in a sales person is:

Someone who is:
- Flexible
- Adaptive
- A good listener
Some who:

Knows how to ask the right questions at the right time
Can quickly determine a customer's/client's buying style and what they need to make a decision

It is less about cloning your best sales person. People are more complex than a four quadrant model.

My next entry will look at some DiSC model based Sales profiles and assessment from Inscape Publishing. But if you want to see them now go to: Everything DiSC Sales Profile and the older DiSC Classic 2 Plus Profile and pull up the sample reports.

--John C Goodman, MSOD, LCSW President/CEO Online DiSC Profile and Center for Internal Change, Inc. provider consultant and distributor of Inscape Publishing DiSC.

DISC Styles Of Famous People

2010-11-14T19:44:00.000-06:00

We are often asked for a list of the DISC personality styles of famous people. Below you will find some lists that I have come across over time.

The "D" DISC Personality Style or Dominance:

Donald Trump
David Letterman
Hilary Clinton
Robert DeNiro
Michael Jordan
Scarlett O'Hara
Jerry Seinfeld
Barbara Walters
General Patton
Margaret Thatcher
Tiger Woods
Jack Nicklaus (considered a "C" on one list)
Cher
Charles Barkley
Roseanne Arnold
John McEnroe
Sam Donaldson

The "I" DISC type or Influence:

Jay Leno
Bill Clinton
Andre Agassi
Tony Danza
Richard Prior
Will Smith
Robin Williams
Oprah Winfrey
Carol Burnette
Steve Martin
Lee Trevino
Peter Jacobson
Liza Minnelli
Dolly Parton

The "S" DISC style or Steadiness:

Charlie Brown
Barbara Bush
Jimmy Carter (he also has been considered a "C" on some lists)
Ted Danson
John Denver
Michael J Fox
Mother Teresa
Gandhi
Jimmy Stewart
Tom Kite
Mark O'Meara
Mr. Rogers

The "C" DISC personality type or Conscientiousness:

Tom Brokaw
Colombo
Kevin Costner
Bill Gates
Allen Greenspan
Diane Sawyer
Henry Kissinger
Albert Einstein
Jackie Kennedy Onassis
Vijay Singh
Ernie Els

Here is a list for some TV Shows and the charactors DISC personality type:

"Drew Carey Show" - Drew (S), Mimi (I), Mr. Wick (D), Lewis & Oswald (C)
"Frasier" - Frasier(I), Niles (C), Dad (D), Daphne (S)
"Seinfeld" - Jerry (D), Kramer (S), Elaine (I), George(C)
"I Love Lucy" - Ricky (D), Lucy (I), Ethel (S), Fred (C)

This list of some famous people and characters is not scientific, but rather observational and subject, so please take it for what it is worth. Learn more about DiSC and the DiSC Profile.

John C Goodman, MSOD, LCSW

The DiSC Profile For Career and Job Enhancement.

2010-10-20T22:22:00.002-05:00

DISContent Vs DiSC Contentment And Your Career

In this time of personal and economic stress and discontent for many, with high unemployment, economic uncertainty, corporations right-sizing, wrong-sizing and resizing it may be an ideal time to reevaluate or to just plain evaluation and survey where you are now and what is important to you. This blog is on incorporating the DISC model, more specifically the DiSC Classic 2.0 Profile, the DiSC Classic 2 Plus Profile or the Everything DiSC Workplace profile into a process of determining what is important to you in a job or career. This same exercise is equally powerful in determining what is important to you in a balanced life (life-balance using DiSC will be explored in a later entry). The following is an approach I have used with my private coaching and psychotherapy clients, as well as myself in the past.

Focus on what you want or need from a job. Take some time and make an inventory of where you are now, where you want to be and what is in between the two. Ask yourself some question. Note: This exercise will only be as useful as you let it be, so do this went and where you wont be bothered by external distractions.

Sit down somewhere quiet with a pad of paper, a computer or an audio recorder and prepare to brainstorm. Ask yourself the following question and others that may be relevant to you.

What is important to me? Make a quick list of what ever pops into your mind. Do not judge or edit them. Do not worry about grammar or spelling (The list below is for example purposes only. Do not limit yourself to these and replace the ones that don‘t fit).

Career
Job security
Freedom
Not being limited by others
Financial security
Family
Social relationships
Health
Status
Understanding what is going on and why
Having control over your future
Recognition
Being a part of a greater whole
Just being apart
Having tangibles
Cultivating intangibles
Making a difference in your life
Being the difference in your life.

2. Am I happy?

3. How would I know if I was happy?

4. What would make me happy?

4. What is keeping me for being happy?

5. What needs of mine are not being met.?

You may want to focus on one area like job or career and ask these questions.

What is important to me in a job?

Money?
Results?
Status?
Being part of a team?
Being creative?
Getting it right?
Understanding, details, or having things be right?
The bottom-line?
Social connection?
Loyalty…?Again these are just some examples.

How would I know I had the right job?
Is it important for me to have a job I love or is it just a means to an end?
What motivates me?
Do I get my needs met outside of my job in other areas?
What would my ideal job be?
What aspect of that job make it ideal?
Is it the job that is ideal or is it the things I do in that job, the title, the roles I get to play within that job or my behaviors within that job that are important to me?
What is the difference between “job” and “career”?
Is may job congruent with my career path? Does it need to be now?
How much do I identify myself with my job? If I loose my job or don’t have a job do I loose my identity and who I am?

The next step is to review the results of your DiSC profile. If you have not completed the DiSC Profile with the last six months and there has been major changes in your life during that time you may want to strongly consider taking the DiSC again or if you want more detailed feedback on you DiSC style and how it related to others and the workplace you will likely want to take the Everything DiSC Workplace Profile for deeper and greater insights (yes, we can change or behaviors and what is important to use over time, more in future postings).

Review your DiSC profile, I recommend the Everything DiSC Workplace Profile or the DiSC Classic 2 Plus version, as they provide greater insights and feedback, but the DiSC Classic 2.0 or DiSC Classic Profile paper version are fine. Use your DISC report not as a guide of who you are, but rather as a tool to stimulate additional thoughts and insights as to what is important to you in a job, what are your preferences in a job and what motivates you. Get a feel for what is important to you. Can theses motivators and characteristics be found in other job, careers, or parts of your life? Are they unique to a particular job or industry or can you find them in totally unrelated jobs and industries? Is it a particular job or title that is important to you or is it the roles and behaviors you take on within that job that is significant to you?

Review the jobs you have had in your past. Create two columns on a page. On one side list: What did I like about that job? On the other side list: What didn’t I like in that job? Review the list. Look past the obvious and search for patterns. Look for common threads, e.g. I liked helping people because it made me feel go or I felt great when I was responsible for my success and don‘t have to rely on others. I hated cold calling or cold sales because I didn’t like rejection. Or I got too stress out or anxious when a job requires me to do things I don’t believe in.

Now make the following columns: What do I want in a job? What do I need in a job (this is a list is non-negotiable)? What I don’t want in a job (non-negotiable).

For example, my first job out of college was as a men’s clothing sales person for a high end chain store. The most rewarding aspect was the when I helped people choose combinations of clothing, matching ties with shirts, shirts with suits and getting the immediate feedback of making a sale, satisfying a customer and having them return and ask for me the next time, plus I made a commission on it. Later in life I was a stockbroker and financial planner and would help people understand and meet their investment needs. I would make house calls and often functioned as a financial therapist, helping people plan their future and understand their risk tolerance, generating a financial assessment or retirement profile. When the brokerage business changed, after black Monday in 1987, my role was changed for being in the helping profession to being required to function as just a sales person. It took several years, but I finally realized that what was important to me was helping others. In the 1990’s I went back to school and got a masters degree in clinical social work, focusing on individual and family systems behavior (psychotherapy). Later I went back for another masters degree, this time in organizational development and behavior (focusing on systems behavior). Now I will occasionally see a private client, but spend most of my time consulting around Inscape Publishing products and helping clients understanding how they work and which assessments and training materials best meet their needs - again a helping profession. Do you see a pattern? It is not the job, industry, or position that really mattered to me, but rather the role of helps others.

Why is it so powerful to add the DiSC profile or DiSC assessment to this exercise? There are two immediate reasons that come to mind.

It reinforces what we have already discovered about ourselves.
It brings out blind spots about ourselves that we are not aware of, take for granted, or deem unimportant. For example an “S” DiSC style may discover that being a cooperative part of a team is important to her, but was never aware how important that piece of information it was and how in certain situation could be a benefit to her that might even differentiate here. She just assumed that anyone would be happier being part of a team. Or how about a “D” DiSC style in a sales profession may not realize how vital it is to their sense of self to work independently and get immediate feedback of their success through daily commission reports and he can’t figure out why he is unhappy when he has been moved to a straight salary sales position.

Think about the insights your DiSC assessment can offer you, after all it is base on your subjective answer to question about your preferred behavior within a situation or environment. Then go back to the questions above and refine your answers. See what you learn about what is important to you.

Why Does DiSC Have A Small "i"?

2010-07-12T10:31:00.004-05:00

Why Does DiSC Have A Small "i"?

One DiSC related question I get on a regular basis is; "Why is there a small "i" DiSC? Personality behavioral profiles, tests, assessments, surveys, etc... based on the DISC model have many different names and are published by many different companies. These four quadrant D.I.S.C. based products go by such names as the DiSC Classic disc profile, personal profile system, Everything DiSC, disc test, disc assessment, disc personality profile, disc report, and DISC survey and variations of these to mention only a few. DISC has been referred to as a test, profile, assessment, survey, report, inventory, behavioral assessment, personality test, an universal language and much, much more. As you can see at times it is spelled DISC, D.I.S.C., disc and probably the most common way "DiSC". It is this last version of the profile that has caused many questions and much debate over the years around why there is a small i used. Is it that influence is less significant or less important, than the Dominance of a "D", or the Steadiness or Stability of an "S" or the Consciousness, Cautiousness or Compliance of a "C"? Well, the truth of the matter is no, that is not the case. There is no deep dark research based reason for the small "i". And no certification, advanced training or secret handshake is required to be a keeper of the secret or the "i".

Here is the story as I was told it, of how the DISC got its "i".
Once upon a time, a long, long time ago (back in the '60's) before Inscape Publishing (the largest publisher of DISC based products and the only publisher of the DiSC profile) became Inscape Publishing, even before it was Carlson Learning Company; back when it was a company called Performax a funny thing happened. One day this small organization had placed an order for their original printing of the DISC Personal Profile System and when they got their assessment booklets back from the printer there was a typo. A small little typo. A typo the size of an "i". Yes, that is right, the printer did not capitalize the "I" in DISC. Now, since Inscape - Carlson Learning Company - Performax was capable of utilizing the best of behavioral styles, I am not speaking of the D, I, S, nor C, but rather the behavioral style of flexible/adaptive, they decided to keep the profiles and later trademark "DiSC" and make it their own . So that is how some versions of DISC got their small i. Now when you see the small i version of the DISC profile you know it either was published by Inscape Publishing, one of its ancestors, or it is in violation copyright and trademark laws.

So how can this be? How can so many different assessments and tools for personality and behavior types from multiple companies and publishers all claim to be the DISC? Well, William Marston, the originator of the DISC model never copyrighted or trademarked the acronym of his four primary personality behavioral types or temperament model, oops.

Bases on our research all the various models of DISC are based on Marstons 1928 work. Some have added to it, some have borrowed from it. So give Marston his credit and some actually by-pass Marston and give Jung credit for the DISC model (It is true based on our research that Marston was influence by Jung, as he was my many others in his field).

And so that is how the DiSC got its "i". However, since I have first hear this story I have also heard from a highly placed source that the small "i" was internally placed in the spelling of DiSC as a slight by one developer of the inital DISC assessment to another developer or researcher. The mystery goes on, but has nothing to do with the "I" or "i" style.

Please feel free to contact us with any feedback, questions, concerns or thoughts you may have on this topic.

John C Goodman, MSOD, LCSW, President-Center for Internal Change, Inc

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