131: Using Personality Types In Sales With Drew D'Agostino

Thank you to our sponsors, LeadIQ, Costello, SalesLoft, WorkRamp, and Dialpad for helping us produce this podcast. Head over to jbarrows.com slash blog for the highlights of this episode and explore resources you can use right away. Let's make it happen. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows. Make it happen Monday. Hopefully you all had a fantastic weekend. I definitely did. It was Thanksgiving last week. Spent some time with the family, some downtime. But now ready to get back after it here and close out the year strong. And I am super excited today for our guest because I actually had to proactively reach out to this gentleman because I was freaked out so much about what his technology was doing and how much it knew about me.

And I honestly thought he talked to some of my friends to figure out the type of personality I was. Now I use this tool all the time and we're going to talk about some of the insights and he has because I think they're absolutely fascinating. Drew from Crystal Nose. How's it going, my friend? Hey, John. Great. How are you? I am fantastic. So, Drew, you're CEO. You came up with Crystal Nose. Talk to me a little bit about... So, first of all, what is Crystal Nose? And second of all, how in the world did you come up with this? And then let's get into some tactics on how to use it. Sure. So, Crystal is an app that tells you anyone's personality. And there's a lot of salespeople that use that for learning how to communicate with their prospects and customers better.

But then there's a lot of people that are outside of sales as well. So, in management and leadership roles, recruiting, things like that. So, Crystal uses information that people have written, whether that's online and social media profiles or in emails or resumes. It analyzes it and predicts what that person would get in a personality test, like DISC or Myers-Briggs. And so, like, how the hell does that work? Because the way you write, I guess, tells a lot about you, about the type of personality. I mean, I know there's neurolinguistic programming stuff here, and there's different types of personalities as visuals, auditories, and kinesthetics. And I kind of fundamentally understand the DISC profiles and how different people...

But how does your writing tell me about you? That's a really good question. So, really, you can break it up into two things. So, there's how you write, so you're writing style, and then what you write. So, what would be included in your resume or different things listed on a LinkedIn profile, for example. And what Crystal's doing, it's using a few different machine learning techniques. And I won't get to the nitty-gritty there, but we have a large set of assessment data from our free platform. A lot of people just take personality tests in Crystal for free. And what we do is we compare those validated results. So, this person is definitely this personality type. And those are all matched with, you know, writing samples.

So, we know, for example, on the DISC, what a DI... We know the trends of how that person would normally write. Because the DI is going to use different phrases and different words than somebody who's, say, an SC on the DISC. And we can do that across any personality model with any kind of data, as long as we just have enough text samples. So, that's what we've built over time with Crystal. It's this big assessment platform to build training data to allow us to then just predict personality. I mean, and that's what caught me. Like, I think it was, what, shit, three years ago at this point that we met, right? Because, yeah, and I remember vividly, like, I don't know how I even got introduced to you guys.

But I went on, and I didn't take the test. I didn't take the DISC test. I didn't take a Myers-Briggs or anything like that. I clicked that little button on your website, and it came up with my profile. And I'm like, are you shitting me right now? Like, it got as specific as, this person doesn't like to wait in lines. You know what I mean? Like, he'll interrupt you mid-sentence, those type of things. I'm like, how in the world? So, that's why I kind of had to reach out to me. Like, again, how did you know this about me? But it sounds like, I mean, but it is pretty damn accurate. But why is it important? So, let's, like, I know, you know, one of the main drivers when we talked was internal HR functionality here of helping managers and reps work more effectively together.

Because if you understand the different personalities, you can kind of understand how to work with people more directly internally, right? But let's talk about from a sales standpoint. Like, why does it matter for me, outside of my product knowledge, outside of my personality, and those type of things? Like, if I'm prospecting or selling to Drew right now, why does it matter of my approach and my personality compared to yours? It's been my own personal adventure since I started Crystal. Because we didn't really start the company with this idea to be a sales tool. It wasn't, that was not the intention. The intention was, hey, we're looking at the world through this lens of personality. So, going in with that kind of core belief that looking at the world through a lens of empathy leads to better outcomes than looking at it just through your own scope.

So, if you buy into that, then the entire other conversation opens up. But you need to believe that core belief that instead of just always looking at things in the way that, you know, from your own perspective, that it is better to look at the world through other people's perspectives. And you'll be a better, you know, you'll have better outcomes from your conversations. I love that. So, that's kind of the core belief there. Everything's built on that. So, if you buy into that, then what Crystal's doing is most of the time giving you an accurate perspective of how they view things like communication and motivation. Sometimes it's not right because we are using machine learning. So, it's, you know, about, correct about technically 83% of the time.

But, 83% is a lot better than random. I was going to say, it's a lot better than zero. Yeah. I'll take it. So, it's built on that core belief. And as people go through it, and especially as sales reps and people who are doing a lot of cold outreach use it over time, you learn that this is an entirely, it's just, it's building confidence in your personal communication. So, there's a lot of layers to it, but yeah. And I think that was kind of, for me, like, I always knew that I was a little different as far as, like, you know, I didn't have the same style as everybody else, obviously. You know, being from Boston, you know, I'm kind of in your face and that type of stuff. But I always figured, hey, that's me, right?

I think one of the things that when I read the book, Selling with NLP, The Unfair Advantage, and started to identify the visual auditory kinesthetics, and then took my disc profile, that recognition of, to your point of being, putting yourself in somebody else's shoes and realizing that, oh, there's actually fundamental differences, not just because I'm from Boston and you're from Tennessee, but there are fundamental differences with the way I like to be communicated with. And if I'm not taking that into account, no matter what my message is, if I'm not delivering it the right way, you're not going to hear it. And is that kind of the crux of this, is that you've got to shift, once you understand product knowledge and all those other things, I mean, where are you on that to make the connection to somebody?

How important is it to connect with them genuinely from a personality and rapport standpoint versus the content that you're bringing to the table to solve their problems? Like, where are you on that line of what's more important, what's less important? How do you mix the two? Yeah, I think it obviously varies by industry, because there's going to be industries that are more transactional, where, you know, it's not as important how you're approaching a sales process. So, I would say just from, we've been doing Crystal for about five years, and almost that entire time we've been dealing primarily in this, like, sales and marketing world. It seems like the people who get the most value from Crystal, who I would call, like, our top 25% of users who are just year after year renewing and using it a lot in their daily communications, they tend to be from industries and companies that are really high touch and long sales cycle.

So, think about big, complex sales, where they're doing a lot of preparation for every meeting, whether that's a big agency trying to put together a pitch for their account team, or selling, you know, some enterprise software, going into more highly regulated environments. Like, whenever there's a lot of planning and research put into how you're approaching a meeting, that's where they seem to be getting the most value from personality data. Because you can actually put together a really nice report and brief everybody so that you, you know, instead of, I kind of refer to it with cooking analogies a lot, you know, you're, you can just throw as much as you want in a stew and maybe it comes out good, maybe not.

But if you at least know the ingredients and you know how they work together, then everyone's speaking the same language, you know, that if you turn this up, it's going to do this. If you, you know, maybe you need a little bit more, you know, for example, maybe you need a little bit more of a detailed person here because things are going to get out of hand, you know, that kind of thing. So it's, um, yeah, it's, it's not like a black and white question. It's more about understanding the, like the ingredients of a meeting or a client relationship and being able to tweak it. So let's talk about that. Cause like if, if I'm on one-on-one, right. So if I, if I, I can, as I think an experienced rep or at least an experienced rep should be able to take a little bit, even without any tools or any assessments or anything like that, I should be able to kind of adjust one-on-one and be like, okay, Drew's, he, he wants to, uh, he's a little bit more of a rapport guy.

So I got to introduce my, you know, Hey, how the kids and how's Thanksgiving, you know, that type of stuff versus John. He's more of a get to the fucking point guy. So I'm just going to go straight after him because the way that John has interacted with me in the past is pretty evident that he doesn't have a lot of time to screw around. Right. So I get it on a one-on-one, how do reps deal with, and I think this is one of the most challenging things that a lot of reps deal with when you're dealing with a presentation or a meeting and there's five, six, seven people in the room. Right. What do you do to like, cause to me, I'm worried about just my presentation, the questions I'm asking and those types of things.

But obviously when I'm in there, I need to figure out a way to connect with almost every person in there. So how do you forget about a tool for a second? Like what were some of the things that you, that, that you could suggest reps do to read the room and understand how to adjust? Or is it, do you just make sure you're hitting all the, all the different types? Do you bring something for everybody? Do you focus on the decision maker? Like what's your kind of tips on how to address the personality component of a diverse crowd? There's like a few really specific things that I've gotten over the last few years, just on my own. Cause I had, I have to do a lot of sales meetings myself or meetings with groups.

Um, and I'm a person who's, I kind of err on the side of introvert. So I'm not a natural, you know, charismatic in front of groups type of guy. Um, the, the biggest impact thing had nothing to do with personality. And it actually, I forget, I got this from some book. I wish I could cite it, but it was that a, a conversation in front of a group is actually not, you're not speaking to multiple people. You're actually just speaking to one person and you have an audience. Um, and looking at, looking at it through that lens changed my career and my life. I, even though like parties, you know, if you're at a dinner, if you're on a dinner, recognizing that at any given moment, if you're the one speaking in a group, you're not addressing the group.

You, if you are addressing one person with knowing that everybody else is hearing you and you can switch who that person is. Um, that's changed my public speaking, changed how I approached dinner parties. It's changed, you know, a salesman. Um, and it really is fundamentally different. And then when you go into it with that perspective, all of a sudden the one-on-one communication stuff really actually comes in handy in front of groups because you can adjust. And, um, if, for example, you know, in crystal and I mean, uh, not gonna get into the details of disc, but you can learn a lot about it on our site. If somebody is, um, more on the, the C personality type and then in a position of authority, it doesn't matter how many enthusiastic people on their team there are, you know, who are getting all really emotional and excited about something.

If this doesn't make sense at a really brutal logical level, it's not happening. Um, if you know that going into it, you can then kind of trust that if this is worth it, you're the people who are enthusiastic, they're going to, they're going to sing your praises. They're going to be champions, but you can really focus your, your meeting on the details on, you know, the logical reasons of why this works and be talking directly to that decision maker, um, as opposed to getting caught up in maybe a lot of the more fun, brainstorming type of discussions that might be happening in the periphery. Um, if you know that that's the person that's the decision maker and they are someone who's going to need to make sure the numbers work, um, you can really focus, really focus on that and speak their language.

Um, so it's having that kind of information. Is that what you do going into it? It's like you, you take a lay of the land and you either work with your quote unquote champion to say, okay, who's the person do I need to focus on coming up on this next meeting? Or do you pretty much just like say, okay, ultimately I know this has got to go through the CFO to get the real approval for this. So I'm going to kind of focus my, my presentation on the CFO. So I'm talking to them directly, understanding that everybody else is in the room and I have to make connections with them. But if I know that I'm going to, I'm going to present, I'm going to develop my presentation more geared toward that person.

Yeah. So the, this is where using it over time and even just knowing a framework like this in the theory of it really helps to make decisions on the fly. Um, it's going to be different depending on the sales reps personality too. If I, so me as somebody who's an eye, who I'm not really going to have problems pitching the vision for it. And you know, it's, it's, it's very easy for me to tell a story, um, and create a great visual to get people excited behind the, the idea of this. Um, but it's not natural for me to speak to that executive who I was describing who might be far more interested in, all right, what are the implementation processes on this? You know, how long is this going to take?

What am I going to need to replace? What problems could it cause? What potential risks are there? That's not my natural language. So, um, me as a sales rep going into that, I would focus a lot more on just basically doing my homework for this decision maker. I knew, um, someone who was more naturally inclined there, they might need to do their homework in a different way. They might need to ask for help to figure out how to paint a picture and pitch an idea, you know, get people behind an idea. So it really depends on the rep in that situation. But to get, to answer your question, I would say like understanding who the most different on two axes, understanding who is the most different person from you in the meeting who has the most authority.

And that would be the, you know, the one to focus on in terms of how you're approaching and pitching. And do you focus more on, cause again, some people like stories, some people like brainstorm, some people like data, some people like facts, right? Um, if you have identified, say there's, we're going into a meeting with five people, I have somebody who is the decision maker and they're pretty factual oriented. You know, I can kind of see that they're very direct and to the point and they, they don't want to hear the fluffy stuff. Is there something I can do even before the meeting to put them in a better position to be, to, to open up? Like, is there prep stuff that you send to specific people that you wouldn't send to others to make sure that they're in the right frame of mind?

Um, and they're, they're actually walking in looking forward to it as opposed to, cause I think that part of the problem with most meetings is a lot of people walk in with their arms crossed and it's like, all right, rep, what do you got? And you have to kind of work through that, that rapport and connecting with them people before they'll even open up to really listen to you. So have, have you ever found anything that based on personality types that you can do even before the meeting starts to put yourself in a better position outside of the research and that type of stuff? And I'm talking about like sending something or anything like that. Oh yeah, totally. So, um, there's actually, uh, I'll give you a, like more of like a trick for each type.

Yeah. Not a trick, but, um, so if you start with the, the disc, so the disc, you go D I S and C. Yeah. Could you, could you name what each one of those are just for people listening? So for, for the D's, these are people who are more dominant, assertive, you know, type of person who's going to challenge you directly and interrupt, you know, the, you know, the type of type, it's a lot of them, it's a lot of them B2B. It's right. Yeah. Um, you, there is probably nothing I found that engages them more than, than conflict. Um, you know, whereas most of us shy away from conflict. Yep. If you go head on into a meeting and you didn't actually initiate, not, not crazy conflict, not like, you know what I mean?

Like respectful, but interesting conflict snaps them into it right away. Sorry. If you start the meeting off by pointing out, not being like, again, not being like rude, but pointing out an issue that they might disagree with or that they, uh, that there's a, there's a problem that you were kind of unsurfacing and dragging out into the light immediately. Like if they see something wrong or that there's a conflict about like right there in the room, they can't help, but jump into it. So, um, if you realize you're dealing with a room full of these or a decision maker, who's a D that's a great way. It's figure out where that line is right behind rude, you know? Um, so for the sets of the Ds for, and there's lots of other things, that's one thing I'm really helpful, um, for eyes, these are the types that are very, uh, you know, outgoing.

They're going to be joking. We're going to be telling stories. We're probably going to talk, have small talk for like 15 minutes beforehand. Um, and everyone else can be like, all right, that's a good point. Yeah. Um, so you, uh, you probably know many of these types in the sales world as well. Yeah. Um, one thing that is really helpful is not even in how you're communicating, but before the meeting, recognizing that those people often, they see meetings as an opportunity to perform and not really necessarily learn as much. These are other types, but eyes, eyes love to perform. They love to look good in front of others. So if you can give them the opportunity to perform, especially perform in front of their boss, um, that's really good.

That can, that can look in the, that can be very different depending on the situation. That might mean giving them a visual or giving them the opportunity to participate in like whatever material you're creating for the meeting. Like, let's say you've got a slide text put together. If you go to that, that I personality and say, Hey, can I have your input here? So I can put your picture on the deck with a quote or with some, you know, get them involved in it and get them recognition. The more recognition, like these people. And I know, cause I'm one of these types, oftentimes social capital is at a gut level, more valuable than actual money. Um, so if you can deal with them in social capital, you'll, you're, um, kind of golden there, plus the eyes, um, the S's, these are the types who are, it's for steadiness and, uh, generally going to be planners, um, wanting to put the, wanting to keep everything smooth and harmonious, very relational, but also tend to not be, you know, super outgoing.

They're, they're going to want to observe, react, um, stay very consistent. And our people, these are, these are the types who keep things running smoothly. Um, when the eyes and the D's are trying to mess up everything, um, and Chan, and these are, it's actually just by the data that we have in our system, it's actually a quiet majority. Um, so you might know a lot more of the personalities are from the D's and the eyes, but just because they're out there more, but they're actually by the numbers, usually more S's in the room. Um, so it's important to know this because if you're a D or an I, they're not going to speak up if they disagree with you, unless you ask, um, so going into a meeting, one of the best things you can do is to use two things to prepare.

One is a, uh, an agenda. Yep. I'll set their expectations, um, so that they know here's coming next is what's coming next. This is what's coming next. And they can have, feel comfortable in that. And then also give them permission to ask questions or, or give them permission to challenge you at every step. Um, and not one of these kind of like, does that make sense? Everyone says that after nobody, nobody ever says that doesn't make sense. It's like, you know, does that, does this make sense? No, like give them actual permission. Like if you, let's say, uh, let's say Steve is in your audience, you've gone over a deck that kind of applies to his department. Say like, Hey Steve, how does this relate to X?

You know, instead of, all right, does this make sense to everyone? You know, um, I tell people all the time, all the time that does that make sense? I used to say that all the time. Well, nine times out of 10 out of what I realized was, does that make sense? I was asking myself that question because I knew I just rambled on for like 10 to 15 minutes and I'd pause and be like, does that make sense? I'd be like, fuck. Cause I don't think it did, but you nod in your head makes me feel great about it. But yeah, I think, uh, you know, kind of a best practice that I tend to do is when I'm starting a presentation and I don't, I haven't applied this to, I need to apply this to the person, the personalities, but I just do it in general.

I'll say, Hey, look, you know, say it's a 30 minute demo. Uh, I'll say, Hey, look, I'm going to agenda wise. I'm going to spend the first 10 minutes here just kind of reaffirming what your priorities are, what you want to get out of this, whatever. And then as I go through this presentation, I'm going to pause at certain points and I'm just going to look for your feedback. Right? So I'll, so I'll let them know against expectation setting about what's, what's going to happen. And then I'll go through it and then kind of cut through the crap and then hit on the priorities and say, Hey, you know what, Drew, you had said earlier that this was a priority from yours. Could you explain to me, like, this is the component of our solution that really aligns with that.

Could you explain to me how you see that fitting into your existing workflow? Or could you, could you give me an example of how that compares to what you're doing now? Right. And, and forcing the conversation as opposed to the, does that make sense? Which nobody ever says no to, right? Yep. Going with the agenda real quick though. Is there a certain, cause I kind of across the board just say, Hey, standard best practice is have an agenda for every meeting, you know, let people know what they're about to get. And it doesn't have to be detailed. Like you don't want to put a 57 point agenda in there cause that scares people away, but like two or three points and then leave two or three points blank to say, what do you want to follow up in?

Is there a certain persona that that actually does not work with? Like that actually says, Oh shit. Now I'm about to get into a meeting where this rep's going to drag me through this process that I don't want to go through. Yeah. The eyes you got. Okay. Um, so if you're, if, if you, if you're overwhelmed with eyes or if there's too, if there's a lot of eyes in the meeting, um, best way to get them bored early on is send them a big detailed agenda. Cause what that means is that they have no freedom to run and that's what I want to do. They want to run with ideas. Um, but how do you control that conversation then? So say I got, say I got three or four eyes in the room and a whiteboard and everybody's all up there.

Like the danger that I think that most sales reps fall into in that scenario is fuck, how do I control this? You know what I mean? Like I got a bunch of people who want to hear themselves talk, um, without an agenda or at least some guidelines here. I mean, I got to be a pretty damn good sales rep to, to herd those cats there. So, so what do you do if you got a bunch of eyes and how do you control the meeting? Well, there's a difference between having an agenda, sending that beforehand and being able to pin them down to an action, you know? So, um, no question. Yeah. You can't just let the meeting run chaotic. Yeah. Um, but the reality is if you're trying to stick to an agenda and, and with a group full of those types, it's just not going to work anyway.

And it's, it's going to throw you off and you're going to be trying to group them into something. And, um, I think just recognizing that before the meeting is just a big difference. It's just a big difference between like, Hey, you guys have to follow these rules and follow this procedure. Cause what you're doing is you're kind of losing them beforehand and you're kind of in this uphill battle of being interesting again. Cause remember what they want to do is they, they want to be, you know, stimulated and they want, they want something that's exciting them and new. Um, so you're, you're selling your product guests, but you're also selling your idea. Yeah. Um, so I would, I mean, everyone's got all their own.

I don't know if I've got a really great insight for how to do that and how to pin down a meeting like that, but I would just keep in mind that there's a difference between setting an agenda and then setting next act, you know, actions. You might have to really go into that D mode and say, all right, no, we're not leaving. We're not here until we have a definite next step. Um, okay. What do you think about, so sidebar on this, but it's related. What do you think about, uh, like, like upfront contracts, right? Like Sandler, Sandler trains the upfront contract. Hey, Drew, if this meeting goes well today and we check off all these boxes, would you feel comfortable introducing me to your boss or, you know, taking the next step with me?

Right. And I, and I just cheesed that out. Right. Um, but, but you can use the upfront agenda pretty, you know, if you smooth it out and make it normal, it's a, it's an effective tool, right? I mean, Gong came out with the data that said the best sales reps out there do upfront agendas like, Oh yeah. So, so I guess, how do you, how do you, is that a way to potentially, instead of like an actual agenda, you use kind of a little bit of a looser upfront contract to say, all right, guys, look, I like, I know we're here to talk about this today. All right. And I, and I really want to encourage as much dialogue here as possible. You know, the goal though, is to, is to figure out where your main pain points are.

And then I'll share with you how our solution really aligns with that. And if I can do that, would you guys feel, you know, what are the next steps from here? Like, is that a way to somewhat control the conversation at least in that scenario? Yeah. I mean, I would trust Sandler in that too. I mean, they're, they're using it with success as well. Um, yeah, I think an upfront, uh, upfront contracts different than an agenda that really gives you, when we're talking about this and we're really focusing on these eyes, um, who we're selling to, it's not, they, they generally don't have a problem with action. Actually that they tend to be, you know, if you're talking to big five, they tend to be just very high in openness, um, which it makes them kind of out of hand that can just be impulsive.

So these are not people who have problems taking actions. Right. Um, so specifying what that action is upfront could probably be really helpful. Um, when I'm talking about agenda, I'm saying like for these 10 minutes, we're going to be covering these details for these 10 minutes. We're going to be doing this. You know, that's, that's what I mean. Yeah. Does anybody like that? Like, oh yeah. Talk to my business partner. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, I guess that detail there, there is a certain group that likes that level. I like just a loose agenda. Like, why are we here? What are we here to talk about? What's the general flow of this conversation? And what's, what are we trying to, what, what's the ultimate outcome we're trying to get here?

Cause I can't tell you how many meetings I've been in and like 15 minutes into the meeting, I'm like, why the fuck am I here? Like, I don't even know why I'm here and what value I bring to this equation. Whereas if I had a slight little agenda, I'd walk in going, oh, okay, here's where we go. And here's where I'm going to be able to talk about my issue or problem or whatever it is. So yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right. So we went over DIS. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The C's. Yeah. This is tricky because it can be tempting to speak to the C's. What does C stand for again? So the C's are conscientiousness. So these are people, and actually on the big five traits tend to be really high in conscientiousness, also tend to be low in openness.

Okay. So, and it also tend to be low in agreeableness. So that means that, um, they're going to be thinking very logically and it can be tempting to speak to those people as you would to a D who's going to, you know, remember the D's are the very assertive. You're going to be wanting to write to the point. Just give me what matters. But that's actually not what you're selling to a C. Um, a C is going to be concerned about the details at hand, certainly. But the more important thing is demonstrating your expertise because what they're actually looking for. And you'll, you'll notice that these are the people that ask a lot of questions, questions that might not even be necessarily directly related to the thing you're talking about right now.

Um, often what they're doing is they're, they're trying to understand where you are in your entire base of knowledge. Um, so it's, it's a little bit more of a, of a sparring match, you know, think about this as a little bit like a, um, a debate even. Um, so you're not just trying to answer the question there while you're trying, you're actually trying to prove your expertise and skill, which requires a lot of homework sometimes, um, but when you're speaking to a C, it might take longer and you might need to go into more details and seemingly sometimes unnecessary details. Um, but when you're speaking to them, you're trying to build, you're trying to make them comfortable with your own level of expertise.

And if you actually feel like an imposter, that might be an indication that like, Oh, I actually got to do a little more homework. Um, so yeah, that's what you're trying to, that's what you're trying to show demonstrate. It's funny you bring it up. So I, uh, so I, I worked for Jack and Susie Welsh, right. With their online MBA program and Jack Welsh, I mean, talk about two people who are polar opposites as far as their approach, right? Like Jack is a high D and he's like, you know, basically, and it was me and him just shooting the shit about like, you know, whatever, like getting right, like talking about stuff, whatever. I got in front of Susie and she started asking me about my family, my background and the, and like her questions were so pointed.

I was actually intimidated because I like within 10 minutes, I figured out I was sitting across from one of the smartest women I've ever, I've ever even been in the vicinity, forget about women, uh, one of the most, one of the smartest individuals I had ever sat across in my life. And I, and I, I started feeling like uncomfortable because she started asking me very deep and I'm like, Holy shit. Okay. She's digging to see how full of shit I am right now. And I was like, all right, all right. And I, and I, at a certain point, I just kind of waved the white flag. I'm like, Susie, I just, I'm, I'm sorry. That's not, that's out of my expertise level here. I'm like, that's just not, you know, right.

And, and we, we, we bonded in a different way, but the, the difference between Jack and Susie was so stark that I, and I didn't do my prep work. I mean, I read her stuff. I read, you know, I read her book and those types of things, but I was not prepared for her, her, her line of questioning and, and how intimidated I was with her level of knowledge period about everything, by the way. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense too, because, um, you can, you can predict relation, not relational chemistry in all ways, but at least communicative chemistry. So we did a study on this and, um, found that, and based on the disc theory as well. So these are all generalizations, but D's and C's, they actually tend to gravitate towards each other.

Okay. Um, both in work and relationships and it's because, I mean, it makes logical sense. They're on one side of the disc, which means they speak the same language, very factual. Gotcha. Um, more detached, less emotional, but they actually are opposite in how they view the world. Um, so D's picture of the world as a place to go act, do things, push trial and error. Yeah. Meanwhile, C's tend to react and they want to stabilize and bring, you know, bring things together and organize. So that actually works very well because you can't have two people who are both pushing, you know? Um, but speaking the same language and then same as the opposite side with eyes and S's speaking that same emotional, relational, warm language, but one person is the one who's generally the, the pusher of action and the other is the stabilizer.

Um, so that, that tends to work hand in hand. Interesting. So I know with like neuro-linguistic, neuro-linguistic programming and stuff, it says that, that at least the study back in the day, whatever, it talks about how it doesn't matter what profession, it doesn't matter who, you know, that, that the world is kind of a third, a third, a third of us are visual, a third of us are auditory, a third of us are kinesthetic. I want to challenge that to a certain degree and ask you, do you find that there are certain professions that lean more towards one than the other from a disc standpoint, right? So like accountants versus sales reps, do you find that like accountants are more on the C side of the house where sales reps are more on the D side of the house?

Is there any generalities? Cause what I'm trying to do is find those hacks, right? To say, Hey, look, if I'm going to talk to a, like without any tools or without any knowledge or, you know, go and get certified in anything. I'm going to go meet with an accountant who's an exec, like a CFO on average, CFOs are this type of people. So I need to be prepared for this versus I'm going to meet with a VP of sales. So I should probably angle myself that way. Are there generalities that you've seen in personality types based on title and role in industries? Yeah. There are certainly trends. So we actually have a lot of these published. So I'm going to give you an example. If you look up on Google, I'm just going to look this up now, see if I can find one.

We've actually, we've published profiles that are just aggregates of everybody with this job title. Okay. So for example, if you find, um, let's see if I've got a good one, software developer, I think there are, there are trends certainly, but they're not super strong. Okay. There are some that are stronger than others. Um, a few that I just know offhand are certainly in the software engineering and software development world. You're going to have a lot of C's. You would expect that. Yep. Um, interestingly, the second highest is I though, and you wouldn't think that necessarily because that's more creative type. Um, but just, that's just how the numbers go. You tend to, you tend to be either one of those, um, in sales, there is a overwhelming majority of people who are higher on the both D and I.

So just think about the top of the disc and the low end. But interestingly, just anecdotally from talking to, cause this was an interesting trend because we talked to a lot of salespeople, sales leaders are very curious. It's about this for hiring. It turns out that when I would ask, um, sales leaders about their sales teams, and again, this is just anecdotal. I haven't done, uh, like surveys on this. They often say that I asked them about the top rep and it's usually an S. Um, most people are D's and I's in their team, but it's usually an S is the top rep. And it's my own theory that I just think because there are so few, it's actually the, the skills associated with being an S, you know, the steadiness.

Consistency, constantly following up, caring about relationships, knowing who knows who, um, all that stuff that makes really important for where sales is going. And I think, and you're also dealing in a, in a less competitive field because everybody's trying to be the most charismatic or the most driving and the most assertive in the room. Um, so that's just my theory, but that's another interesting insight. It's like, you see these trends, but it also creates opportunities if you're not that personality type. That, cause that, that speaks. I was just having this conversation with a client before we jumped on this podcast. I was, I was saying, you know, and, and everybody's going to hate me for doing it.

Um, but I'm going to bring up the Bill Belichick, uh, and, and the New England Patriots, even though we got smoked yesterday. Um, but there, his whole mantra is do your job, right? And just do it consistently and do it well. And I think that's the same thing in sales. It's like, if you do the basics well, right. And consistently you set agendas for meetings, you, you know, structure the way you take your notes. So you, you send summary emails afterwards. You, you know what I mean? You just, you just follow up for sake. You know what I mean? Like, I can't tell you how many opportunities are just sit there in people's pipelines because they just straight up didn't follow up with the person or send an email afterwards and say, thank you or something like that.

So the people that do that consistently are the ones that I also see consistently are the ones, they might not be the one that murders the quarter that quarter, but the person who murders the quarter that quarter is usually not the one who's going to murder at the next quarter and the next quarter and the next quarter. I'd rather have the kid that's going to be consistently at or slightly above their quota on a regular basis and maybe not blow it out of the water. But those I'm guaranteeing are the S's who are consistently hitting their numbers, right? Because it's about doing the basics. Yeah, I get that makes sense to me. I like that. When you look at this, when you look at the data and aggregate, there's a lot of interesting stuff we've been doing all like any people are getting really into the Enneagram.

It's a little bit, it's definitely less scientific. It's another personality Enneagram. I've never heard of that one. It's less, less scientifically validated, but more popular personality. Okay. And we see, and it's, it's like these nine types. And basically you're, you see these trends that you just wouldn't really expect. And that's the cool stuff. When you can look at this data in aggregate, you know, you, we have these assumptions about what a great sales rep is, or we have what a great leader is or a great entrepreneur. And usually the data like backs that up in like the absolute numbers, you know, in what you'd think would gravitate towards it. But with that, I would, the opposite, like the opposite personalities, it creates these really interesting advantages that they have.

Like for example, entrepreneurs tend to be really strong D's as well, which creates very strong opportunities for the C and S entrepreneurs, because when you're, let's say you're raising capital or something, you're going to get details right that the D's and I simply won't. So there's, there's a lot of these little, little things, nuances that come in. That's really interesting to study. It's funny. Like, so you could, do you watch Shark Tank? Yeah. So Shark Tank, like, I bet you, you could even pick out the, the, the, the disc of whoever stands up there because there are people that straight up know their numbers. You know what I mean? What's the cost of goods sold? What's this? What's that?

And they're just rattling them off. Yep. This is exactly, they might not be the most charismatic person, but they are just like stone cold. I know exactly what my numbers are. I know what my opportunity is. And they're usually the ones that come in with a valuation of like, uh, I'll give you like 11.5% of my business for $338,295, right? Because they know exactly how much there should be valued at based on a realistic thing. Right? Yeah. And those are the ones that almost always get the funding because the, the sharks are looking at, it's kind of like you, to your point, they're testing, you know, they're testing, like how much knowledge do you have? All right. I think that was the C's. Right.

Um, and if, you know, you keep asking those questions, you keep answering them, you got good answers. Sharks will, sharks will invest. So I, I find Shark Tank to be a fascinating, just like little microcosm of negotiations and personas and preparation and everything else just to see who does it right and who does it wrong. I know it's a little glorified. Oh yeah, no, totally. And you, and then you realize cause the sharks, I mean, so we also have a personality. He's a famous people published on crystal. So you'll notice if you look up the sharks and crystal, they're almost nice. These are, um, so what that does is you notice I, cause I particularly look at shark tank with this lens. Yeah. When people try to go in with guns blazing, you know, being this strong D it just never works.

They ended up, it just blows up. But when people go, especially when these like S types go in with their true selves, I get this, I think to this one guy who had, he was like an orange, he had like an orange, he made our, what is it called? A grove, grove, orange grove in Florida. And he had this little device for watering the oranges. Oh, like the one that went over the, the, yeah. Oh, I like almost cried on that one. That one was bananas. This total S guy who was not trying to impress them or come at them or become, you know, confrontational at all. He was just sharing his story, being super relational, friendly, and they ate it up. Absolutely. You know? Well, and he even pushed back. I remember he even pushed back because I think, uh, Mr.

Wonderful even said, so why do you charge only $2? You could charge $5. If you're going to save people that much money, you should charge five, 10, $15. He's like, cause they're farmers and I don't want to charge him that. And everybody was like, you know, holy shit. Like you are the nicest, most, you know, like they want, they were like throwing money at him just cause they felt like there's literally one of the nicest people they've ever come across in their lives and the most genuine person they've ever come across in their lives. So I guess that, but that leads to me, you said earlier that a high D, right? Conflict. Now there's a fine line you said between conflict and, and, you know, I always talk about the line between being rude versus direct, right?

I, I, I try to be as direct as possible without being rude. I cross over that line every once in a while, whatever. But how do you, conflict is an interesting thing, right? Because I like conflict. I like art quote unquote, arguing things out with a purpose, but I don't like arguing just to argue. So, so how do you, how do you thread that needle? If you will, with being like, geez, to your point with, let's talk about, uh, you know, um, uh, shark tank, somebody comes in guns a blazing, right? And they're like, you guys, you know, don't know what you're talking about. And it pisses all of them off and it turns one of them sideways. And then the whole thing goes south. So I guess how do you, how would you suggest like somebody like me, right?

Like you're coming in to sell to somebody like me. Say you're trying to sell crystal nose to me. I'm a VP of sales. You know who I am pretty much. You know, I'm a pretty high D, you know, I like getting shit done. I don't like, you know, fluffing it up with any crap. Like, all right, Drew, what do you got here? Like, what would be an approach that you would use to me to, to, in, in, to, to drive conflict without pissing me off and getting, and losing the meeting? I want to be a little more specific about what I mean by conflict. So I'm not necessarily meaning conflict with the person you're speaking to. That, that, that, that's not what I mean. So going guns, blading in a shark tank, when you're facing, when looking at a D as a face off, that is not productive.

That's, so that's not what I meant by conflict. What I mean by conflict is if there's a, like picture, um, I think you're on like a, like a playground and, uh, there's a lot of kids hanging around. If there's a D walking on that playground and there's a fight going on somewhere, or there's something happening, they want to go check it out. And they want that, that is what, that is what grabs their interest. So if there is a, it's more about creating a conflict that is not necessarily me and you, but a conflict about, you know, your company versus another company, how are we going to get into this or this product versus this one, or, you know, it's, it's setting, I don't know if competition is the right word.

Um, but it's, it's creating a conflict, not, not directly addressing the person saying like, I want to have a conflict with John cause I'm selling to John. Um, it's more about, Hey John, look at this conflict. That is an urgent thing we need to look at. Gotcha. Um, because you're not going to be able to look away from it. Right. If you see that there's a threat or you see that there's like an external competitor or something like that. So that's what I mean by conflict. It's maybe pointing out the conflict that's there or painting the, painting the correct picture of it. So, yeah. So this is interesting. And I want to just, I'm talking out loud here, thinking about a situation where say you have four or five people in a meeting, uh, there's always that one person that's sitting in the fucking corner with their arms crossed, just waiting to drop that bomb about like, Oh, well, does it do this?

Right. And it's like, fuck no. You know what I mean? Like, you know, they're just there to derail the situation. Right. So say, you know, there's a person there. You can kind of sense that they're just waiting for their turn to fuck up your whole flow, but you know, your decision maker, right? The one you're selling to ultimately is a D. Is it, is it, should you engage with that person? Um, who, who's kind of, kind of call bullshit on you. You know what I mean? And, and start to, start to kind of conflict a little bit with them in, in the, with the idea that the decision maker is going to maybe jump in and either defend one side or the other. Like, is that a, like, cause I'm, I'm always trying to, what I'm trying to figure out is that that person always tends to derail the fucking meeting and it drives me nuts.

It's like, we just talked about 75% of this, which is everybody's in line with everybody's in agreement. And then somebody brings up something stupid that is off topic, that is like a feature or a function or something that is so, you know, minor, but gets into this, like all of a sudden derails the conversation. Right. So my question is, is should you, should you engage and, and, and, and, you know, in general, and I know every situation is going to be different, but should you, you know, is it a better idea to engage and try to address that and see if the D will gravitate towards, or is the better idea to kind of, kind of, Hey, can we talk about that later? Or, you know, diminish that quote unquote thing and then focus more, go back to the D to try to get them engaged in a different way.

You know, I really don't know, but I can speak from my perspective as a buyer in those situations. So often my, my business partner and I are, if there's a major decision for where we're in a sales meeting, where we're, we're the buyers. He is the DC in our, you know, of our partnership and I'm more of the I ID. Um, and what that means is when I know he's there, I actually can turn off my, my, my critical thinking, you know, a little bit. And I can go into more ideas mode because I know that he's there. He's going to point out the flaws and I can relax a bit. Um, if he's not there, I have to go into this mover. I'm not super comfortable with, but I can do it of pointing out the problems and trying to figure out risks.

Um, if he's there, I kind of view him a little bit as my, like, I don't know what you call it. He's like the bulldog in the meeting. So if, if he's challenging the rep on something, I'm not really emotionally invested in it as the rep might be, because I know this is just Greg being Greg. He's asking the right questions. I do like to see how the rep will respond to that. Right. Um, and I'm trying to think of, I would actually go through in that, what I would do in that situation where the rep is probably, this probably means a lot more to the rep than it does to me in the situation, you know, his specific answer to the question. Yeah. Honestly, I think it comes down to like, just transparency and honesty, like saying, no, actually, I don't know the answer to that.

And nope, we don't do that. Next question. You know, like, yeah. And just a minute, like, it's funny. It's like that, that like, it's crazy how honesty like diffuses almost everything. Right. Like, I remember there was, I did this, um, I just did a podcast and there was this guy who, uh, he, the reason that he started, uh, following me and paying attention was because I, when I did a training for his team, I had like a stat up on the, like, I don't know, I use some statistic from some fucking deck that I found about try to make a point. Right. And I, and I throw it up there and I, and some kid asked the question, so, Hey, where did that statistic come from? And I just looked at, I was like, I don't know.

I found it online somewhere. Right. And like, you know, most people are like, well, you know, it comes from a Harvard study done in da, da, da, da. And I'm like, I don't know, dude. I found it on the internet somewhere. It looked like it was interesting and it kind of reinforced my point. And, and, and the kid, the kid who, you know, fast forward later now, years later was on my podcast. He's like, dude, as soon as you did that, I was like, this dude is awesome. Like, I absolutely love it because he's just like, I don't know. I don't fucking know. Like he didn't try to sugarcoat anything about what he knew or didn't know. He said straight up, I didn't know in front of a group of 50 people and just went about with his day.

And you gained so much credibility with me just by doing that. I fucking fell in love with you. I was like, all right, good. Yeah. That's really funny. Is there, is there a, is there a persona that appreciates that transparency more than others? No, I don't think so. Probably just being human. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's why I think you can over-science some of this stuff to say like, there's some just general things across the board that you just should do. And then, yeah, you should, you should adjust. So with that, is there any, I know you got, you just came out with a book, right? What was the book about? Predicting personality. Predicting personality. And so what are, what are some of the things in there?

Cause I think there's, I think I want to point people to it cause I know there's a lot of great information in there, but what are some of the things that, that are kind of highlighted in there that the audience could learn from? It's a lot of the stuff we've been talking about, just more examples of it and the more science and data behind it. So for example, um, there's a big section in the book on how to, uh, how to pitch community or pitch or write emails, um, for specific personality types and then what to, what to make sure you include and don't include. Um, so we basically write up scenarios of, all right, here's this person who's this personality type. We're selling them a commercial office lease.

You know, here's how we would approach it. Here's, here's an example of how not to do it. Here's how to do it. So there's a lot of practical stuff like that. And then there's a lot more for leadership too, because I know you probably have a lot of, uh, sales and marketing leaders who listen to this, um, where you can, I go back to that chef analogy. Yeah. Typically if we're hiring, we're just throwing stuff into the pot and saying, all right, this, this, this is good individually. I'm sure it'll, sure it'll be great in this, you know, and you wind up, it's like something that looks like what I, when I try to cook. Um, yeah, but it's more about equipping you to know what the ingredients are on a team and how they work together, because there's not one formula for, for a great functioning team, but you can know how different ingredients respond to each other.

Um, and know what overall, here's how this is going to taste and here's what we might need a little more of. Um, so it's about getting those ingredients down. So we write a lot about that for team building. And I think that's, I couldn't, I mean, even without any type of test or anything like that, I learned early on, like coming to the table with different skillsets, right? Like surrounding yourself with different types of people and selling with different types of people is such a more effective way of selling because you come on it with all different points of view. And I mean this, not just personality wise, I mean, gender, ethnicity, those types of things, everybody comes with a different view.

And if you have everybody that's the same, you're not going to be very effective as a team. You might be for a period of time or something like that, or depending on what you sell, I guess, but the, the idea of pairing people up to say, okay, you know, you're, and that's why I think team selling is always great. Like before, before crystal, I would actually go in with a dual sales call and I would, you know, there'd be the primary presenter and the secondary presenter. And I would always say, look, if I'm the primary, I can't figure out who's paying attention. Like it's the psychology around me trying to connect with one person over the next one. I'm three, when I'm dealing with four or five, six people, my head's going to explode.

I got to figure out, like, I got to concentrate on what I'm presenting here to make sure it's getting through as the secondary. I needed them to scan the room and ideally pay attention to the main decision makers. And if they could tell that those decision makers were falling off track, I told, I gave them carte blanche to interrupt me and say, Hey, John, um, you know, can I jump in here right now? Hey, Drew, you know, you had said earlier that, and then. Bring that person in because they're going to see it from a different lens that I am. Right. And, and I mean, the stats around, you know, bringing dual sales calls, right. Having two or three people involved in the sales process are bananas compared to just one person, mainly because of that, because they just have different views of different people and how to connect with different people.

Oh yeah. And you can also play things like good cop, bad cop too. Yeah, exactly. Awesome, man. Well, look, I, you know, I've been a huge proponent of crystal ever since, uh, I started, you know, I found out about you guys, but you know, I, it's fascinating to me to see where you guys are going with this stuff. Cause I think the insights it's the next level, right? I mean, it's the, I think what you're given is, is a shortcut to 25 years of experience that most sales reps, you know, by the time they're in their forties kind of inherently understands about the different personas and how you need to adjust. But, um, even though we could all use improvements there, I think you're, you're given a really good shortcut, uh, for all the right reasons, you know, not shortcuts for shortcuts.

I hate shortcuts. You know, like you said earlier, tricks, like I can't stand tricks, right? I love tips and things that'll help expedite or, or help me engage, but not to take a shortcut just to take a shortcut. And I really do think that's what crystal is doing out there. So I love what you're doing, man. Well, thanks, John. Um, so what, so how, how can people find more? Uh, so where do you want to, I mean the book, the, where do you want them to go? I know, I know if you go on crystal now, do you get 10 free, uh, like if you sign up, you get 10 free right now or how's it working right these days? Yeah. For the sales tool, you get 10 free personality predictions. So you can, you can install it on Chrome or look up someone on LinkedIn.

Yeah. Um, and yeah, you get to use it a little bit to try it out and then you can just sign up for a $29 a month account. Um, yeah, so that's, that's pretty simple on the sales side. And then, uh, if you're interested in the book, it's just go to crystalnose.com slash book and you can see that up there. Yeah. Yeah. Take a look at it. And I would highly recommend everybody just go in if nothing else, just do your own profile. So you get a little bit of a sense of who you are, uh, and then use those, use those 10 sparingly to, to go after, uh, you know, the executives. Cause the last story I'll leave here is my wife, you know, she didn't, um, uh, she, she was, she, she runs her own company and she was going down for an interview.

She doesn't want to work for anybody else, but this company was really hard pressed on getting hurt, hiring her. And so she's like, fine if you know, practice my skills. So she went down to North Carolina and it was funny. She was meeting with three guys and the, the, the receptionist who was prepping her was like, look, these two guys are good, but this guy's just, he's a bit of an ass. So I just wanted to give you a heads up beforehand. He's probably going to be a jerk. Don't judge us based on him. Right? So she put his name into crystal nose. And one of the things that came up, he was a high D and it explicitly said he will interrupt you mid sentence when like, if you ask a question, if you, if he asks you a question and you start answering, he will interrupt you mid sentence.

Now for somebody like my wife and I, if, if, if you ask me a question and I start answering you and you interrupt me mid sentence and I'm not prepared for that, I'm actually, I'm, you're going to physically see me get annoyed. You know what I mean? I'm like, I'm going to be like, all right, motherfucker. Like you didn't even let me answer your question. And then it's going to turn the interview South. Like no matter who I'm interviewing with, it's like a, it's something I can't even avoid. My wife does the same thing. Like we get physically annoyed with it. Right. But she knew that walking in. So she goes in there, she preps for the meeting. She sits down with the guy. She, he asked her a question.

She starts answering and he interrupts her mid sentence and she just lets it roll right off her shoulders and keeps, you know, and keeps going and dialogue with the guy. She walked out of there and the guy was like, told the receptionist, I don't care what she's asking for, offer it to her. I want her. And, and, and the, and the receptionist called her up and said, what the fuck did you do in that meeting? That guy doesn't like anybody. He doesn't even like his own employees. He loves you and wants us to make you an offer no matter what you want. So like, what did you do in that meeting? And I was like, I don't know. I just, you know, we just connected really, really well. And it was, it was absolutely mind blowing.

So I can be, I'm a testament to using this, uh, both my wife and myself. Um, and I really recommend people check this out because it's a game changer. If you start to learn how to use it the right way. That's awesome. So cool. Well, Drew, thank you so much for coming on. Uh, it's been a pleasure knowing you for the past three to five years, however long we've known each other. And, uh, and I appreciate you coming on. Hopefully people got some good nuggets out of this and, uh, and can start to kind of put that lens on to start to try to drive better relationships moving forward here. All right. Yeah. Thanks, Drew. No problem. Hopefully everybody enjoyed this. And as I say all the time, um, make sure no matter how bad your day goes, go make somebody happy today.

Make somebody smile. Cause no matter how bad it was, if you made somebody smile, you know, you had a good day. So thank you all very much. Have a great week and let's make it happen. Bye.