Are Behavioral Assessments Important in Sales? Yes! Here’s Why.

When asking yourself, “are behavioral assessments important in sales?” it's important to keep a lot of things in mind.

Sales can feel like a game that didn’t come with an instruction manual. It’s part herding cats and part smiles and handshakes. But what if there was a way to figure out the hidden code to playing this game? It’s all in knowing your prospect’s DISC style in relation to your own.

With that said, are behavioral assessments important in sales? Of course. Read on to find out why.

So to understand your prospect’s disc style, you need to know your own. How do you do this? It all starts with a DISC Assessment.

The assessment is a non-biased look into your own personality. You will be prompted to answer a series of questions that will produce a 20+ page report analyzing your own unique behavioral styles.

You will be given charts that show you the different levels of each behavioral type that make up your unique personality. The charts will include:

Adapted Style: How you behave when you’re being observed or when you are aware of your behavior.

Natural Style: How you behave when you’re most natural. This is your basic style and what you resort to when you’re being true to yourself.

The Styles on each chart include:

[D]ominance: achieves results by modifying their environment and overwhelming any opposition. Traits include: demanding, dynamic, strong willed, resolute, aggressive, and innovative.

[I]nfluence: achieves results by altering their environment through influencing or persuading. Traits include: persuasive, compelling, passionate, influential, friendly, and trusting.

[S]teadiness: achieves goals through cooperation with others within their current environment. Traits include: calm, patient, possessive, predictable, purposeful, and reliable.

[C]ompliance: accomplishes goals by working within their environment according to its rules and regulations. Traits include: careful, cautious, thorough, orderly, efficient, diplomatic, and precise.

You will notice that this person’s results (Sally Salesperson) are slightly different depending on her natural or adaptive behavior.

DISC Reports are useful for everyone. No matter if you’re the CEO or the most junior team member, your knowledge of DISC is crucial to having a great company culture.

How Employers and Employees can Use DISC To Better Understand Each Other

We’ve all been there. When senior management seems too distant to understand the needs of the sales team and when finding a common ground seems hopeless. Not only are Behavioral Assessments important in sales, they play a huge role in the hiring and placement of new employees, but for internal communication as well.

DISC Assessments for Hiring:

Let’s say you’ve got multiple new employees starting in the coming months. You want to make sure that you place the right sales reps with the best fitting managers and teams. This is when DISC comes in. If each employee has taken a DISC Assessment, you will know the best fit. For example, managers that have High Dominance personalities aren’t going to be able to effectively manage people with Low Dominance personalities. The fact of the matter is, they will never be on the same page.
The majority of management problems derive from personality issues. And, it’s not about being a bad manager or a poor salesperson. When personalities don’t mesh, comments are misunderstood and employees get downtrodden. For example, curtness from a High D Manager can be misunderstood as rude, especially by someone with a High Influence style.

DISC Assessments for Managing:

Like I just said, managers and employees need to be aware of each other’s styles. The great thing about this is that this doesn’t need to be explicitly stated. If each of your employees have taken their own DISC Assessment, they will have the tools necessary to communicate with people that have varying communication styles.

For example, when a manager takes their Management DISC Assessment, they will have all the information they need on how they can communicate best with different styles. They will also learn how to manage a team full of varying styles.

How Employees Can Use DISC to Understand Clients and Prospects

The power of DISC extends well beyond the office walls. It encompasses everything from nurturing existing clients to guiding prospects to the closing table.

It’s all about matching up specific traits with your clients and prospects to decipher their communication style. Take note of body language, eye contact, length of meetings, information discussed, and anything else that leads you to a specific trait or set of traits.

Then, match up the traits with the general DISC style of the person at hand. Use your DISC report to learn which aspects of your own communication styles to play up and which to tone down.

Here's an example:

Let's say your prospect seems to fall into the High Compliance category. You, as a High Influence style have some tweaks to make to your communication style. Your prospect will not be happy with your natural communication style. You will need to adapt your behavior to their needs. You can't expect to give a casual presentation and close based on just your persuasive personality and enthusiasm.

Instead, you're going to have to bring the cold hard facts to the table. Come prepared with a presentation deck that outlines the entire scope of whatever you're selling. This should include graphs and other analytical tools.

Be prepared to answer questions. High Compliance personalities are very skeptical and will want more than your rave reviews to close a deal.

Use this infographic to help you decipher your prospect’s DISC style. It's a good idea to take note of each prospect or client's style in your CRM system so you're always prepared to communicate efficiently.

Ultimately, DISC is the key to understanding you, your team, your managers, your CEO, your prospects, your clients, and your colleagues! Not only will DISC create a better working culture for your company, it will give you the upper hand at networking events, when pitching to prospective clients, and more.

You never know when the power of DISC will come in handy. And you never know when your DISC style (as well as your understanding of it) is your key to the closing table.

So, are Behavioral Assessments important in sales? Let us know in the comments!

Take an assessment today!