Customer Secrets

Customer Secrets

By Tim Van MilliganBusiness
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Customer Secrets episodes

  • Episode 13 - What do Customers Really Want

    You may have heard that customers want "value," and therefore you should be building value when presenting your product or service. 


    I'm a contrarian salesperson, so I don't always agree with the standard wisdom that we've all been taught as gospel.  In this case, I think building value is 80% correct. What's missing is the "values." There is a big difference between building value and what I want to discuss in this episode, which is "promoting values."


    Promoting values is that extra piece that is missing in the sales presentation. It allows you to start at where the customer is at, and move them forward by showing them that you are on their side and want to move their values forward.

    14 min
  • "I Want To Think About It" Excuse You Get From Customers

    In selling, when you ask for the sale, you'll often get the response from the customer that goes: "I want to think about it."

    Why are you getting that response? And what can you do about it?

    The most likely reason you're getting the response is because there is a clash in values that is causing the customer to want to get away from you.  Find out more by listening now.

    7 min
  • Episode 10 - 5-Step Typing Process
    What is the process of typing a person's personality? A listener wants to quickly analyze and profile the people he talks to that come in for a sales presentation. In this episode, I go through my 5-step personality typing process. They are: playing the percentages, the context (likes-attract-likes), seeing a visual image of the person to see what they value, evaluating the words they use (specific words they use, the style, and their overall theme), and finally, determining their values (their guiding principles they use to make decisions). Their "values" are the most important, and I use them as the final arbitrator in placing people in the correct temperament category. As an example of going through the typing process, we'll look at the specific words of the person asking the question and type their personality temperament. It all happens in just a few seconds!
    13 min
  • Making That Emotional Connection
    “People buy with emotions and justify with logic.”
    This is a good strategy to use in selling. But what emotions?
    What are the tactics that you use to implement this strategy? How do you trigger the emotions when you are selling?
    For that matter, what “emotions” are you supposed to trigger?
    There is a gap between the strategy and the tactics that left me wanting. I am a logistical person, and I need a step-by-step process of doing “something” that will help me put into practice that strategy of making that emotional connection with my prospect.
    In this episode, we'll discuss the 10 emotions that you can identify on the faces of people you come in contact with. You'll also learn how to trigger those emotions by making them aware of their values.
    You will learn how to make an emotional connection by interacting with the values of your customers.
    More information and show notes at: http://customersecrets.com/podcast/episode-9-making-that-emotional-connection/
    32 min
  • Example of Typing a Person with the Warrior Personality Temperament
    You can type someone’s personality is seconds if you know what to look and listen for. On this episode of the Customer Secrets podcast, we’re going to look at a very common type of personality temperament that encompasses about 38% of all people in the world.  What is common about this group is that in the Myers-Briggs nomenclature, they have the preferences of Sensing and Perceiving. In other words, they have the S-P letters in their Myers Briggs personality code.
    The metaphor for the person with the S-P preferences that I use is: “warrior.” I see them​ as offensive minded people that take the battle to the enemy. What gives them away? Listen in as we go over some of the clues that they give off.
    Detailed show notes are at http://customersecrets.com/podcast/episode-8/
    20 min
  • How To Type Someone - Part 1
    In previous episodes, I made the claim that a lot of people mistype themselves, and I called "foul" on them. The most common misclassification is the person believing that they have the intuition (N) preference rather than the sensing preference in Myers Briggs.
    OK. How do I know that? That is a bold claim to make if it isn't true. So what method do I use to type people?
    The process of typing people that I use is a simple step-by-step procedure. It doesn't matter what order the steps are performed. And one of the most important steps is to pick up on the person's temperament.
    There are four temperaments, which most people are able to pick up on. Kiersey's work defines the four temperaments in the Myer's Briggs nomenclature as the NF, NT, SJ, and SP.
    The foundational principle of personality is: People with similar temperaments have similar values.
    What we discuss here are the values that are common to each temperament.
    Show notes: http://customersecrets.com/podcast/episode-7
    14 min
  • Myers Briggs Sensing Trait versus Intuition
    According to researcher David Keirsey in his book Please Understand Me, only about 24% of the population has the intuition preference. I tend to agree with that research. So how can it be that 90% of the podcast hosts, who try to describe the Myers Briggs system have the intuition trait? The answer is that they don't have it. They just want to have it.
    Everyone - and I mean "everyone," wants to have the intuition trait because it is seen by others as having a sixth sense. Where the general population has five senses, they believe that if they have an extra way of taking in information, that they are a little bit special. It is like having a superpower.
    In this episode, I discuss what it really means to have the intuition trait, and how it may not be a super-power after all. In the extreme case, it is often diagnosed as autism. So what I'm getting at here, is that sometimes, it can be a curse.
    Show notes at: http://customersecrets.com/podcast/episode-6/
    12 min
  • Comparison of the Myers Briggs System and The Keirsey Temperamant Sorter
    The Keirsey Temperament Sorter is a not stand-alone system, but is linked to the Myers Briggs System. What David Keirsy does with the system he created is to tie the four temperaments to specific personality dimensions from the Myer's Briggs.
    We like the Myers Briggs for selling because it is about how decisions are made. Most people see personality as "behavior," because it is easy to pick up by observing others. There are four styles of people that are relatively easy to categorize, which are called the four temperaments. Other taxonomies are like DiSC are set up to describe these four temperaments. But the original Myers Briggs system did not have a way to define these temperaments until David Keirsey spotted and notated the dimensions from Myers Briggs.
    In this episode, we'll briefly cover the four temperaments, and how we can use them to quickly convert them to Myers Briggs and other personality taxonomies.
    Additional Pod notes at: http://customersecrets.com/podcast/episode-5
    15 min
  • Episode 4 - Comparing DiSC Personality versus Myers Briggs
    What makes the DiSC personality system so popular? How is it different than the Myers-Briggs system (and the MBTI)? What makes DiSC useful in business? And why isn't it used much in the selling process? These are the types of questions that I'd like to explore in this episode.
    14 min
  • Comparing Personality Tests - MBTI vs the Big-5
    Would you like to know the real difference between the most popular online personality assessment (MBTI) and the one used in universities? In this episode, the Myers-Briggs personality archetype is compared to the Big-5 personality model. How are they similar, and how are they different. We'll also discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of each of them. And at the end, we'll start taking the best parts of both and create a hybrid system that will give us a better way of classifying personality type.
    The reason we as salesmen are interested in these typographies is that we need concrete definitions of personality type. We need better definitions of the behavioral dimensions that make up personality so that we can pigeonhole prospects into the right temperament categories. Once they are in the correct classification, we can create and implement the persuasive strategies for turning them into customers.
    23 min

About Customer Secrets

From the publisher's feed

This is the Customer Secrets podcast, where we dig deep into the personality of people and uncover the secret triggers that cause them to buy. If you want to discover what makes people tick, and/or if…