[E34] Behavior Week: Promoter Part I – Fears, Confrontation, and Empathy

The last two episodes were about the Analysts. That group loves data, stats, fears making mistakes, being wrong, and looking bad.

In this assessment of the four general personality and behavior styles, there is one group that couldn’t be more opposite than the Analysts.

DISC refers to them as ‘Inspiring’. I will use the name Promoter.

Part one of my discussion about Promoters will cover what they fear most, how they deal with others, the type of confrontation they actually enjoy, and how they might react when someone else is hurting.

Episode 34 – Transcript

On this episode I am going to cover the group known as Promoters, and how they can be fun to deal with.

Welcome to episode 34 of The Sales Experience Podcast. I covered the Analyst group in the previous two episodes. I hope you got some insights into that behavior group. If you are in that group, especially in sales, the key is to understand your strengths but watch out for those analysis paralysis pitfalls. If your prospects are Analysts, don’t let them get stuck.

If you imagine that the Analysts are at one end of a room, then this next group I am going to cover is on the opposite end of the room. And probably signing karaoke, or having fun as the center of attention. I will refer to this group as Promoters. For those of you familiar with DISC, this group is similar to what is referred to as Inspiring.

Again, going to mention my disclaimer – these are generalities. Not all Promoters need to be the loud center of attention. Not all Analysts are wall flowers, watching the room, staying out of the spotlight for fear or doing something stupid in front of others. But, if you meet enough people in any of these groups, they will have some level of each part I mentioned. The key is not to put everyone in a box and assume you know everything about them. Its about understanding enough so that you can approach the relationship in a different way that helps it be more effective.

Alright, now time for the Promoters. The name describes it pretty well, this the behavior group that enjoys being spontaneous and adventurous. They leap first. They are all about fun and doing things that feel fun. Not that Analysts aren’t fun, but Promoters are different.

It will help explain them if we talk about their biggest fear, which is the Fear Of Missing Out. Or FOMO. Their biggest worry in life at some level is centered around being worried they are missing out on something. Anything. Fun. Excitement. Drama. Gossip. Adventures. Something bigger. Something better. Something cooler. Something more fun. They just want to be experiencing life and doing what others are doing.

On the other end of that spectrum, the Promoter does everything they can to avoid anything that is ‘unfun’ to them. Budgeting. Spreadsheets. Cleaning. Laundry. Getting the oil changed. Paying bills. All unfun and taking time away from fun. Its not that they aren’t responsible, but I can always tell if someone is a Promoter the instant I get into their car and have to move all the stuff off the seat and slide things over to make a place for my feet amongst all their ‘stuff’.

Next episode I will talk about how this affects selling to Promoters, and how you might show up if you are a Promoter sales person.

Now let’s talk about confrontation. If the Promoter is at the opposite end of the spectrum across from Analysts, then it would only make sense that Promoters are completely okay with confrontation.  They are so okay with confrontation that they are the group voted most likely to enjoy making prank phone calls. They like the unknown. They relish the excitement that comes with the unknown. Since biggest fear is the fear of missing out, any unknown scenario, location, restaurant, person, or conversation could be what they have been missing out on. So that drives them to jump into everything, from conversations with anyone and everyone, to trying out new places to eat, to being totally okay with answering the phone no matter who is calling.

Now it is important to balance this fact, with an understanding of their default level of empathy – which is high. They do not like to see people hurt and will do what they can to make the pain go away. Girlfriend dumped you? Your Promoter friend will see the best and only solution is to go out and party in order to forget her. Fun is always the answer, celebrating or consoling. They balance their confrontation with not wanting to hurt people’s feelings. If they had to fire someone they would do it, not like having to do it, and then probably want to take the person out afterwards because they feel bad for them. Not that is all about partying…but it is always about fun, laughing, adventures, and the unknown being the cure to anything that ails you.

If a Promoter has to be confrontational, they will feel bad afterwards and want to make it up to you. But they have no issue being confrontational to strangers. This is why my people you see in sales are Promoters. This high level of comfort with confrontation, and the excitement of the unknown instead of being shut down with fear, causes a lot of Promoters to be in sales roles and generally succeed. They just have to balance sales, selling, talking to prospects, closing deals, with having fun, happy hour, golf trips, trips to Vegas, and expense accounts spent on wining and dining prospects.

In the next episode I will cover selling to Promoters and how you show up as a salesperson if you are a Promoter. This will be valuable for a lot of salespeople and managers listening. Hopefully this first part was helpful for either yourself with parts of your behavior or personality you hadn’t really thought about, or for the Promoters in your life who you didn’t realize where Promoters but now it is starting to make more sense. Again, not that anything is good or bad – just helpful information to improve relationships.

If you are Promoter listening, make sure to subscribe or you might miss out. This way you can get episodes as soon as they go live and listen before anyone else. For the rest of you, subscribe as well.

And until next time, always remember that everything in life is sales and people will remember the experience you gave them.