A successful sales team needs several different sales personalities. Here, Christer B Jansson lists the nine different personalities that can be found in a sales team.
A sales team thrives on several different personalities and when it comes to collaborations within the team, it is important to combine the right people based on their personalities and behaviors.
As a rule of thumb, let people with the Coordinator and Shaper behaviors identify goals and manage people and processes at all times. The sales personalities Plants and Resource Investigators are best used to generate ideas and place them in the market, while Monitor Evaluators and Specialists are experts in analyzing plans and advice. You also need Implementers and Teamworkers to do the work and a Complete Finisher to check things off at the end. In other words, use people with the right strengths for the various tasks they have to perform and everyone gets to shine and show their positive side!
The nine team roles
Based on Team Skills®, you can create a winning team. It is important to learn to control one’s weaknesses instead of working them away, as strengths and weaknesses are different sides of the same coin. All team roles are equally important and needed for the team to succeed. These are the nine team roles we work with.
Plant (PL)
CHARACTERISTIC:
Plants are innovators, inventors and can be very creative. They account for most of the brilliant ideas. In the right team, they can account for up to 90% of all useful ideas. In poorly composed teams, they can account for only 10%. Usually they prefer to work alone with some distance from the team members. They use their imagination and often work in unconventional ways. They tend to be introverted and react strongly to criticism and praise. Their ideas are often radical and may lack practical grounding. They are independent, intelligent and original and may be weak at communicating with people on a different wavelength.
Monitor Evaluator (ME)
CHARACTERISTIC:
Monitor Evaluators are serious-minded, thoughtful individuals with a built-in immunity to becoming overly enthusiastic. They are slow in their decision-making because they prefer to think everything through properly. They usually have strong critical thinking skills. They have the capacity for astute judgment that takes everything into account. A good ME is rarely wrong.
Coordinator
CHARACTERISTIC:
The most striking characteristic of the CO is the ability to get others to work toward common goals. They are mature, credible, secure and willing to delegate. In personal relationships, they are quick to recognize individual talents and use them in pursuit of group goals. While COs are not necessarily the most intelligent members of a group, they have a broad-minded and experienced approach and usually earn respect. However, they can be perceived as manipulative.
Shaper (SH)
CHARACTERISTIC:
Shapers are highly motivated people with a lot of nervous energy and a great need to succeed. They are usually aggressively outgoing with a strong will. SH like to challenge others and they want to win. They enjoy leading and pushing others to action. If obstacles arise, they find a way around them. Stubborn and confident, they tend to show strong emotions in response to any disappointment or frustration. SH are sincere, argumentative and may lack social understanding. It is the most competitive team role.
Resource Investigator (RI)
CHARACTERISTIC:
Resource Investigators are often enthusiastic, eager and outgoing. They are good at communicating with people, both inside and outside the company. They are natural negotiators and good at developing new opportunities and contacts. Although not the source of original ideas, RIs are effective when it comes to taking other people’s ideas and developing them. As the name suggests, they are adept at finding out what is available and what can be done. They usually receive a warm reception from others because they are outgoing themselves.
RI has a relaxed personality, is curious and ready to see possibilities in everything new. An RI easily loses interest if they are not stimulated by others.
Team Worker (TW)
CHARACTERISTIC:
Team Workers are the most supportive members of a team. They are gentle, sociable and care about others. They are extremely flexible and can adapt to different situations and people. TWs are receptive and diplomatic.
They are good listeners and usually popular group members. They act with sensitivity at work but can be indecisive in critical situations.
Implements (IMP)
CHARACTERISTIC:
Implementers have common sense, a lot of self-control and discipline. They prefer hard work and tackle problems in a systematic way. In a broader sense, the IMP is a person whose loyalty and interest lies in the company and who cares less about achieving their own desires. However, IMP may lack spontaneity and show signs of rigidity.
Completer Finisher (CF)
CHARACTERISTIC:
Completers have great execution capacity and attention to detail. They hardly start anything they can’t finish. They are motivated by inner anxiety, even though outwardly they may appear calm. Typical of them is that they are introverted and require little in the way of external stimuli or driving springs. CF can be intolerant of those who take things more lightly. They are often reluctant to delegate and prefer to handle everything themselves.
Specialist (SP)
CHARACTERISTIC:
Specialists are dedicated people who take pride in having achieved technical skill and specialized knowledge. Their priorities are focused on maintaining professional standards and on promoting and defending their territory of knowledge. While they show great pride in their own field, they often lack interest in that of others. SP can become an expert simply through strong commitment in a narrow field. There are few people who are either so focused or have the talent to become a first class SP.
This article was originally published at the Sales Effect portal.
