Why Understanding Personality Is Key to Selling Success
When selling, connecting with your prospect in a way that feels natural and meaningful to them is crucial. Research has shown that understanding your buyer’s personality type can significantly enhance the sales experience. In fact, people are more likely to trust and engage with a seller who mirrors their communication style and decision-making process (Humanlinker, Extended DISC Blog).
The DISC model, which categorizes people into Dominance (D), Influence (I), Steadiness (S), and Conscientiousness (C) types, is a proven tool for understanding personality in sales.
Each DISC type has unique preferences:
- Dominant (D) types want concise, results-driven communication.
- Influential (I) types appreciate enthusiasm and personal connections.
- Steady (S) types value patience and consistency.
- Conscientious (C) types require detailed, logical information(DISC Plus profiles)(Extended DISC Blog)
At Autobound, we're using DISC alongside proprietary systems to determine the best way for you to approach your prospects.
Autobound's Personality Profiles: A Comprehensive Approach to Personality-Driven Sales
While DISC is an essential tool, at Autobound we take things a step further by analyzing not just the basic personality traits, but also a range of deeper psychographic and behavioral markers.
Here’s how it works:
- Personality Assessment from Multiple Data Points
We go beyond basic personality traits by analyzing a wide range of psychographic and behavioral markers to create a complete profile of your prospect. We collect and analyze data from multiple sources to understand who they are and how they prefer to engage, including...- LinkedIn posts: We assess the tone, language, and engagement patterns to understand their communication style and how they present themselves professionally.
- Twitter activity: Real-time tweets reveal their immediate concerns, interests, and preferences, which help us gauge their emotional tone and urgency.
- YouTube appearances and podcast mentions: These provide insights into how they communicate in public and their natural style when speaking or interacting with an audience.
- Job history and industry data: This information helps us infer their decision-making style, work priorities, and whether they are more results-driven or process-focused.
- Geographic location: By considering where a prospect is based, we factor in regional behavioral norms that might influence their communication preferences.
- Company size and industry trends: Knowing the size and sector of a prospect's company can hint at their level of formality, risk tolerance, and how they approach problem-solving.
- Psychographic and Communication Preferences
Our system goes beyond just identifying whether someone is a “D” or an “I.” We also analyze key communication parameters like formality, emotional tone, and conciseness. For instance, we evaluate whether your prospect prefers concise emails or more detailed messages, whether they respond well to humor, and how formal or informal their language tends to be.
We also tap into psychological triggers like sensitivity to social proof, fear of missing out (FOMO), and their need for authority-based influence. These deeper psychographic traits help ensure that your messaging doesn’t just match their personality, but also aligns with their subconscious preferences.
- Email Optimization and Behavioral Triggers
Once we've built a personality profile, we provide actionable suggestions on how to structure your outreach. This includes recommendations on email length, tone, frequency, and even call-to-action style. For example, a high D prospect might appreciate direct and to-the-point calls to action, while a high S may need more time and softer nudges.
The Proprietary Engine Behind It All
Our personality analysis is powered by a robust system that takes in data from multiple inputs and outputs actionable insights. By feeding in information about the prospect’s job title, bio, company size, and recent posts, the engine assigns scores across the DISC dimensions and additional behavioral markers like formality, emotional sensitivity, and social proof.
Here’s an overview of what we analyze:
- DISC Scores: Each prospect is rated on Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness on a scale from 0 to 10.
- Communication Style: Parameters like formality, emotional tone, and conciseness are evaluated to ensure your emails match the prospect's preferences.
- Psychological Triggers: We assess how the prospect responds to social proof, FOMO, authority, and personalization to help you craft a message that strikes the right chord.
- Email Optimization: From the optimal length of your email to the right call-to-action, our system gives you all the insights you need to craft the perfect outreach.
This system is designed to process input efficiently and return a full personality profile, communication suggestions, and email optimizations, helping you craft hyper-personalized content in seconds.
Why Personality-Based Selling Matters
The power of personalization cannot be overstated. Studies show that sales efforts that align with a prospect’s personality and decision-making style are far more likely to succeed. When you approach a high D prospect with a brief, results-oriented email, you’re respecting their preference for efficiency and getting straight to the point, increasing your chances of getting a response. By contrast, a high C prospect may require a well-structured, detailed pitch with data to back it up. Failing to provide this could result in lost sales, as high C personalities need to feel confident in their decision.
Incorporating personality-driven strategies into your sales workflow ensures that each interaction feels custom-tailored, which builds trust and rapport—two critical components for closing deals in today’s competitive environment.
Conclusion & Getting Started
This functionality will be available for all users in the coming week, both free and paid. Supported not just for users of our web application, extension, and integrations with Outreach and Salesloft, but also our API clients.
Selling based on a prospect's personality profile is a powerful strategy backed by psychology and data. With Autobound's new personality-driven content engine, you can easily align your outreach to each prospect’s preferences—whether they want quick, results-driven communication or a deep dive into the details.
If you want to elevate your sales game and start closing more deals, now is the time to leverage personality insights.
Try Autobound’s personality-driven content engine today and experience the difference personalized selling can make. Signup is free and takes 30 seconds, get started at www.autobound.ai/sign-up-free
