My personal Views
I know understanding different personality styles is critical, and I will start this blog by stating two of my own very strongly held beliefs:
- As an accredited MBTI® (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) assessor, and have a strong understanding of the DISC model. I don’t, however, believe any of the personality assessments should be relied on fully in any situation
- Working with these models I am confident that understanding one (or a number) of the different personality profiles has a massive beneficial impact. This is beneficial with both clients and customers, as well as on working more effectively together as a team.
You may believe the two statements above seem somewhat contradictory. However I believe that while it would be great if everyone understood more about different peoples natural personality styles, it is far more important that EVERYONE understands that people are different. While you may have the perfect method of working with one person, this could be a disastrous method for working with someone else. This is why I believe it is almost critical that all team members develop skills in understanding different personality styles. This includes knowing they will react very differently in different circumstances. It is not nearly so important that they think they can put each person in the right “category box”. If what you are doing with a person is not working, it is critical you can both realise this, and adjust your response to suit the persons (or peoples) personality styles more effectively, along with their circumstances.
A Real Estate Example
To put this into a real estate specific scenario lets imagine I had listed and sold a property for a client who was extremely outgoing. She had told me not to contact her with minor details, and wanted the most extensive marketing campaign as she wanted the whole world to know her house was for sale and it needed to look great, money was no object. I was able to secure a sale on her property and she was ecstatic with the result. She thought my positive direct approach with a focus on doing everything at the highest level (hang the expense) was why she got such a great result.
Imagine then she refereed me to a friend of hers. He was a quite type, liked to know every detail about every step along the way, had just been through a divorce, and he was concerned about the bank foreclosing on his home. Given his friend had had a such a great result working with me if I decided clearly her friend needed to be treated exactly the same way, how do you think my relationship with the referred friend would be? Do you think it would be very likely I would end up working with this gentleman? I am confident with the same approach I would not.
Obviously I have used an extreme example above to highlight my point. However what I am trying to convey is that while you, or a team member, might believe you have the “perfect” way of doing real estate, it is never going to be perfect for every person. Therefore, while skills in real estate are very important, I know many highly skilled people who are not good at relating to a wide range of people who are very unsuccessful agents. Some people like this though can be quite successful, if they specialise in working with a particular client type.
I also know people who are not that highly skilled, but are great at relating and understanding a variety of people, who do very well from real estate and get many referrals. The top 10% agents I work with though are conscious of both continuing to develop their skills in working with a variety of people, as well as developing their real estate skills.
–Michael Mallon