Have you ever paid attention to how people interact with one another? I’m betting that most of you don’t.  After you increase your level of awareness, you’ll gain a better understanding of how people generally work.  Increasing your awareness levels means that you are consciously paying attention to what is going on around you most of the time.

Having the ability to tell what type of personality someone is within only 30 seconds or so of conversation is probably one of the best communication tools you can learn.  Having the know how to detect what a person is allows you to transform the way you should be interacting with that particular client. Since your first few minutes of interaction is the most vital, pay close attention to what they say and how they say it.

Personality Type: Expressive (“Let’s do it!”)

Now that you’re familiar with the ‘quick and assertive’ Driver, we move on to the ‘can you shut up already’ Expressive.  Have you ever noticed that every time you go to a party, function, or gathering, there is always this one person who everyone swarms around (maybe it’s you)? Expressive people absolutely love being in the spotlight. Their workplaces are normally messy compared to a neat Analytical.  Even though their workplaces, cars, or rooms tend to be messy, they would still be able to find what their looking for through their memory (they don’t necessarily lose everything).  Expressive people love to talk, so let them.  They generally have very high emotion and make decisions rather quickly. There are generally excited to see what happens next.

Here are the characteristics of an Expressive:

• Tends to run late, lots of commitments and rushed lifestyle.
• Desires to be center of attention. Will attempt to draw focus of a group.
• Can’t stand being bored, impatient. Will get stressed and fidget in lines, looks for distractions.
• Generally have brightly colored clothing/cars/houses. Values ‘flash’.
• They are animated and lively when they speak or tell stories. Sometimes seems ‘loud’.

As a special note, since many people misinterpret Expressives as people who talk a lot, avoid placing someone in 1 of the 4 personality types by the length in time they talk to you.   Analyticals and Amiables also tend to talk a lot after they FEEL COMFORTABLE around someone, so the amount of time they take talking is irrelevant.  You must use the other criterias I’ve listed above to determine if one is Expressive or something else.

How to Sell to an Expressive

When dealing with Expressives, all you need to do is let the them talk and slowly steer the conversation in the direction you want to take it by taking control and asking the right questions.  Expressives tend to get off topic very quickly so be patient.

I’m not sure if I was always an expressive or that I recently just became one. I questioned which personality I was because it can be difficult to determine it at a young age. I’m certain, now that I’m 23, but I originally started thinking about this when I was 17-18 and I had no clue what I was, most people didn’t.   Many times you’ll hear people saying that they’re Expressives because Expressive people usually get most of the attention. Also, since I’m in the sales industry, people like to say that they are Expressives because they are led to believe that all great sales people are Expressives. Obviously this is false and just a common misconception or excuse that people use because they can’t yet achieve the success they want.

Selling as an Expressive

Dealing with an Expressive person from the other personality type’s point of view is relativity easy, but as an Expressive, you need to learn how to tone it down. It’s important for you to realize and understand when your your stories go off on a tangent.

Are you an Expressive?  If not, what experiences have you had with an expressive?

Have you ever been tongue tied at the thought of approaching an attractive woman and introducing yourself? What about feeling awkward and out of place at business or social gatherings? How about hesitating to raise your hand in class or pick up the phone to make a sales call?

Before we go any farther. Stop! Think for a moment about the cost of this shyness crap in your life. Seriously. What’s it costing you?

• Imagine what it would be like to be able to approach any woman, any time and engage her in a relaxed funny, sexy, playful conversation that you both enjoy.
• Imagine being able to speak up for your own needs and desires and getting them.
• Imagine walking into a business networking meeting and people glowingly referring you to people who need and want your services.
• Imagine people seeking you out for advice and guidance regarding the product or service you offer…
• Imagine in a meeting or in a class raising your hand with a key question or comment that makes it easier for the trainer or teacher to teach and for the other students to understand…
• Imagine offering an idea that ends up saving your company thousands of dollars…
• Had an idea that you hesitated to share with your boss or colleagues.You might think you’re shy.

All well and good but first… that…. thing that….stops you from… taking the risk….

…Shyness. (It really does suck, doesn’t it?)

How To Stop Being Shy In Four Steps:

1. Realize you created it. Since you created it. You can change it.

Shyness is not a thing. It is something you do. It’s a process. It’s a habit. It’s a learned behavior. It is not a lifetime sentence. It is not genetic. It is not a disease, even though the shrinks love to “diagnose” it and call it “Social Anxiety Disorder”. At some point in your childhood you decided to be shy. You created it because it solved some problems and seemed to keep you out of bad feelings. Again, if you created it (and you really did, didn’t you?) you can change it.

2. Discover Your “Program” – Uncover your Unconscious process of “doing” shyness.

How do you do it? I get my clients to teach me how they do their problem. They don’t realize there are a set pattern of steps they go through to get that certain feeling. What triggers it? What do you do first? What do you do next? What comes after that? We care less about “why” you do it and more about “how”. Keep going through each step until you get to how you end the “program.” At some point you stop it don’t you? Write it out as if you are leaving instructions for your temporary worker to come in and do it for you so you can forget about the problem. What has to happen for you to start to not feel totally comfortable and confident? What’s the first thing? Do you see something or someone? What? Do you say something to yourself? What? Whose voice is it? Do you get a feeling in your body? Where? Does the feeling move? Does it have a shape? Does it have a color, a texture? Density? Write all this down so you can see it in black and white.

3. Jam Your “Program” – At any point if you change a significant element of how you do your “shyness program”, it will cause the program to jam.

For example let’s say in the past you’d see a hot babe and say to yourself. “oh my god she’s so hot… I’ll never be able to get a woman like that” in that sad hopeless wimpy little voice you hear in your head. Next you’d feel a sinking feeling in your stomach that was the size of a grapefruit with the density of a bowling ball.To Jam it you could do this instead: “Oh my gawd she’s so HOT! “ with An exaggerated lip licking smirk and then a playfully predatory “YUUUUUM!” And then shrink down the grapefruit sized feeling to a wiffle ball and push it out 3 feet in front of your body and smack that old crappy feeling with a baseball bat out of the park.Again for the sake of this example, I don’t know what you do specifically. But you know don’t you? Walk yourself through it and write it down. Then mess with it. Play with it. Run it backwards. Scramble it. Do the picture first and then the voice. Try different voices. Mickey Mouse, the Jolly green giant. Some really sexy babe. Repeat as needed.

4. Change your beliefs.

You probably believe you’re shy. How do you know? How do you know you’re not just pretending to be shy in order to get out of having to be successful in all areas of your life? I spend a lot more time on this in my Modern Jedi NLP Training but here’s the least you need to know.

• Beliefs filter our reality. What you believe becomes so. Change the belief. Change your reality. We represent our beliefs to ourselves internally through the pictures, self talk and feelings we run. For example, I hold my “true” beliefs directly in front of me on my mental screen. My old beliefs are down and to my left and slightly behind me. Beliefs I want to be true but don’t quite feel true yet are up and to my left.
• Here’s how to change a belief. When I first stopped being shy. I noticed that the belief that I was shy was right smack in front of me. The belief that I wanted to have, namely that I was the guy with charisma and confidence in any social situation, the guy who could strike up a conversation anywhere at anytime with the most powerful CEO or the most Babe-A-Licious hottie was up and to my left. When I took the shyness belief and slammed it down and left and a bit behind me (to my old beliefs) and powerfully pulled in the desired belief into the very center of my mental screen making it bigger and brighter, I suddenly felt different. Shyness gone. Poof! Holy crap!
• Results you can notice immediately. It totally changed my experience. Ten minutes later I found myself chatting with a gorgeous hottie as we both got our UPS delivery in the lobby of my apartment building. I did have to practice this occasionally. But so what? What was so cool about this was that I wasn’t “forcing” myself to talk with her. It was suddenly the most natural and comfortable thing to do. Want some?When you think of a belief that’s true for you notice where on your internal screen it shows up. Typically your limiting belief “I’m shy” will show up in your “true” spot.
• When you think of a belief about yourself that’s no longer true, (like you are no longer 12) notice where on your mental screen that shows up.
• Think about a belief you would like to have. Notice where that one shows up.
• Now move the  crappy belief about being shy to your old beliefs spot. Slam your desired belief about being charismatic and totally confident and comfortable in social situations into the place you hold your true beliefs.
• How does that feel?

It’s like reprogramming the VCR.

What has shyness prevented you from doing?

About the Author: Mark Shepard, NLPT is a Master Practitioner and Trainer of NLP, Hypnosis & Time Line Therapy. Read his blog: Modernjedi.com

Personality Type: Driver (“Let’s do it now”)
People who fall into the Driver personality type tend to be very controlling and possibly demanding. They know what they want and they aren’t afraid to let you know.  They normally have little to no emotion and make decisions quickly and assertively.

To quickly sum up the characteristics of a driver:

• Demands control or will take it when available.  Looks for opportunity to be ‘in charge’.
• Will get things done, likes goals and achieving them.  Frames life as a sequence of “I did this.”
• Straight to the point, looks for the bottom line.  Dislikes complexity or ambiguity.
• Little patience for the small details that aren’t clearly in line with goal seeking.
• Doesn’t like situations where they have no say in what’s happening.
• Appears to be arrogant and standoffish.  Can seem overly aggressive, especially in the heat of a project.  Will see people as ‘obstacles’ or ‘allies’.

Drivers may appear intimidating, however, you must remember to put your emotions aside and not take things personally. I personally  believe myself to be a very emotional person because I’m a pretty far out expressive ( I’ll explain what an expressive is within the next few days). When I use to work for this amazing speaker in the real estate industry, a guy named Mike Ferry, my team leader was a very arrogant prick of a driver. He always wanted things done his way and communicating with him was so difficult because I just didn’t know when to shut up. However, later, as I began to understand the way people work and make decisions, I realized that it wasn’t his fault for him being such a prick, it was mine. Since I wasn’t communicating the way he wants to be communicated to, our personalities simply clashed.

How to deal with a driver:

When presenting information to a Driver, avoid graphs, power point presentations, charts, and lists of data.  Keep it short, simple, and sweet.

Are you a Driver? Have you encountered an experience with an extreme Driver?