Understanding Customer Psychological Needs
Adam Stamm
Managing Partner: Online DISC Profile
How DISC Identifies Customer Needs
Great salespeople understand the psychology of their customers.
Earlier this year, I was fortunate to speak with a great salesperson while buying a new front door for my home.
My wife and I live in South Philadelphia, where many homes are over 100 years old.
The door sizes are not typical. In addition, South Philly has a history of having funky, nontraditional doors with heart, circular, and geometric-shaped windows. These facts often push South Philadelphia homeowners to contract a professional to order and install a custom door.
On our block, four homeowners, including my wife and me, worked with the same contractor, Brian.
When talking to our neighbors about the process after all of our doors were installed, we agreed that working with Brian was a great experience, but for different reasons.
I felt that Brian listened to my concerns throughout the process and didn’t rush me to decide. My wife said she felt working with Brian was fun. She enjoyed his high energy. Our next-door neighbors felt that Brian could answer all of their questions thoroughly.
While thinking about this sales process, it was interesting to see how Brian met the psychological needs of our DISC Personality Types as customers.
My needs differed from my wife’s, which differed from those of our next-door neighbors. Yet Brian was able to navigate them all with ease.
Understanding your customers’ psychological needs will help you succeed in any sales conversation, whether you are selling doors, cars, or even ideas.
Learn Customer Needs Through DISC
DISC Assessments are often used to develop self-awareness. However, it’s within this same context that you can apply these same concepts to understanding the needs of others.
For anyone who works within a sales capacity or is trying to convince others to adopt a new idea or strategy, DISC can help you ease the concerns of your customers or colleagues.
Below are the psychological needs of each DISC Style. By addressing these needs, you can more easily overcome the psychological barriers to your sales process:
Using a tool like DISC Basic can help your sales team understand their DISC Style and can also be used to help them understand their customers’ DISC Style.
When we purchased our door, I was more concerned with the level of support we would receive (I have an S-Personality Type). The questions that rattled through my mind were:
- What happens if something breaks on our door?
- Will we get regular updates on the progress and timing of the project?
On the other hand, my wife, who has the I-Personality Type, wanted to know more about how they worked with others and what door color and window combinations they sold in the past. For her, the sales process was more of a casual conversation, whereas, for me, it was more of an understanding of responsibilities.
Sales teams can review their DISC Basic Profile results and discuss how to adapt their communication to meet the needs of each buyer they encounter.
Is this manipulation?
Using DISC to understand customer psychological needs isn’t manipulation. When it’s done correctly, salespeople will use DISC within the context of the Platinum Rule:
- Treat others as they wish to be treated.
When Brian answered our questions about buying a front door, he wasn’t trying a sales tactic; he was being forthcoming. He understood our needs and responded to our questions accordingly.
It’s plausible that a salesperson could understand a customer’s needs based on DISC and then lie about what their product or service could do to meet them. However, the blame can’t fall on DISC in this context – the salesperson is simply a liar.
If a salesperson focuses on treating others as they want to be treated, they won’t lie or stretch the truth about what a product can or can’t do.
Predict Customer Needs with DISC Ai
One of the more exciting technologies over the past few years was the development and rollout of DISC AI.
DISC AI offers a way to predict someone’s DISC profile without ever having spoken to them. This means you can consider a potential customer’s psychological needs before you meet with them.
The software predicts a person’s profile using a couple of methods:
- Linkedin – DISC Ai reviews the experiences, titles, geography, and post content to predict a person’s profile.
- Emails/Writing Sample
Once you’ve predicted a customer’s DISC Profile, you can identify the right approach and conversation points you want to stress based on their DISC Psychological needs.
The tool reviews: how to speak, set expectations, give a product demo, discuss pricing, persuade, negotiate, and say ‘no’ based on your customer’s unique DISC Profile.
Each section on your DISC Ai dashboard is foundational to different areas of the sales process.
While this tool doesn’t guarantee sales success, it will make your process more successful because it allows you to answer questions and concerns based on your customer’s psychological needs.
Like the salesperson I worked with to choose a new front door, your team can utilize DISC Ai to navigate customer needs based on their DISC Profile.
Join our upcoming DISC Ai Webinar
Experience how you can leverage DISC Ai to help your sales teams harness the power of DISC in all of their sales communications.
Our next webinar will take place:
- August 2nd, 2024
- 11:00 – 11:45am ET
- Cost: Free!