Introvert = the thought is complete before the words come out of your mouth.
For today’s post we’re using a simplified or perhaps I should say partial definition of what an introvert is. My experience is it’s an easy way to begin to identify the introverts on your inside sales team. You need to work DIFFERENTLY with them!
Differently than the extroverts on your team and there are probably more extroverts than introverts. Statistically you’re probably an extrovert yourself.
Arizona Board of Regents for The University of Arizona state 70 percent of the population identifies themselves as extroverted. You have two ways to look at the communication challenges you face with the 30 percent of the people who are self-professed introverts.
1st we can say – “Hey, we are in the majority. This isn’t our problem. They are the ones who have to change. (If you feel this way, I don’t suppose you would have picked up this book or gotten this far.)
2nd we can say – “To effectively communicate with everyone in our lives, both personally and professionally, it is our responsibility to find ways to make the introverts more comfortable. For goodness sake, we know who they are… why NOT make the effort?”
While there typically are a lot of “ists” in sales (from archeologists to zoologists) depending on your industry you may have sales engineers or other technology driven people who have moved into sales on your team.
Here are my top tips to ensure you’re not alienating the introverts instead of leading & managing them:
- Warn Them: that you’re going to talk something through.
”As a team let’s talk this through….”
”This isn’t a done deal yet, but I would like your ideas….” - Reduce your own expectation of chit chat! Instead mirror the other person’s level of interaction.
- Introverts are WAY more comfortable with silence than extroverts will ever be. Make sure you include a bit of time to think in meetings – before asking them for ideas.
- Tell someone you’re going to call on them BEFORE you ask the question:
“Mark, I’d like your thoughts on this…”
“Lisa please make sure I come back to you on this before we move on, your ideas are important…” - They may be GREAT listeners, but may never interrupt a bunch of extroverts shouting out their thoughts – make sure to ask them for their input.
Most importantly remember they still want to be valued members of the team – make sure you do everything you can to encourage and support that!