Week 8- Communication is Key

Communication is the key to a conversation as an exchange of meanings from one to another in order to understand not only the ways that we personally communicate, but also how to communicate to others depending on the style of the listener(s). I took two communication style assessments, which both gave me insights on how I personally act in conversation. The most interesting part about it was how accurately it described the actions I normally take that usually go unnoticed.

The two free assessments that I took were, “What is my Social Proforma” and “Selling Today, communication style assessment exercise” which both provided insights on my personal and business communication styles.  The tests were both ran in a similar fashion with questions dealing on personal situations and actions. They ask the questions mainly on a scale system ranking the choices depending on the context.

The results of the test were both provided on an XY graph with different intercepts defining the style of communication.  For the social proforma test, I felt it was more geared towards the business aspect of communication with the two continuums being assertiveness and responsiveness. Assertiveness refers to the degree to which a person holds opinions about issues and attempts to dominate the situation by directing the thoughts and actions of others.  Responsiveness points to the level of feelings and sociability an individual openly displays. (Chapter 3) On the contrary, for the selling today test, dominance, and sociability acted as the two intercepts providing more of a personal connection. From my experience, both of the assessments provided me with insights on how I and others communicate with one another.  

Similar to how they say that sales is 90% listening and 10% talking,  a salesperson’s skill in properly classifying a customer’s communication style can provide valuable cues regarding the customer's attitudes and behaviors towards yourself and the company/product.

For myself, I fell into the expressive quadrant which includes highly communicative individuals who are competitive by nature. When reading the description I felt as if I was reading a personal description. Exhibiting a warm personality with the intent to bring value through building close relationships to the extent of disliking being alone. I’m a huge believer in teamwork and readily seek out help from others. I used to be much more competitive through only chasing victory (mainly through sports), but feel I’ve relaxed on competition as I've opened my mind to patients and abundance.  I’m very optimistic about the future and am personally taking on the risk of building a business in a new and interesting space that seems to have a bad stigma attached. The only thing that I didn’t agree with was the unorganization and lack of concern for the time as time is the most valuable thing we have!

With the second assessment, I was placed in the emotive quadrant which ironically may enjoy more success and happiness by controlling the use of his or her time and emotions.  The test was scored off of dominance and sociability which I personally ranked high for both placing me as emotive. I see the role of dominance in my competitive mindset and leadership roles, but want to ensure that I am not taking advantage of the power or disrespecting others.  This shows as I also ranked high for sociability, which is the tendency for one to seek and enjoy interacting with others. After reading through the personal results, the assessment broke down how to interact with the individuals in the real world from each section based on myself being emotive.  Obviously, I 'm going to be more on the sociable side with new individuals, spontaneous and personable in conversation, and persuasive as hell. Oppositely, the results pointed out my lack of patience and over-assertiveness, two characteristics that I’ve realized need working. With both the positives and negatives in consideration, I believe that a sales position has been a primary consideration for myself because of the personal traits in my communication that was pointed out by the assessment.

From my sales experience, I believe that the style of work is right on point with what I am doing, but have found that I need to have a true passion for what I am selling in order to work efficiently.  My sales life started when I was young as I would sell anything and everything to make a buck. My favorite was a small business a friend and I started in middle school, selling sticks and packs of gum in school as it was recently banned.  We started with a small investment from our parents of a few five packs and ended running the show through eighth grade.

Another example of sales was my part-time job at Illinois Energy, a window, siding, and doors constructor.  My role was to talk to the homeowners in the area near the recently completed jobs to gather interested in receiving a free home estimate.  Now, this is what I was telling individuals, but really I was walking door to door in the freezing cold dealing with people not interested in talking.  My job was to get these individuals to open up about the problems that they were facing around their homes and get them in the mindset of making repairs and saving money.  This was a difficult task as most homeowners are not in the market for home repairs and especially when its a random kid knocking on their doors in the 21st century. Although the job was taught, I learned many lessons from the long days of rejection, many dealing with communication and how to overcome objections.  I left the position to chase after my personal interest because one could only preach home repairs so much in this technological age.

Overall, I really enjoyed going through these tests to get a better understanding of my communication and social styles.  I feel that both pointed out my key interest and areas that need work.  I would say that most would agree with the results I shared as most know my name for my loud speaking.