1. Behavioral Selling
© 2015 by Thomas M. Deliganis
A Behavioral Approach to
Winning in Your Career and Your Relationships
Section One - Cringe Worthy
I cringe a little as I recall early in my sales career, arranging a lunch meeting with a
particular sales prospect I had never before met. Our lunch was at a popular
downtown restaurant. I arrived armed with only this instinctive notion: that being
friendly and establishing commonality would quickly win him over and thereby
generate a trust relationship with me, my company and our products. My
luncheon could not have been more of a failure. He seemed completely
uncomfortable with me from the beginning, and our meeting went downhill with
every question I asked.
“Do you have a family?” Yes.
“Oh really, how many kids do you have?” I have four.
“Wow four? That’s a big family by today’s standards” Yes.
“Uh… Did you grow up here?” No.
“Really, me neither. I’m from South Texas!” A long silence.
“Uh… how long have you lived here?” 12 years.
And so it went. By the time I actually started asking business related questions, he
was generally disinterested and increasingly uncomfortable. I never sold to this
prospect. As time marched on I met with him on several other occasions and
learned a lot about his style, if not about him. Eventually it occurred to me that I
had made every mistake possible in my first encounter; and as a result never
really recovered in my subsequent lame attempts to win his credibility. Knowing
what I now know, I would never, ever have taken this fellow to lunch; especially
not on our first meeting. Likewise, I would have avoided all reference to his, or my
personal life. I recall eventually trying to wow him with some important product
features; this was likewise a mistake.

2. Section Two - Naïve Assumptions
In the first few years of my business career, I naively assumed that a one size fits
all personal style could be consistently successful with each person I was
attempting to influence. Most people I know assume the very same thing.
But how could I have known to behave otherwise with this prospect? My
approach, my style had generally performed successfully before; why did it
completely and utterly backfire this time? If only I had better understood his
personality, and what he values in life and business. Yet how could I do this?
Especially on the first meeting.
There are actually ways to better understand such things. Assessments such as
The Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory have existed for decades. Such
instruments can determine a person’s motivational and behavioral characteristics,
and provide reasonable guidance on how to improve interaction with other
people. In my personal and anecdotal experience, I’ve found them to be fairly
accurate and even helpful. So wouldn’t business be more rational if somehow
everyone took the Myers-Briggs or similar personality assessment? And wouldn’t
it be convenient if we all had access to each other’s report prior to meeting; and
thereby each of us would better understand each other’s “hot” buttons? We
would surely become more adept at avoiding subjects and mannerisms that are
potentially offensive or annoying to each other. This of course will never happen.
However and if it ever did, it would undoubtedly be like living in a Saturday Night
Live skit. In this improbable skit, persons X and Y would exchange Myers-Briggs
reports prior to a negotiation, a date or any other significant interaction. In doing
so they would be poised to accomplish great things together and they would soon
become the best of friends, or lovers! I would like to see that skit! However, we
all know that practical application of personality assessments in the go-go pace of
our daily lives is a fictional fantasy at best. It’s one thing to review your own
personality inventory, but it’s quite another to allow someone else to see it. I’ve
worked for a couple of companies that compelled employees to take such
inventories or assessments with the seemingly benign intention of assisting
management to better know how to direct and motivate you. I’ve always believed
it to be a borderline infringement of my privacy and personal liberty; because we
all know that there will be at least one #$%!& on the management team who will
attempt to use the information gathered to make hiring, firing and promotion

3. decisions. I don’t know this for a fact but I am guessing that the demented
disciples of Stack Ranking probably pay close attention to such assessments as
they arbitrarily and ignorantly “lop off” the bottom 10% of their employees. If you
are unsure what Stack Ranking is, then I recommend you Google or Bing it, and
prepare yourself for a minor shock!
However, what if there really was a quick and accurate way to assess other
people’s personality style? And what if you could do so in an unnoticeable way,
which allowed you to adapt your behavior on the fly? What if by doing so you
could increase your chances of winning in these interactions? How much more
efficient and successful could we be!
Section Three - Behavioral Selling
The Behavioral Selling is such a system. I know it works, because I have used it for
much of my career and adult life with great success. I have taught it to others, and
they have in turn used it with success. It’s a common sense approach that you
probably already deploy on an instinctive level. The following pages will provide
you with proven and specific skills, tactics and insights into this system. I am
convinced that if you deploy The Behavioral Selling system on a consistent and
persistent basis, you will have significant and sustaining success in your various
dealings with others. This system is especially helpful in sales, job interviewing,
negotiations and even personal relationships!
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
Every person you come into contact with falls into one of three primary
personality categories. They are each Ascendant, Symbiotic or Insulated. Your
goal is to figure out their personality category, and then quickly modify your own
behavior accordingly. If you can learn to accomplish this, then you will have much
greater success in your career and in your personal relationships. As previously
mentioned, this system may be applied effectively in sales, interviewing for a job,
business and personal negotiations, as well as daily relationships with significant
other; and even people with whom you struggle to interact. In the following
pages I will provide specific guidance and application for this system. If you end
up retaining and using this system, even a little, then I assure you that your
interactions with others will be more successful, by any good measure.
ASK ME FOR THE ENTIRE TRANSCRIPT