According to businessdictionary.com, the four social styles are:
Amiable – one of four social styles commonly used to classify salespeople and their customers in terms of their communication approach, amiable people are characterized by high responsiveness and low assertiveness.
Analytical – one of four social styles commonly used to classify salespeople and their customers in terms of their communication approach, analytical people are characterized by low responsiveness and low assertiveness
Driver – one of the four social styles commonly used to classify salespeople and their customers, drivers are characterized by high assertiveness and low responsiveness.
Expressive- one of four social styles commonly used to classify salespeople and their customers, expressive people are characterized by high assertiveness and high responsiveness.
Throughout the years of studying the psychology of sales and marketing, I have heard several different variations of this concept of four social styles and I refer to them as the four basic personality types. There are numerous different labels and depending on whom the psychologist is you are listening to or what book you are reading, etc.
Basically, the way I have them outlined is, a director, relator, analytical and socialist. The reason why these are so important to understand is because everyone falls primarily into one of these categories but golfers are not 100% of a specific personality type.
For example, you might have a director as your primary personality type or social style but as a director, you still have some of the traits of a socialist, the relater and the analytical.
It’s important to understand these four personality types/social styles because each golfer you engage in a sales presentation is going to fall into one of these for basic social styles. The more you know about each social style or personality type, the better equipped and prepared you are to accommodate that person’s social style.
One of the first things we learn as children is the golden rule, “treat people the way you want to be treated”. I have changed this because I believe that you treat people the way they want to be treated.
What I mean by this is, if you are speaking with a golfer whose core social style is a director and you are trying to lock-up a relationship with him/her and you approach them with a socialist social style, the golfer is going to be annoyed because they want you to get straight to the point and not socialize.
The same goes if you are trying to lock-up a relationship with a socialist and you approach him/her as a director, i.e., straight to the point, the golfer is going to perceive you as being rude and unfriendly and therefor will be annoyed by your approach making it less likely they will want to have a relationship with you and your golf course.
Learning the four social styles are very important when it comes to locking-up relationships with golfers.
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