I guess I have to admit it’s what we do, though we call it ’safe zone.’

OK, so here’s my take on your respective comments:

Sean is right that there are times when you might actually need to create an “anti-persona” – someone who you do NOT want as a customer and who you want your copy to actively discourage or drive away. Roy Williams calls this “choosing whom to lose”

Sean is also right that building your brand appeal around your core identity means that you can’t be all things to all people.

But I also believe that Sean confuses the issue on two points that Roger briefly touched upon:

1) Communicating your core appeal in the preferred language and style of a given temperament is NOT a form of false packaging, nor is it in any way an erosion of who you really are.

Take Sean’s example of have multiple friends of differing temperaments and imagine planning a group trip to the beach. Depending on the particular friend you are talking to, you might pitch the idea in different ways, based upon what you know that person finds most appealing and persuasive. So does this common sense approach require you to change what you’re selling (a beach trip) or to fundamentally change who you are?

Answer: only if you have a severe personality disorder or are some type of politician.

2) Choosing whom to lose normally doesn’t mean disregarding an entire temperament. It would be extraordinarily rare for a company to decide that they were ONLY going to market to Competitives, or even that they had absolutely no desire to work with Methodicals.

While a product category may dictate that, for example, Spontaneous are unlikely to shop in their preferred mode while buying network storage solutions, that’s usually more the exception than the rule.

What’s more likely is that, as a consultant, you’ll make a decision to only seek business with clients who are looking to form longer-term partnerships/alliances, and that you want to actively drive away transactional clients. Great! But which temperament does that line up with? Possibly any of them!

Yeah, Humanistics are more likely to shop relationally, but ANY of the temperaments can shop relationally, and you’d do yourself a huge disservice to stop talking to the other three temperaments based on a decision to target relational customers.

- Jeff

What we try to do on websites is appeal to half a dozen temperaments. And usually conversion increases when you take a crappy web page and give it some direction (with or without temperaments). But if you told me that you needed a specific temperament to get conversion, then that’s not what we’re seeing.

We clearly don’t want all customers. We’re clearly attracting customers who suit the temperament we’re putting out.

Too many businesses are trying to second-guess their customers. Customers have a clear ‘want factor.’ Deciphering the want factor is (at least to me) more important than having to work out a temperament.

If the right want factor is put out to the customer, they’ll convert, even if at first it doesn’t suit their temperament.

Sean
http://www.psychotactics.com

Every person is a ‘product.’ Our friends choose us, just as our partners/wives/husbands choose us.

They choose us for who we are. And who we are in relation to who they are.

If you’re an extrovert, you’ll find that your partner is more than likely to be an introvert, or at least less keen to meet people than you.

You’ll find this common amongst your friends too. You’ll find people of different temperaments calling you their friend.

So what did you do?
Did you change your temperament for each friend? Do you keep changing your temperament for your partner, depending on the mood?

I think not.

The easiest role to play is the role we’re most comfortable with. That role polarises people. There are those who love you for who you are, and those that can’t stick you.

And yet, you attract enough people in your life, no matter what your temperament.

We’ve never written our pages to appeal to a broad spectrum and you can see for yourself that you’ll instantly (and I mean instantly) like or detest us when you get to our site.

You don’t need to package yourself. In fact, you need to ‘un-package’ yourself and your company. Bring out the real DNA of who you are, instead of appealing to every one.

Try being true to yourself.
It works.
Not to say the other system doesn’t work, but being true to yourself is a lot less hard work. And far more consistent.

Sean
http://www.psychotactics.com

I may think about this if I have the courage.

I think many false decisions were made because of the lack of temperament. Need to read this.