Building Relationships: How to Become a Personality Detective

The first thing my mentor, Michael Dlouhy, taught me was this: Network Marketing is NOT a numbers game, it’s about building relationships with people. The more relationships you build over time, the more successful you’ll be.

People are not numbers. People are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. People have dreams and aspirations. Thus relating to people and building a relationship with them over time comes first from understanding them.

Let’s say you’re meeting a new prospect for the first time at a coffee house. Literally within the first two minutes you can understand them and begin to build a long term relationship by identifying their dominant personality type. Just how do you do that? Easy. Shut up, listen and observe. Here’s how…

When you meet a “Yellow”…

Yellows will probably be wearing comfortable, casual clothing. Nothing outlandish, nothing too colourful. Their handshake are warm and soft. They speak with a soft slow voice.

The key characteristics of Yellows are they’re open and indirect. So when you ask them a question, they’ll give you the honest answer and then they’ll stop, until you ask them the next question. They tell you how they are feeling, but they won’t give you all the gory details or exaggerations because they’re indirect.

You’ll notice it is very easy to get along with a Yellow straight away. They’ll show concern for you and try to talk about the things you’re interested in. They’re talk more in terms of “we” and “our”, rather than “I” or “my”.

When you meet a “Blue”…

Blues are very flamboyant in their choice of clothing. They’ll be wearing bright colours, hawaiian shirts and big hats. They have a firm and fast hand shake. They talk fast too.

Blues are open and direct. When you ask them about their weekend, they’ll tell you everything and how fun and exciting it was. They can’t help but talk, and talk, and talk. They’ll give you all the juicy details that you didn’t even ask for. They’ll exaggerate. They’ll tell you all about the 10 foot air they got on their dirty bike and how they nearly broke every single bone in their body on landing.

Blues are also very easy to get along with. They are friendly people. Just don’t bore them, though. They love to have fun. And they may seem self centered because they talk about themselves a lot.

When you meet a “Red”…

Image is everything to a “Red”. The red will most likely be wearing designer clothes and walk with a very upright posture to show off their status as top notch people. They drive a Mercedes, even though they may be living in under a tent and can barely afford to make the car repayments. Their handshakes are firm and slow and they speak with a clear, firm voice.

Reds are self-contained and direct, so don’t bother asking them about their weekend – all they’re going to say is “Good” and that’s it. They’ll be asking you the questions and controlling the conversation. And they’ll want quick, straight to the point answers.

They’ll cut you off in mid conversation if you start to faffle on. It’s very easy to become intimidated in front of a Red. They don’t mean to be rude, it’s just the way they are.

When you meet a “Green”…

For the “Green”, everything has to be perfect. They won’t wear expensive clothes like the Reds, nor will they be colourful like the Blues, but they will be meticulously ironed and creased down the middle. Compared to the other personalities, they talk slowly and their voice is rather expressionless.

Greens are self-contained and indirect. When you ask them a rather private question, or their opinion on something, you won’t get a straight forward answer from them. If you ask them what they do for a living, they’ll just tell you that they are an engineer. You’d have to probe a little deep to find out what type of engineer they are.

It may feel awkward to try to have an open conversation with a Green, and that’s because they are not open and they are not direct. They’ll open up when you start talking about the things they are interested in.

To your MLM success,

Wayne Wu
Founder, The Profitable Networker

P.S. I would love your input! If you have an opinion that would contribute to this discussion, please leave me a comment below.

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Tagged as: Building Relationships, Dominant Personality, Handshake, Michael Dlouhy, Network Marketing, New Prospect