The Art of SpeedReading People (and buying gifts)
Last month I had the good fortune to meet with Paul Tieger, author of The Art of SpeedReading People. You might be having personality issues with customers, colleagues or even your teenagers. If you are in sales, you either are good at speed reading people or you spend time wondering why your prospects won’t close or even call you back. As a marketer, you can develop a very clear picture of your prospect’s expectations if you combine the lessons in the book with information about your customer’s type. If you are at all interested in learning how to read and deal with other people, this is an excellent explanation, with plenty of behaviors to look for.
People’s behavior is remarkably predictable if you know their type. Even if you aren’t all that interested, just a few key ways to read others can make life with colleagues and family more enjoyable.
This month you especially have to be especially good at mind reading as you rack your brain for gift ideas. Here are a few thoughts that might help. Let’s say your giftee (my new word for the recipient) is an extrovert. How can you tell? Well, they prefer to be around people, have lots of friends and associates, are talkative, enthusiastic, outgoing, and are interested in many things. A wonderful gift for an extrovert is an experience: a boat cruise, tickets to a play or concert, a dinner or drinks gift certificate that can be enjoyed with family or friends. The wrong approach would be, for example, an item that isolates them from others or has to be used when they are alone.
An introvert giftee is someone who is comfortable spending time alone, likes to focus on one thing at a time, has a few very close friends, is fairly reserved, calm, and more private about themselves. Good ideas would be an MP3 player, books, gift certificates for personal items, home decorations, clothes, you-build-it products, movie tickets, a Netflix subscription and gift certificates for online shopping.
Want to give shopping by personality a try? At gifts.com you can shop by personality, either by answering a few questions about your giftee or just picking from the categories of people. It’s not as sophisticated as learning to speed read people, but it gets the job done and is another good source for ideas.
For straight up gift ideas, try the New York Times Gift Guide which is filled with useful links to items such as the top 100 books of 2009.
With customers, gift-giving this year might be a donation to a charity in their name. For college students and those who find themselves in jobs that are not a perfect match for their natural talents, I recommend the book Do What You Are.
