5 People You Meet
Let’s face it, when you are trying to break into a new market there are a lot of struggles. You have to figure out the intricacies of a new city, how to act like a local, which vendors to partner with, who are your competitors, where your ideal client fits in, and all the while trying to balance family life. It’s not easy, but should it be? If one thing moving into new markets has taught us is that, we have to always remain flexible as a business to changing markets and thankful for every success no matter how small. Recently, on Instagram someone asked me what the hardest thing about moving was. The answer, learning to read people and their intentions rapidly.
Personalities
One of the biggest struggles we face every time we move is to identify someones personality and true reason for wanting to work with us. In doing rapid marketing and breakthrough market strategies for the past five years, we have identified that people usually fall into one of five categories. Keep in mind these categories are based on our own experience and anecdotal record of our mentoring clients. So to help you out, here are the top 5.
The Genuinely Helpful Person
The genuinely helpful person embodies a concept we discussed in earlier blogs called the outward mindset. Their sole purpose in wanting to help you is to see you succeed. By helping you succeed they are building a relationship and improving the professional community around them. These are the folks that make business enjoyable, fruitful, and community centric.
The Disingenuous Person
The disingenuous person usually seems very helpful in the beginning. Once they get to know you, they might stay friends with you for a bit but the minute they perceive you as competition they cut off all ties with you. It can hurt, believe me, because I have been there and it has left me asking why?! The reason they can do this so easily is they never had any genuine interest in you or your business in the first place beyond the purpose of assessing your business and determining how to protect their own business, despite the fact that there is enough work for everyone.
The Brick Wall Person
The brick wall personality is usually the vender that has a very tight relationships with specific people (cliques) already. Anyone who is on the “outside” of those cliques, is not talked to or acknowledged. These vendors usually never return phone calls or emails.
The BFF Person
This type of vendor usually wants to be your really good friend very quickly. They want to hang out often and will give up business just to be around you or help you. Having friends is not a bad thing by any means, however this personality type takes it to an unhealthy level. You have to be very careful with this type of vendor because their friendship can turn toxic and actually hurt your business. The best to deal with this relationship is to establish boundaries.
The Talker
This vendor type has an opinion on everything. They think they are being helpful but in the end a lot of what they are sharing with you is gossip with the intent to draw you in to a problem they are experiencing. Because you are new to the market, you will attract these folks easily. The most important thing is to know is . . don’t get drawn in. Remain like Switzerland and stay neutral in how you view them and the folks they are talking about.
How do I use this information?
When we market to a new area and start meeting with other business owners, we try to identify their personality category as quickly as possible. We want to do this to ensure that that person is a good fit for our business and that we are a good fit for helping them grow as well. We mainly accomplish this by doing research into their website and in person or phone interviews. Ideally you want to try and meet as many genuinely helpful people as possible. The other types of personalities are not necessarily bad but take an extra level of precaution and energy when getting to know them.
Let’s stay connected
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Do you want to dive deeper into how to be successful in new markets or are relocating your business and need some help? Come join our course Break into a New Market.
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