Persuading Personality Types: The Expressive/Influencer
Day three on the personality types and we’re going to look at the survey data for the influencer/expressive personalities. Expressive people are easy to spot because they outgoing, enthusiastic and operate with a high energy level. They’re idea people who sometimes struggle to see their ideas through to completion. If you need help you can usually count on them to come through. Expressive people enjoy socializing but can be slow to reach a decision. If you’re an expressive person then people might see you as a fast talker, dramatic and somewhat impulsive. Words that describe people in this class include: verbal, motivating, enthusiastic, convincing, impulsive, influential, charming, confident, dramatic, optimistic and animated.
There were 61 people (24%) who self identified as having the expressive/influencer personality on the survey. As a general statement, people in this group responded most to the principles of consensus, liking and reciprocity. This was very consistent with my gut instinct for this personality.
Consensus
As the name implies, people in this group are influencers. They understand the power of the crowd because they’re usually the ones moving the masses to action. They can also see the benefit of being part of the group.The second survey question really stood out for this group: Which would be most likely to get you to go out to dinner? The overwhelming answer for the expressive people was – There will be a group of people which might make it more fun. More than 66% chose this as the reason to go to dinner, almost triple the response rate than for this answer – You’ve told your friends you want to spend more time with them so here’s your chance. Interestingly the drivers and amiables were pretty evenly split between those two answers. The expressive folks would rather have fun in a crowd than a small group. On two of the other questions where consensus was a possible choice people in the influencer/expressive category clearly chose the consensus answer more than the other groups and on one other question they were very close to being the top answer.
Liking
It makes complete sense to me that expressive people would be motivated by liking too. As the category name implies, they like to express themselves and often that’s talking about themselves – their accomplishments, likes, dislikes, etc. If you talk with someone of the expressive/influencer type, connect on similarities, offer up sincere compliments and ask questions that will allow them to talk. If you can do this you’ll have a better chance to move them in your direction.
Q – You’ve been considering buying a new laptop, one that’s on the more expensive side. Which most influences your buying decision?
A – A friend has the same laptop and loves it.
A third of the expressive type said the friend would be their main reason for buying the laptop. Consider this; every other group chose that answer about 20% of the time or less. That means 50% more expressive people listed this reason than did the other groups. The other groups were much more motivated by authority than were the expressive/influencers.
Reciprocity
Here’s another motivating principle that makes total sense. People in the expressive/influencer group have lots of friends. One way to build your network of friends is by offering help and engaging reciprocity. Because they understand the value of favors they play by the rules and respond to those who’ve done favors for them.Question 6 was interesting:
Q – You’re married and your spouse asks you to do some light home repairs that might take several hours. You do them primarily because:
A – Your spouse does lots around the house so it’s the least you can do.The vast majority, nearly 73%, responded to the “because my spouse does lots” but the highest percentage came from the influencer/expressive people.
Conclusion
What conclusion can we draw about people in the influencer/expressive category when it comes to persuasion? After you’ve surveyed the situation for what’s naturally available, specifically look for ways to leverage liking, consensus and reciprocity. If authority, consistency and scarcity can be worked into your influence attempt, then by all means do so and you’ll know you’ve taken the right steps to be as persuasive as possible.
Brian
influencepeople
Helping you learn to hear “Yes”.
I like the scales that this test measured- Did you write it yourself? …I myself am very expressive and value reciprocity above all else- although that's probably somewhat of an exaggeration 😉 My husband is very much the analytical personality type and he teases me about my expressiveness. Aside from him,I think sometimes people get tired of my influence and (i think!) might find me intrusive at times. Oh well! Gotta love me! 🙂
The truth is, we all need to be better influencers. In spite of the fact that we are continually trying to help ourselves and others to alter behavior, only a few of us can articulate a model of what it takes to do so.Priyanka
The thing is most people want to be understood for who they are, and some people do not feel like they are understood so feel they have to express them selves to many people , I understand myself so feel no reason to express myself to others, as people get older sometimes you change and understand yourself, some people as they get older still feel they are miss understood and need to express themselves to everyone for the lack of understanding of themselves and this is where you get character varieties in people, not that I could not express myself but some people never grow out of that child need for attention and never really think how they are coming across repeating themselves over and over to their different friends.With media today people make like young people should be heard instead of being self aware and nobody really cares about what you say unless you came up with a cure for cancer or anti gravity so most people have relative the same way of thinking and want to be known as different than the rest of the people when we are very similar.
Terry,
I think it's a natural desire for individuals to want to be known. We're social animals and – right or wrong – we get quite a bit of significance and self-worth from others. When it crosses the line into self-centeredness it repels people which only makes the self-centered person try hard. A bad cycle ensues. Paradoxically, the more we know ourselves and seek it less from others the more others are drawn to us because that's an attractive characteristic.