Page 155 - engage workbook

16 Octagon™ behavioral questionnaire

Activity

If everyone we met was exactly the same, it would be easy to develop one approach
that would work every time. Fortunately the world isn’t that boring – but it makes the
challenge of building rapport and trust that much harder.

This activity helps you develop flexibility.

1. Take five minutes to read the profiles of Jennifer, Raymond and Judith on the next
page and plan how you would approach a meeting with each of them. You choose the
meeting topics.

2. Then allocate roles:
• A takes Jennifer’s role, B leads the conversation, C observes.
• B takes Raymond’s role, C leads the conversation, A observes.
• C takes Judith’s role, A leads the conversation, B observes.

Then role play the start of each meeting - just the opening few minutes until you feel
you are getting into the substance of the meeting.

Run them one after another with no pause for feedback or analysis.

3. Leave yourselves about 10 minutes at the end to review what happened:

• What differences in the consultant’s / salesperson’s behavior did you notice between
the three meetings?

• What was planned for each meeting and did the consultant / salesperson follow the
plan? If not, why was that?

• From the buyer’s perspective, did it feel genuine? How effective was the consultant
/ salesperson in building rapport?

• Next time, what would you do in the same way? What would you do differently?

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