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  Understand Your Customers Run the following ad in any newspaper:?2006 Honda Civic DX 4dr, White, 63,000 miles, $8,100. Call 555-1212. These are the questions you’ll be asked by nearly half your callers: ?“What year is that Honda Civic? Is it a 2-door or 4-door? What color? How many miles on it? How much are you asking?” I know this because I bought and sold an average of three cars a month for the first several years I was married. I’ve answered these questions many hundreds of times and in every instance the information was in the ad. I always wanted to ask, “Where did you get this phone number?” Then a few years ago Dr. Richard Grant taught me the difference between introverts and extroverts. Introversion and extroversion don’t refer to shyness and boldness. They refer only to how you charge your emotional batteries. Introverts gain energy from internal contemplation, centering, and quiet time. Extroverts gain energy from external people, places, and things. I’m an introvert. Those car questions were asked by extroverts. Contrary to what introverts like to think, extroverts aren’t stupid. They simply prefer the spoken word to the written. Books are written for introverts. Audiobooks are recorded for extroverts. Introverts rarely say what they are thinking. They say only what they have thought. Introverts think to talk. Extroverts talk to think. When introverts get stuck, they close the door, turn off the radio, take the phone off the hook and go deep inside themselves to find the answer. When extroverts get stuck they strike up a conversation with someone. This gets the mental flywheel spinning again and sure enough, within moments, out pops an idea. Extroverts get their best ideas during conversation. Although nearly half our population is introverted, the U.S. maintains a strongly extroverted social etiquette: Focus groups measure the opinions of extroverts.?Churches plan social events for extroverts.?Companies plan promotions for extroverts, and trainers teach us how to sell to extroverts. Do you remember the old sales adage, “close early, close hard and close often?” This may be a sure way to keep your extroverted customers engaged in conversation and “flush out” their true objections, but you’ll just as surely alienate your introverted customers. Good luck with that. Extroverts think introverts are socially inept. Introverts think extroverts are noisy. What extroverts call “reaching out to someone,” introverts call an invasion of privacy. Extroverts prefer to work in teams. Introverts do their best work alone. Given their polar opposite preferences, can introverts and extroverts work well together, become partners, be happily married? Absolutely. The key to showing courtesy to an extrovert is to listen to them more than you think is necessary. Maintain eye contact, nod your head and smile. The key to showing courtesy to an introvert is to give them time and space for reflection and processing. Don’t bombard them with questions or subject them to a barrage of jabber when they’re “all peopled out.” Give them an uninterrupted hour to read the mail and they’ll soon be ready to hear about your day. Do it however works best for you,?but keep your emotional batteries charged. If you want a thing done cheerfully, ask an extrovert to do it. If you want it done well, ask an introvert. Introverts are a minority in the general population but they’re the majority of the gifted.
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