One of Freed’s longtime clients, Susie Goff, graciously agreed to donate her lunch hour toward educating Freedlings on her favorite personality profile system, Bulls, Owls, Lambs and Tigers, or BOLT for short. She uses the BOLT system to train her own team members at the Johnson Development Corp. on selling and communication skills. Susie and I felt it would be beneficial if Freed understood a way of thinking that is such a large part of Johnson sales and marketing strategy.

In short, people’s personalities fall into two dominant categories of BOLT – every person will have characteristics of all four animals, but there are usually two that dominate – a major and a minor. Once you understand which animals a person has as their personality, you can tailor your sales pitch or your communication style to fit that person’s way of processing information for better results. Susie explained that as an agency, we are always selling our ideas to our clients, and if we don’t sell our ideas the right way (the BOLT way), we stand to lose more than half or more of our “sales”.

BOLT theory is based on two variables of personality, assertiveness and emotion, and the degrees of each trait in a person. Owls are least assertive and least emotional of the four. Bulls are most assertive but show little emotion. Lambs are low on assertiveness and high on emotion. Tigers are both high assertive and highly emotional.

Below are short descriptions of the four personality types, courtesy of Charles J. Clarke III, creator of the BOLT personality selling system:

A BULL:
Bottom Line, Get To The Point
Seeks To Control The Negotiation

AN OWL:
Very Analytical, Detail Oriented Researcher
Seeks Logical Order

A LAMB:
Seeks To Please People, Avoids Conflict
Takes Forever To Make Up Their Mind

A TIGER:
Very Expressive and Fun-Loving
Impulsive and Excitable

Here is an example of the four personality types in action: Owls balance their checkbook to the penny. Bulls hire someone to balance their checkbook for them. Lambs feel badly if their checkbook doesn’t balance. And Tigers don’t even bother to record transactions.

Favorite colors and handshakes may also be telling. With colors, bulls like black, Tigers prefer bright colors, Owls like dull colors like beige and grey, and Lambs like pastels. Handshake strength and grip varies also by personality type.

So after Susie explained the whole concept to us with some vivid anecdotes and illustrations, we all took the test to determine our personality types. Well, no surprise, the creative team was full of TIGERS! “That explains a lot” was heard around the table. Also no surprise, account service fell into the “Owl” category.

For more information on BOLT, visit Charles Clarke’s website at  www.personalityselling.com.

The bottom line is that those who are bullish on the BOLT system will become grrrrrreat at selling and persuasion, while those who don’t give a hoot will be baaaaaad at it!

By Mandy de León

This post is tagged Freed Advertising, Lunch & Learn, We're all a bunch of Animals!, Wendy Beyer