We’ve taken quite a trip around your brain. Here’s what I’m hoping you garnered from the last several blogs

• We all have a ‘Whole Brain’, but have definite preferences and differences in how we see the world and ‘hear’ information.
• The power in knowing your preferences and those of your client is that you can flex into your client’s preferred quadrants and have a better chance of being heard.

But, this begs the question, “What if I don’t know the preference of my client?” or “What if I’m presenting to a varied group?” To solve for this we provide information from all four quadrants. Here’s one way that this might look in presentation:

1. Give the big picture view of why this proposal is important to the client (Yellow)
2. Provide step by step information as to how you’ll deliver your solution (Green)
3. Talk about who will be on your team to support the client (Red)
4. Give the metrics for how you’ll determine the ROI on your solution (Blue)

At the end of the day, if we are serious about connecting with our clients and deepening current client relationships, we need to go a step deeper than our standard sales process. We must find a way to speak in a language that our client will hear.

On October 20th I posted a link to an AMA article called Making the Speech of Your Life. The author spoke about  Ethos, Logos and Pathos. Ethos, the creation of trust – Logos , making your appeal with facts and numbers and Pathos, your emotional appeal. While this is a great beginning to a Whole Brain approach, it is missing some elements.

Ethos – Trust means something different to each preference. A Blue thinker for example, will trust you because it makes sense (logical), while a Green thinker will trust you because it feels safe to do so. Are you creating a Whole Brain reason for your audience to trust you?

Logos – Making your appeal with facts and figures is an outstanding way to reach the Blue quadrant thinkers in your audience.

Pathos – Making an emotional appeal will definitely get a response from the Red quadrant thinkers in your audience.

But, this strategy doesn’t address the Green quadrant. And a Green quadrant thinker wants to know HOW you are going do what you propose.

A Whole Brain approach always has a better chance of speaking to your audience. By speaking to preferences you’ll be connecting specifically with your client which will deepen your relationship with them and create more opportunities for you. We’ve recently helped increase validated opportunities by 23% at their largest tradeshow with this very approach.

I’d love to hear how it works for you.

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Whole Brain™ thinking is owned by Herrmann International

Whole Brain Thinking – A Wrap Up is a post from: Jane Gentry

The Blue quadrant is where critical thinking and analysis happens. People with a preference for the Blue quadrant have a tendency to be great with numbers, or taking things apart and putting them back together.

The gifts of the Blue quadrant can be:

• Analyzing data
• Solving tough problems
• Determining the ROI

Challenges of the Blue quadrant can be:

• Analysis paralysis
• Being perceived as “all data”
• Unsoftened directness

If your client has a preference for the Blue quadrant you might notice that:

• They ask for a lot of numbers and spreadsheets
• They only make a move when it ‘makes sense’
• They have no interest in a personal relationship

How to adjust for the Blue preference:

1. Come to the meeting prepared with facts and data to support your claims.
2. Get to the point.
3. Use testimonials that show ROI.

I’ve shared with you a very big picture view of Whole Brain™ thinking and how it may be applied to your clients to determine the filters through which they see the world. I’d love to know how you’ve applied this model to your current sales process.

Next, we’ll look at what to do if you are presenting to a group, or you don’t know the preference of a person you are working with.

Next week – A Whole Brain thinking wrap up

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Whole Brain™ thinking is owned by Herrmann International

Connecting to the Blue Brain is a post from: Jane Gentry

I think of people with a Green preference as the ‘doers’ of the world. They see the world through the details. The gifts of the Green preference can include:

• An attention to detail
• The ability to get things done
• The ability to establish order

Challenges of the Green preference may include:

• Being so focused on getting something done that they lose sight of the big picture
• Getting too mired in detail
• Risk aversion

The Green quadrant is someone you want on your side when you want to get things accomplished. A Green quadrant thinker will have a step-by-step plan for getting you there.

If your client has a preference for the Green quadrant you may notice:

• They are tough to move from the status quo
• They ask for very detailed proposals
• They are on time with things and like you to be

How do you adjust for the Green quadrant?

1. Save your ‘new’, ‘innovative’ and ‘fun’ ideas for your Yellow quadrant clients unless you can make it very SAFE for a Green thinker to make a risky move like this.
2. Provide as much detail as you can about process.
3. Never meet them late or unprepared.

It is interesting to note that most of us have preferences in more than one quadrant. You may find that you or your client are more right-brained (Yellow/Red) or left-brained (Green/Blue), or more Cognitive (Blue/Yellow) or Limbic (Green/Red) in preference. Have you already been looking for clues from your clients as to their preferences and how you may ‘flex out’ into their communication styles?

Next week – The Blue quadrant

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Whole Brain™ thinking is owned by Herrmann International

Connecting to the Green Brain is a post from: Jane Gentry

The Red quadrant of the brain is the interpersonal quadrant.

Gifts of the Red quadrant include:

• Teaching
• Listening and talking
• Empathy

Challenges with the Red quadrant include:

• Too much talking
• Taking things personally
• Getting emotional

The Red quadrant sees the world from the perspective of people and relationships. They are often great at expressing ideas and telling stories in a way that creates an emotional connection for the listener.

If your client has a preference for the Red quadrant you might notice:

• That knowing you before doing business with you is important
• They talk about personal things before getting down to business
• They are concerned about how the team will react to your ideas

How do you adjust for the Red quadrant?

1. Deliberately spend time on nurturing the relationship.
2. Give them time to talk. Don’t interrupt.
3. Focus your testimonials on how much your solution impacts people.

You might have noticed as we’ve discussed the Yellow and Red quadrants, that these preferences can fit into any number of personalities and be both introverted and extroverted. It is important to remember that these quadrant describe overarching preferences for how you see the world rather than being personality predictors.

Next week – The Green quadrant

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Whole Brain™ thinking is owned by Herrmann International

Connecting to the Red Brain is a post from: Jane Gentry

In the last post, I explained to you the different quadrants of the brain and how we tend to see the world from our preferred quadrant (s). You’ll see as we explore the four quadrants of the brain that I use the terms ‘preference’ and ‘filters’ – this is intentional. I speak to preferences because we all have a Whole Brain and abilities in all four quadrants. Much like we have a left or right handed preference we have natural preferences for certain quadrants of our brain. And, like you can write with your non-dominant hand (although uncomfortably) you can ‘flex’ out into non-dominant quadrants of your brain. So, Whole Brain thinking has nothing to do with your abilities and everything to do with your preferences.

Let’s look at the Yellow quadrant. The Yellow quadrant of your brain is where big-picture thinking happens.

The gifts of the Yellow quadrant can include:

• The ability to see connections between things that seem disparate
• “Visioning” and strategy
• Creative thinking
• Holistic thinking

Challenges with the Yellow quadrant can include:

• A tendency to begin things, but not finish
• A lack of attention to detail
• An aversion to accepted rules

People who see the world through the filter of the Yellow quadrant are often the creative force behind a project – they love brainstorming and coming up with new ideas and innovations. They have the ability to see the big picture and are comfortable taking risks. A Yellow thinker may also grasp concepts very quickly. If this is your client you may notice that they:

• Write and think in bullet points
• Ask you to ‘get to the end game’
• Often focus on what your business solution will solve, rather than what it will cost

How can you adjust for this preference?

1. Don’t mire them down in details. They will tune you out quickly.
2. Chunk your ideas into bullet points for them.
3. Know how your solution will solve a future problem for their organization.
4. Show them how you are more innovative than your competition.

The power in understanding Whole Brain thinking is first, self-awareness – for example, are you seeing the world through a Yellow filter? And, secondly, learning to quickly identify the filters through which your clients see the world and adjusting your communication so they will ‘hear’ you.

Next week – The Red quadrant.

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*Whole Brain™ thinking is owned by Herrmann International

Connecting to the Yellow Brain is a post from: Jane Gentry

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing with you the different perspectives through which we filter information. Today, I’d like to lay down the overall concept for you.

Whole Brain Thinking is a term that was coined by Ned Herrmann in the 1970′s. Herrmann was the Director of Management Training for General Electric and he was interested in determining why there was such a diversity of reactions and assimilation of his materials by attendees in his programs.

The early 70′s was a busy time for scientists who were studying the brain – it is when the understanding of Left Brain/Right Brain Thinking came into play. What scientists, like Herrmann realized ultimately, was that in addition to left and right hemispheres of the brain, we use the cognitive (reasoning) part of our brain and the limbic (sensing) part of our brain. And, much like we have preferences toward left or right-handedness, we have preferences toward quadrants of our brain. In other words, although we have a ‘Whole Brain’, we tend to ‘see’ the world from certain filters (quadrants) rather than from a Whole Brain perspective. After doing the due diligence to scientifically validate the theory, a model was created that is still used today.

The four quadrants of the Whole Brain model

What does this mean to a salesperson? It means that if you take the sales process that you are currently using and overlay the customers ‘preferences or filters’, you can customize any message so that your customer is more likely to hear you.

We use this tool in any situation where truly connecting with someone is important. Over the next four or five weeks, I’ll be sharing more information on each of the quadrants and how you can use the information to connect and communicate with your customers.

Stay tuned…

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*Whole Brain Thinking™ is owned by Herrmann International

My Aha! And, Whole Brain Thinking. is a post from: Jane Gentry