The Four Social Styles: How to Use Them in Your Business
Are you a Driver?
Maybe your personality is what most would consider “strong.” You have a go-getter attitude, and it’s a rare moment when you aren’t focusing on your goals and how to best achieve them.
Or maybe you fit more into the Amiable category.
You love nothing more than connecting with your girls on a Friday night after a long four hours without them. Because four hours without chatting with a friend feels like FOREVER in your world. You thrive on relationships. And free hugs are your favorite gift to give.
If neither of those sounds like you, don’t fret; you might be an Expressive or even an Analytical. Everyone falls into one of the Four Social Styles, with preferred ways of thinking, acting, and reacting.
Once we understand each style in-depth, it becomes much easier to work and communicate with the different styles, whether it’s in your personal life or business.
What Are the Four Social Styles?
The Four Social Styles model was founded by the TRACOM Group. It’s based on observable behavior – which is just a fancy way of saying that it evolved from over fifty years of research on how people function in a workplace.
It consists of four different styles – the Driver, the Expressive, the Amiable, and the Analytical.
Research has shown that people fit into one of these four categories in a workplace, each with preferred ways of thinking, acting, and making decisions.
Compared to other interpersonal skills structures such as Myers-Briggs or DiSC, people tend to prefer the Social Style Model. It provides us with an easy and accessible way to predict someone’s Social Style so that we may understand their preferences and discern how to best communicate with them in any moment.
Understanding the preferences of each category helps you interact with each Social Style in the most efficient way – which becomes especially handy when you’re dealing with a lot of people (i.e., selling to buyers or working with a large team).
The Benefits of Understanding Each Social Style
There’s a lot of value to understanding the different Social Styles and how each of them functions, particularly when you’re dealing with sales in your business.
By identifying a person’s preferences quickly, you can choose how to connect with them in a way that makes them comfortable, relaxed, and willing to connect with you.
This helps to improve relationships, communication, and your overall influence with others.
Furthermore, discovering your own Social Style gives you the ability to understand yourself through another’s eyes. You learn to communicate and function in ways that feel most familiar to you and avoid ways that are foreign and uncomfortable.
Knowing your Social Style provides you with the opportunity to learn your strengths and weaknesses when working with others. You notice when you’re out of alignment with your Social Style and can pinpoint how to shift things so they run more smoothly.
You have less fear and resistance to working with others or nailing down sales because you know how to make yourself and those around you feel safe.
Overall, you become a communication and productivity powerhouse!
And what more could a business owner want?
Selling is all about understanding who you’re selling to – your audience. When you become a master at communicating with each style, you help your buyers feel comfortable, excited, and ready to work with you!
The Driving Style
The most goal-oriented, the Driver is constantly thinking about their next steps with the endgame in mind. This continual focus on results sometimes makes them appear tough or dominant.
They have strong personalities and might be misjudged by others because of this. They’re usually the ones to initiate a conversation (and decide when it’s over).
Drivers quickly get bored of the “how-to,” preferring to DO.
They’re often seen as direct, forceful, active, and determined.
They don’t want all the extra details and fluff. And they don’t like wasting their time.
The Driver Style may seem a little intimidating on the outside, and that’s understandable. Drivers aren’t interested in making new friends when they’re hot on the trail of a new goal.
But once you understand how Drivers function, working with them can be much less intimidating, and you’ll notice they bring some pretty valuable skills to the table.
Tips for working with or selling to a Driver:
Don’t waste your time buttering this style up, feeding them data, or painting a visual. Drivers simply want to know what skills or products you have to offer that will propel their success.
Give it to them straight and cut right to the point—the fewer details the better with this style.
Deliver. Show them how you can help. Drivers are all about the results!
The Expressive Style
Much like a visionary, the Expressive Style loves to see the big picture when planning or making a decision.
Starting a sentence with “Imagine…” will go a long way with an Expressive.
They follow their intuition and gut feelings.
They’re also much more open with sharing their feelings than the Driver is. This includes positive and negative emotions, which can sometimes be seen as outbursts to the more quiet and conservative styles.
Others usually describe the Expressive as talkative, personable, and sometimes even opinionated.
They’re often very spontaneous when acting on their feelings and intuitive urges.
Tips for working with or selling to an Expressive:
Ask them how they’re feeling about a particular decision or situation. It’s natural for Expressives to share their thoughts and feelings, and they’ll take note that you cared enough to ask.
Expressives have a deep need for personal approval. Toss in some genuine compliments to ease tension and gain some brownie points.
Help them visualize themselves with your product or project. The better you are at painting the picture for them, the more likely you are to make a connection and bring them to their next “a-ha!” moment.
The Amiable Style
The Amiable Style is very informal and casual.
They rely heavily on relationships of all kinds.
Much like Expressives, they aren’t afraid to show their feelings to others, but the Amiable’s feelings will often be more positive than negative.
They’re the most easy-going and least demanding style, which means Amiables can easily find themselves falling into people-pleasing habits.
The Amiable Style is the definition of “Happy happy, joy joy.” They’ll do anything to keep the peace and avoid conflict at all costs.
They probably got voted “Most Likely to be Your Next New Friend” in high school.
Tips for working with or selling to an Amiable:
First, a friendship needs to be formed. It doesn’t take much to become friends with this style, but once you do, they’ll be your best ally and much more inclined to work with you.
Amiables strongly value their personal security. They like building a rapport with those around them and hate being on anyone’s “bad side.” Don’t forget to let them know when they’ve done something well or gained your approval.
The Analytical Style
The Analytical Style is the least likely to get along with a Driver. They want ALL the facts and then some.
They’re relatively slow at making decisions, mainly because they like having time to mull it over.
Analytical are quiet and logical.
They tend to keep to themselves and generally come off as distant to others. Analyticals love a good “uncomfortable silence,” especially when it gives them time to process all the data buzzing around their heads.
An Analytical explores a situation from every angle, and they won’t make a decision until they have all the facts.
They want to know the how, what, when, where, why, who, and everything in-between.
Tips for working with or selling to an Analytical:
Give them all the data and facts. Dates, contact info, product details, birthdays, the name of your firstborn (kidding). But really, whatever information you have that pertains to them and their situation – share it!
Give them space to think everything over. Analyticals love having time to get comfortable with the details. Out of all the styles, they need the most time to come to a final decision and take action on it.
Do not pressure an Analytical into buying or making a decision before they are ready. They need time and space to process the details, analyze the situation, and come to a decision that feels good for them. Once you begin putting pressure on them, you risk losing their trust (and the sale).
As you can see, each style has its ups and downs, its strengths and challenges.
Knowing what these are and which category you fall into makes it significantly easier for you to work with all the different styles in a variety of settings.
Which style do you feel most connected to? Are you ready to dive even deeper into the Four Social Styles and start applying them to your business?
Written by Lara Carney