The personalities of both you and your team will play an integral role in your success – from the listing appointment to escrow. Backed by extensive research and clout within the medical field, the Big 5 personality assessment can assist you in understanding and capitalizing on your personality strengths (and weaknesses).
Astrology. Numerology. Even fortune cookies – there is an endless number of “authorities” out there that apparently know you better than you know yourself. Are you born between the dates of May – June? Then you’re stubborn as a bull (or cow, does anyone know what a Taurus is?). How about some Orange Chicken with a clairvoyant cookie on the side?
At the root of all of this is a desire to discover/understand ourselves and predict our futures. Or more precisely, to take control of them. The same is true within real estate – an industry defined by think pieces and coaching, all in the hopes of achieving our best selves/teams. This even applies to having the right personality for success. There’s an endless sea of advice articles on the subject (I’ve even covered it myself), imploring you to adopt these one-size-fits-all traits that will apparently guarantee success. Conversely, there is far less literature out there that provides quantifiable proof of the impact of personality, nor is there much material on how to actually assess your personality. (Nothing worse than someone who doesn’t know that they’re a Hermione)
But fear not, now you can have your cake and eat it too. Here’s a little something to prove the impact of your personality, and how to actually gauge it.
Personality Assessments
Thankfully there are many resources available that will help you determine your real estate compliant personality traits, such as the ‘Big 5’ personality assessment. “In contemporary psychology, the Big Five traits of personality are five broad domains which define human personality and account for individual differences,” and they include: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
Granted, you may be lead to think that Big 5 are no more than trumped up fortune cookies and astrology diagnosis (though, Gemini’s are wild). But the Big 5 has been fine-tooled by psychologists over eons, while being respected and utilized by a host of medical professionals. There’s even a push to create the practice of “personality neuroscience (i.e., the systematic study of individual differences in personality using neuroscience methods) as a discipline.” (Pubmed).
Most importantly, Big 5 personality tests have even been used to predict team and job performance within the workplace – showcasing its application in improving your own business. Again, we’ve established that those with a high level of Conscientiousness and Openness tend to perform better within sales. Conversely, one of these OCEAN traits even has a negative correlation with success.
The point is, you should be seeking to improve your success rates by any means necessary, and taking one of these assessments could be your ticket to achieving this. Don’t worry, there are no wrong answers.
What This Means for You and How to Take Advantage
Upon taking the assessment, you can use your results to double down on the good stuff, while minimizing the ‘detriments’ to your success. For example:
- Are you too agreeable? A competitive agent will hunt for the best deals for their client, but a “manipulative” one will drive business away.
- Too Open? Trying new things is great, but you have to be firm in your convictions and opinion. After all, you’re the expert.
- Not Open enough? A know-it-all agent risks losing clients by being inconsiderate of their needs. Also, a lower score for “Openness” is marked by an unwillingness to “meet new people”, which is most likely bad for business when working in real estate.
Tell Us What You Discovered
Clearly, personality can be a strong benefit (or detriment) to driving business. Find out what yours is, and make it work for you! If you haven’t already, join our Mastermind Community and let us know what results you get!