I'm Orange. What color are you?

  Written by Melanie Kissell on Feb 26, 2009 5:21 pm

Read More: Prospecting  |  Sponsoring and Recruiting

• 1
   VOTES

  Up
• Tweet

Many universities, psychologists, and employers conduct personality tests.  After learning about the four personality colors, I did some further research and uncovered another four!  You may want to add the following to your color palette:

BROWN:  Warm; deep thinkers; sensitive to the needs and desires of others

GRAY:  Procrastinators; indecisive; lives filled with question mark territories

BLACK:  Extremely moody; perform at their peak when under stress and unhappy

PURPLE:  Overly sophisticated; business-like; concerned with personal fulfillment

People play to their labels.

Both the terms "projection" and "labeling" start with useful observations yet, when pushed too far, they become negatives.

If you arbitrarily labeled people in Group A as "industrious" and people in Group B as "lazy", you are apt to find the people in Group A behaving industriously, and Group B behaving lazily. 

The color personality labels we attach to people can create a bias, a prejudice, and affect their behavior ... and OUR behavior in working with prospects and team members.

Understanding the derogatory possibilities of labeling someone Yellow, Blue, Green, or Red can improve your ability to communicate and perform better as a professional network marketer. Pigeon-holing or projecting a specific color onto someone will cloud your perspective and may cause you to lose sight of your objective.  You're looking to retail and recruit, right?

In my view, our minds work by attaching words and phrases to the things around us. We have words for important things like people, places, and events. We form ideas about these different things, and then spend much of our lives making "judgments" based on this mental model we create of the world. Maybe it's time to stop making narrow, boxed-in judgments.  It's true you can't tell a book by its cover!

I have heard of people using their personality color as a CRUTCH.  This is NOT the intended use of the personality color.  It is not there for you to use it to attempt to explain away improper behavior.  I have personally witnessed this time and time again.

For example, you may be the very essence of a Green (logical, loner, independent), but this does not give you the right to be rude to anyone.

Just because you are a Red (decisive, impulsive, risky), you don’t have the right to roll over everyone else in a group and not allow others to share their ideas because you spoke up first.  Reds must learn to curb their impulse to control a group and wait for others to contribute.

Let's experiment for a moment with personality colors.  Picture this ...

I'm your prospect and I've accepted an invitation to attend your business opportunity meeting.

I arrive 10 minutes early.  I'm not wearing a smile, but I'm wearing dress pumps, a stylish, beautifully-tailored black suit and a red blouse.  The only piece of jewelry I'm wearing is a watch.  I choose not to mingle with the other early attendees.  Instead, I scan over the seating arrangement and sit down in the front row.  I've brought along two pens (in case one runs out of ink), and a small, spiral-bound notebook.  I plan on taking copious notes even though I've been informed that I'll be provided with brochures, a DVD, and other handouts.  I thoroughly enjoy the meeting and ask several questions during the presentation. I make a new friend in the delightful person sitting next to me. We exchange contact information and plan to talk again soon.

Can you guess what personality color I am? 

Most importantly, will pinning a color on me matter at all if your products and/or business opportunity can meet a need or solve any problems for me?

To Your Success,

Melanie

206-202-3595

Login or register to post comments  |   Views: 459   |   Comments: 10