[spp-player url="https://episodes.castos.com/wpbuilds/wpbuilds-episode-130.mp3"]
In this episode:
Interview - Personality types - finding the right client for you
I don't really know anything about psychology. I know that people are different, but that's about where it ends!
Well, that's not entirely true, I do know that I get along better with some people than I do with others. As much as I'd like it to be true that I get along with all of the people, all of the time, it's just not. Some people just gel with me. I find some people engaging and interesting; I want to hear what they have to say, I welcome being with them. For other people though, the opposite is true, I'm not inclined to enjoy their company as much and I may even not wish to be with them at all.
Building WordPress websites for clients means that you're literally thrust into the path of people who you have never met before. Not only that, these people can have some sort of leverage over you. They are, after all, paying your wages and you have to (to some extent) do what they ask of you.
You might need to interact with them even if their way of doing things is at complete odds to yours. Maybe they don't speak in a way that you find intelligible, perhaps they are over enthusiastic in a way that you find hard to cope with. I could go on writing these descriptions all day, but you get the point. Your WordPress website business needs you to be able to interact with anyone that you encounter, even if you don't really like them all that much!
So, queue today's podcast episode in which we explore the idea of different personality types and how you can identify them and learn to love them.
Let's be clear, we're not saying that you should figure out what personality type you are, and then figure out which other personality types you work well with and somehow go on a mission to discover where these people hang out and only work with them. For a start I have no idea how you would even accurately work out the personality type of other people, and secondly, the chances of you filling up your roster with these people seems a little slim to say the least!
What we are saying is that it might be a good thing to have a little understanding of what makes other people tick; an insight into the situations and triggers that people have. In this way you might equip yourself to be a better WordPress website business because you'll be able to understand client's pain better, and the sort of ways that you can behave in order to keep things moving forwards.
I guess that you could sum this up in one word - empathy. If you have that and can reflect back to the client what makes them feel listened to, reassured, then things are going to go better than if you just inhabit your personality type and reject all other people requirements and approached to working. I think that this much is common sense!
By what are the personality types? You may be able to intuit some of them, but lots of work has been done in this area and broadly we have:
I know, the language is a little difficult to understand, but if you take the short test over at
16 Personalities, you're going to get more insight into it all. You will understand more about yourself and therefore the other personality types too.
We move the conversation on to discuss how this might apply to your WordPress building business. What ways can this be implemented to make your life less stressful? This podcast is one where we'd really appreciate your feedback and how you might use the information that we discuss today.
Mentioned in this episode:
16 Personalities
Very well mind
