Using Personality Assessments at Your Business

Personality tests are more than just Buzzfeed time-wasters. They can be tools for understanding coworkers, building better teams, and becoming more self-aware. So which personality assessments are the most helpful and how do they apply to marketing?

Show Notes

What are some of the personality assessments out there?

• Myers Briggs: 16 personalities with 4 different categories
• Enneagram: 9 personalities
• DISC profile: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness
• Right Path: 16 blended profiles
• Strengths Finder: several different strengths ranked

How does GreenMellen get into using personality assessments?

• We have always been a team of do-ers. We get things done, we are task-oriented. This was great for projects, but when it was time to grow our services, we hit a wall.
• After one of our business coaches suggested a team personality assessment, we learned we how best to work with one another.
• Just “being nice” isn’t the right approach.

Are personality tests perfect? What are the pros and cons?

• Pros: Quick shorthand to understanding how people think and operate, fun to do as a team, gives you language around types of people and behaviors
• Cons: can be overly generalized, overused to make big decisions, hard to know which one to use, not obvious how to put the results into practice. 
• People can “own” them a bit too much and try to become what the test said they should be, which is certainly problematic.

What does this mean for marketing and your business?

• Make sure you have the right people on your team.
• Know what roles and tasks motivate people
• How to communicate properly with people
• Think about what personality each of your audience personas has