Which Social Style Are You?

Did You Know? Algo-focused Google Ads bidding strategies, such as Target CPA or Maximize Conversions, use a 90-day lookback window for analysis and retargeting with the last 30 days carrying the most weight. (Source)

You know that survey I asked you to fill out when you subscribed to Data-Driven Marketing?

The one that gives me insights into your background, skills, and what you’d like to learn while serving as a warning of the potential insanity ahead?

The one with questions like this?

I really do read your responses and try to tailor these daily emails to your specific questions and interests.

A recent subscriber named Morgan provided an answer to one of those survey questions, which inspired today’s email.

I feel your pain, Morgan. I’ve worked in consulting roles in several industries, including digital marketing, and it’s extremely frustrating when clients hire you or your agency to be experts on a subject and deliver business results while simultaneously rejecting your recommendations and preventing you from achieving those results.

Of course, your client’s reticence does make sense. While I don’t know anything about your client, there’s a decent chance their perspective is something like this:

“This is my company and no one knows it like me. I’ve done a ton of work to develop my ideal customer profile and the value I provide to that audience. You’re just some hired gun. I know you mean well and you probably know your stuff, but you’ll never understand my company or my customers as well as me, and I definitely don’t trust some algorithm to know my audience.”

That’s a difficult mindset to overcome, and, as data-driven marketers, it’s something we’ve all run into (or will run into) at some point in our careers.

How do you help non-data-savvy people who just don’t get it understand what you’re trying to communicate?

Well, I’ve got some ideas.

I actually think this is a good subject to spread out across a few emails scattered in between the heavier, more technical topics.

And, seeing as today is Friday, it’s probably a good day to talk about a softer subject.

Let’s talk about social styles!

Bear with me.

My wife is an extroverted mental health therapist. I’m an introverted data analyst. Though we both know the words each other is saying, often it feels like we’re speaking completely different languages.

In order to truly be understood by the other person, sometimes we need to change how we communicate ideas to structure them in ways the other person is better-equipped to hear.

I once had a boss that was big into team building and soft skills, which wasn’t always received well by her data-oriented employees (for obvious reasons). At one of our weekly team meetings, she asked us to do a Social Styles Assessment as an icebreaker. It’s a quick, 30-question assessment that measures your levels of assertiveness with tasks and responsiveness to people. Depending on your values for both, you land in one of the quadrants on a standard X,Y coordinate plane. Each quadrant is a dominant social style:

• Driver: High assertiveness with tasks, low responsiveness with people

• Expressive: High assertiveness with tasks, high responsiveness with people

• Amiable: Low assertiveness with tasks, high responsiveness with people

• Analytical: Low assertiveness with tasks, low responsiveness with people

I just retook it in about 30 seconds and landed in the Driver quadrant.

I mention the Social Styles Assessment because I really like the simplicity and practicality of the following table, which shows the general traits associated with each social style.

(The last few rows are especially pertinent to today’s email.)

“Bryan, this is NOT the data-driven content I signed up for!”

Yeah, yeah. I know. This stuff feels pretty squishy to a lot of us logically-oriented people, but not everyone is like us. And, a lot of the time, the decision makers at companies—perhaps the person Morgan is struggling to communicate with—are less data-driven.

Many executives are great at “playing the game” and make decisions based on gut instinct. Plus, in Morgan’s case, the person they’re trying to convince to loosen up their strategy may be the person whose head will be on the chopping block if that gamble doesn’t pay off.

If you’re struggling to communicate with someone, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is your social style?

• What do you think is their social style?

• What types of benefits resonate with them?

• What do they need to hear in order to make decisions?

This stuff isn’t rocket science—honestly, I’m not sure how much science is behind it at all—but whether it’s backed by science isn’t really the point. The point is that not everyone communicates in the same ways, and that’s just a reality of life.

Everyone say, “Hi!” to Jessica P 👋

Question: Would you rather be able to talk to animals (but they all complain about their day) or be able to speak every language (but only be able to talk about the weather)?

Jessica P’s Answer: “I would rather be able to speak every language but only be able to talk about the weather because the other option just sounds depressing.”

ChatGPT-Generated Joke of the Day 🤣

What did one plate say to the other plate?

Dinner's on me!

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