Okay, in the last company I was employed in, I did teach people to use the Enneagram to help people in sales-related positions to ‘better understand their needs and wants’ and of course to use ‘strategies’ to help them close the deal, so to speak. Knowing what I know now, I am not proud of it.
Because two things happened after I left that company.
One, I started my own company after leaving my last job and really dove into understanding the Enneagram Framework as it was intended for – which is to build self-awareness and re-connection to the lost core instincts that were taken over by conditioned responses due to upbringing, cultural differences etc … and
Two, I have had people who went for that course that I trained in the last company and told me they realised:
They couldn’t use what they have learnt at all because they were always mistyping their clients.
Here is the thing.
The reason why learning to type your clients’ is problematic (and not to mention manipulative) is because no client ever present themselves to you as ONLY their core Enneagram Type.
I am gonna let that sink in.
For those people who have learnt the Enneagram at its very basic level – knowing your core motivation, strengths, weaknesses and vaguely knowing how to deal with yourself to get yourself to a better, regulated spot in your soul – ask yourself, really be honest:
Do you go around your daily life being only your Core Enneagram instincts and not carry around the weight of your conditioned traits from your past?
If the answer to that question is a resounding no, then what makes you think learning your client’s Enneagram Type will help you connect with them better and to increase your closing percentage?
Having coached financial advisers for the past six years, and working with them on finding ways to connect to their clients better, I have realised that the key to setting themselves apart from everyone else in the industry is to get them to dig into how they show up instinctively as their Core Enneagram Type and conditionally as a person, in order to build authentic connection between them and the client.
Basically in a nutshell, it is to
learn what is the WHY behind their actions.
The way they prepare the presentations,
the way they interpret body language and signals through the lens of their instinctive core Enneagram motivation first, conditioned ways of what the body language means to them because of the ways they were brought up and encountered life second,
the way they instinctively block themselves out of a deal because of the corresponding emotion to the Enneagram triad they belonged to (Heart – Shame; Logic – Anxiety and Body-Centred – Anger). I also get them to see their clients first as people and to enquire on their immediate needs that they (as financial advisers) can then use the products to help fulfil those needs.
The real work is to knowing how their Enneagram instincts help protect their client’s needs first.
The real work is to also see which of their unhealthy Enneagram instincts leads them to indulge in unproductive ways of presenting themselves in what they say, and/or doing activities that do not meaningfully contribute to a forward momentum in meeting the clients, listening to their needs and asking for the close (most Enneagram Types – not the aggressive stance 3s, 7s and 8s though – would almost indefinitely not ask for a close with a client).
The real work is also to figure out which of their conditioned responses they had learnt as children, young adults that suppressed them to fully trust their Enneagram instincts and their own reading of the situations with the clients.
Working with my coaching clients have brought them more long-term clients and also collaborating with them to use their Enneagram instincts and the corresponding instinctual strengths to help their clients in a way that beneficial for the clients first, and to them as advisers second.
This has helped my clients also made breakthroughs in getting agency awards they had never gotten before they had started coaching with me, and to getting the elusive MDRT award they had wanted AFTER I started working with them to understand themselves better, with the help of the wisdom of the Enneagram framework.
With my help, they build up a sales process that is more client-centred, more authentic and more sustainable because of the deep connection they build with their prospective clients by showing up as who they are, not what the insurance industry told them to be.
That is why learning the client’s Enneagram Type is not helpful at all. It is manipulative and frankly, not easy to apply as a strategy at all. People are complex creatures, you cannot just use the boxes of the 9 Enneagram Types to create connection OUT OF NOTHING.
