What is Your Client’s Profit Personality?
If you’ve taken our Profit Personality quiz, you know what your profit personality is. Knowing your strengths and potential pitfalls can be key to working with your clients as well as managing your own practice as a CFO.
But do you know your client’s profit personality?
Unless your client has taken the quiz (and shared the results with you), you’ll have to make some assumptions on their profit personality based on their questions, conversations and day to day actions. Goals and priorities can be a consideration but many times those are aspirational. The profit personality plays out in real-time and through evidenced behaviors (or lack of) more than it does in the ambitious plans.
We have identified three types of profit personalities: visionary, tactical and reactive. Here’s how to know which one is the predominant type for your client.
Visionary
Visionary clients tend to stand on the top of the mountain and look into the distance. They often rely on some intuition, innate business sense and broader market intelligence as well as their experience and knowledge of their business. Many CEOs are visionaries, so you will likely have at least one client which has this as their primary profit personality.
One of the best things about working with a profit visionary is that they think longer term. They understand the implications of today’s decisions on tomorrow’s plans and goals. They are able to strategize and establish goals that will help their company be successful in the next one, three and five years.
The challenges in working with visionaries is that it can be hard to get them focused on the here and now. It does no good to plan for three years from now if the company can’t weather the challenges of the next three months. Visionaries can also find it challenging to convert their visions into tactical plans.
Tactical
Tactical profit personalities love to plan and analyze. For them, the fortune is in the data. They are often methodical in their approach and not easily swayed by perceptions of how busy the business seems or the optimistic growth plans.
One of the best things about working with a tactical profit personality is that they are often more objective than the other profit personalities. They are usually driven by data and provable facts. They are willing to listen to current results drivers even when those are out of line with the budget, the longer term goals or what they wanted to happen in the business. They are good at designing shorter term plans that help move the business forward.
The challenges in working with a tactical profit personality is that they can get lost in the data and be the poster child for “paralysis by analysis.” Whether seeking to get to 100% certainty to validate a decision or looking at results from ten different ways so they don’t miss something, it can be challenging to get them to focus on a handful of key metrics.
Reactive
Reactive profit personalities get things done. They are often in constant motion and usually serve as a center of energy for their company. And wow…can that be exhausting for everyone (including you) around them.
One of the best things about working with a reactive profit personality is that they usually make decisions quickly and are willing to take immediate action based on the information available. They don’t wait for the perfect time or reams of data. They are usually very attuned to the business and its daily activities and are critical to keeping the wheels turning.
The challenges in working with a reactive profit personality is that they are often all over the place putting out business fires, going after the next shiny opportunity object and addressing employee issues directly. They rely less on their management team to manage and more to simply get things done. There is little consideration given to an annual budget let alone a three-year plan.
Mixed Personalities
Not each of your client’s is going to be clearly only one personality or another. Most of our clients aren’t. They are some combination of each of the above – with some flavor of each coming out depending on the situation. However, each of our clients also has a primary personality and that’s the one that we consider as we work with them. The goal is to play to their strengths and then augment those with your own expertise and understanding of how they work best.
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