Swimming with Asian Sharks - Business Secrets from the Pacific Rim

The Poodle in the Group

In our group we had a young lady called Jessie. She is a supremely charming lady who is also very pretty. She works for a major Asia magazine and was in charge of getting all the advertising accounts for the male magazines.

I met Jessie a couple of nights prior to the trip to Korea, over dinner with Mr. Princeton and one of Jessie’s friends.  Mr. Princeton was trying to recruit Jessie or her friend into his company, as the lead for the skincare division.  My impression of Jessie at that time was that she was well spoken, funny, and a shark.

In the book Sales Dogs, I was introduced to the concept of the five main categories of sales people.  The author chose to illustrate the character of the five distinct types as different breeds of dogs.  This was quite brilliant because dogs, even to someone such as myself who knows little to nothing about them, have very specific characteristics, both physically and behaviourally.

The five main types are as follows, Golden Retriever, Bulldog, Basset Hound, Chihuahua, and the Poodle.  In brief, the Golden Retriever is the type that will treat their customer like a king. This type goes above and beyond to help and cater to the customer. The Bulldog is the aggressive type; this type is out to get a sale, and isn’t afraid to force it on the customer.  Basset Hound is the type that plays the emotional card. This is the type that doesn’t give up, guilt tripping you into buying.  The Chihuahua is all about facts and energy.  This type will throw facts and figures at the customer with the chief aim of satisfying all possible questions and doubts, super hyper to close the deal.   Finally, the Poodle is the type that doesn’t care if it makes a sale; it makes the sale by being above you socially.  This type gives an air of superiority, almost as if selling to you is beneath them. It is almost as if the customer needs to buy the goods to be even near the level of the Poodle.

The book Sales Dogs shows that to be successful in sales, you must realize the type you are, and play to that type.  If you are a Golden Retriever and try to pretend to be a Bulldog, it will be obvious, and it will make closing the sale harder.  This isn’t to say that people fall squarely in these categories, as it is also possible to be a blend of these personalities.

I have not met too many Poodle-type people.  Perhaps it is the company I keep, but Jessie was of this type.  Poodles take the high road. They’re classy and for you to be like them, you have to do what they do. If they buy a certain product or look a certain way, they are able to make you want the same thing. That was Jessie’s strength, and she’s also very good at making people like her, which helps her influence people.  Influence is leadership.