We are developing the Business Personality Test after my recent trip to Leamington.

Regent Street in Leamington Spa is a most interesting street. It has Games Workshop, my Ruaridh’s favourite shop in the world. But it was the contrast between two other shops I had to comment on.

There is a music shop, where upon the door there are unwelcoming signs.

“No change given for parking”
“No second hand instruments”

Hardly a warm welcome.

Regent Street also has the best cafe in Leamington Spa, Gusto Ricco. Tel : 01926 426 977 (no website I’m afraid.) In fact it’s the best wee eatery I have come across for a long time. They care. They take care of the details, small adjustments to the alignment of the menu on the table for instance.

Games Workshop, where they have a policy of “come in and play or just chat or just hang out”.

Perhaps both of these great examples of customer service emphasised the shockingly poor service of the unwelcoming music shop. Of all places, a music shop should be full of music lovers hanging out. They should have a big sign on the door saying

“Come in for parking change and enjoy a tune when you are at it”.

Would you not rather have a busy shop of people looking for change than an empty shop?

What is a Business Personality Test?

Personality is adopted by every business. Every business has a personality. The question is “What’s yours?”

We are developing a tool to help you figure out the personality of your business. What do you think it is? What do your clients think it is?

We have talked about brands for years but what is a brand if it’s not a personality. Is yours a friendly company eager to please? Is it an efficient company keen to get things right?

Business Personality TestMaybe it’s a hard working company prepared to go the extra mile?

On the other hand it may be a dour company, irritated by clients. Or a tight fisted company not prepared to admit when it’s wrong.

The variety of personality types you find in businesses is as varied as that you find in humans. After all every business is created and run by people. It’s people that make a business, so naturally it’s going to have a personality.

Now that personality may stem mostly from one individual, perhaps the owner or CEO. Or maybe the personality is formed as an amalgamation of many people, who have created a culture and therefore the personality of the business is essentially that of the prevalent culture.

I read this book a while back around this subject, so you may find it interesting.

Why Business Personality Matters

It’s hard to promote your business if you don’t understand it’s personality. It’s also very difficult for prospects of clients to relate to your business if they do not understand it’s personality.

Even if they don’t like it, they at least need to understand it.

Ryan Air is a good example. Everyone knows exactly what they dealing with. Do all their clients love Ryan Air? – No of course not, however they know who they are dealing with and are prepared to put up with it.

Ryan Air doesn’t try and convince anyone that’s it’s nice or friendly. It is only concerned with convincing people that it’s cheap. This is at least an honest stance and has made them the most profitable airline in the world.

Other airlines have a very different business personality. Take Emirates for instance. They are very much about

“Nothing is too much trouble.”

Virgin is a different personality again. It’s could be described as

“They are fun, cool and even a little rebellious.”

Knowing your business personality is essential to your marketing and even your strategy. You can’t build a brand if you don’t understand it. You can’t get your message across clearly if you don’t understand your personality either.

A new tool will be released by PeopleMaps shortly but for now you can at least think about it and see what you come up with.

 

Further Reading

You may also enjoy reading about how we made a Personality Test  that is easy to use.

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