A husband and wife each took on the role of a C-level position in their newly started small business. He, Bob, was a more contemplative and conscientious style communicator and she, Barbara, was more talkative and lively.

The newly appointed Sales and Marketing Manager, Sandra, would always plan differently for meetings with each of them.

For Bob, Sandra did her homework, often supporting facts or statistics with a chart or graph. She purposely spoke more slowly and sought for agreement at every step. They each would often make notes of something they wanted to revisit for further discussion. In particular, this approach was important when Sandra was asking for a salary increase.

For Barbara, Sandra would plan for twice the amount of time for a meeting than was scheduled. Quite often, by the time the conversation turned to the original purpose of the meeting, Sandra would have to jokingly state the main agenda item when Barbara laughingly said "But we are way off track now!"

Fortunately Sandra used her understanding of personality styles from early in her sales career when she was communicating with almost everyone. After all, as human beings we tend to enjoy more successful communications when communicating with people who are more like us. Sandra intended to master her communication with these influential people at that early stage in her career. After all, these two people would determine at least her salary and her position in the small company of 75 people.

In this story I am Sandra. It's important you know this so you understand the ideas, tips, and strategies I share with you come from my own life learning experiences.

Additionally, when I choose to introduce someone else's stories to you, it's because I know they too have successfully managed everyday business situations you want to know about as an introvert in a business environment.

Knowing about the communication preferences between the introvert and extrovert will help you better navigate your daily communications.

We'll cover the following topics in this chapter: