From the front cover flap:
“On the surface, decisions about driving, eating, investing, and voting look very different. Yet the traits model shows that these decisions share many common elements, so that a given person will approach each of them in the same way. This means that the choices about products and people and politics can be combined systematically and used to predict what a person will buy or believe.”
You are likely familiar with the concept of personality, behavioral or communication styles as three of the many models that help us understand ourselves and others. This book introduces a six-part model – TRAITS – to help you understand what factors are valued in most any decision process.
The TRAITS are:
- Time
- Risk
- Altruism
- Information
- meToo
- Stickiness
The book then talks about how to use this information from a marketing and sales perspective to help you target buyers and markets.
While not everything in the book is brand new, there is much that is valuable and the TRAITS model is helpful. In addition, the book uses a wide variety of interesting examples, ala Made to Stick or Freakonomics, which is both smart from a marketing perspective and makes for a better read.
I read this book with two lenses – as a marketer, as I believe the book was intended, but also as a leader. After all, as leaders, we are in the business of not only making decision, but helping others do the same.
The first portion of the book is extremely useful for leaders. The last portion is even more focused on how to use the model from a marketing perspective, and as such may be less relevant from a strictly leadership perspective.
Overall I found the book a good, relatively short, read, and quite useful on several levels. If what I’ve said intrigues you at all, I encourage you to pick up a copy.
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