 Chances are as meeting partners, you've done the plethora of personality tests, whether by yourself or with your team, and you've now determined if you're red or green or blue or plaid or whatever the colors are, as well as being type A or type B. And this is all good and fine, except for when you need to communicate with other people who are also type A or type B. As a type A planner, I'm outlining some tips on how to communicate with us hostile and busy type A planners. Hey everyone, it's Leanne from LeanneColderwood.com. And I did a session not too long ago about communicating with type A planners. And the reason I did this session is there's definitely a different way of communicating with type A versus type B planners. And whether as a meeting partner we are type A or type B, we need to almost put our personality aside and communicate with our recipient on a level that they are receptive and receiving. Trust me, I struggle with this just as much because I am very type A, it takes a lot for me to take off my type A hat and put on a type B hat when I'm talking to someone who is type B. And so I need to do a better job of this as well. But for those of you who are working with type A planners, I wanted to outline some things that may work when you're communicating with them that will be better received. And of course, then further the relationship both personally and professionally with that type A planner. First off, let's define what a type A planner looks like and some traits that a type A planner may possess include hostility, impatience, difficulty expressing emotions, competitiveness, drive, perfectionism and an unhealthy dependence on external rewards such as wealth, status and power. I didn't make this up. I think I got it off of Wikipedia, but it sounds about right? Being a type A planner myself. Okay, so these are stuffy heads, right? We are extremely stuffy. We're extremely busy and we don't have time for anybody that can't further our cause. So it's not great. I'm not gonna lie. Type A planners are kind of assholes, but we are who we are and now you have to deal with us. So here we go. And here's the other thing, right? Meeting planners do tend to be type A. We are perfectionists. We are highly organized. We have to have drive or our meetings will definitely fall flat. So when you're a meeting partner, chances are the person on the receiving end is a type A person. So given all of this crap about them, they are actually pretty great to work with. We just need to learn how to work with them better and communicate in a style that resonates with them. So here are some things that I've noticed as a type A planner about communication styles that type A planners like to receive. Tip number one, make your emails actionable. So again, you know, we're busy people and we're looking for the quick and efficient way of getting business done and those answers. In order to get to the answers, there needs to be a question in the form of a call to action. So make sure that your emails have a call to action or else they will just be discarded and ignored. Tip number two, schedule stuff in advance. Type A planners are highly organized. We live by our calendar, guilty as charged, but I need time to make sure that you can get into my calendar. So whether you're scheduling a phone call, make sure you give them a plethora of options in that week of business. If you're scheduling FAMs, literally give them months. I know for some meeting planners, they have their FAM schedule kind of lined up for the next couple of years, given how busy they are and what their meetings calendar looks like. So being in advance is being very respectful and it will ensure that you get into their calendar. Tip number three, RFP responses are clear and concise. So meet type A planners are looking for the answers and they don't wanna have to ask a lot of questions. The clearer and more concise your RFP response is, the easier it is for us to process that information and come up with a decision quickly with the available information at hand. Now this one is tough and I get it because your organizations, the organizations you work for, they want you to create 12, 20, 30 page flowery RFPs with everything about the 18 treatment rooms at your spa. There are some type A planners that might be looking for that, but the percentage is slim. So if the RFP response is clear and concise, we are able to do something with that information rather than sift through all of those pages of the flowery proposal. And those proposals are beautiful. I am not gonna lie. I'm also gonna fast up and say, I don't read it. I am looking for the financial information. I'm looking for the function agenda. I'm looking if you have a spa, but to know what your 18-hole golf course looks like, it's type A planners, unless that is their goal, their program's goal, and I talk about that in other blog posts, but unless their program goal is to provide a quality golf experience at the top of their objectives list, they're not gonna read it. I'm so sorry. Tip number four, type A planners love bullet points. Quick, concise, clear, actionable, love bullet points. So if you are a fan of the bullets, you're in luck because we love reading them and we love responding to bullet points as well. Don't have to search for questions in and amongst a paragraph of the information. Tip number five, when you call type A planners, introduce yourself fully, and that means your full first name, last name, the organization you're with, and potentially even what program or proposal that you are working on together. If you call a type A planner with one of these two possibilities, which I hear all the time, one, hey, it's Susan. Chances are we weren't thinking about Susan three minutes before the call came in, and so now we're trying to wrap our head around which Susan is this, where does she work and why is she calling me? But the second one which drives type A planners crazy is when you go, hey Leanne, how's it going? And you forget to even introduce yourself. I don't know if you're a telemarketer. I don't know if you're with a hotel that I'm currently working with and need to speak to or if you're simply prospecting my business. I don't even, you could even be from the gas company. I have absolutely no idea. So please, please save the, hey Leanne, how's it going for when we are on friendly terms and we're doing text messages or something like that, and please introduce yourself fully with your organizational name as well. Sorry, and thank you. Tip number six, save the personal stuff for other times. Type A planners when they are at work, wow, they are focused on getting their job done and getting it done in an efficient manner. And phone calls or emails that allude to how their weekend was or how their new cat is doing, that's just delaying Type A planners from getting their goals accomplished. Now, there's a time and place for all of that. And I'm the worst one for it. I love doing that kind of social stuff when we're in networking receptions or when we've developed a report to the point when we're on the telephone that we can go down that road and start talking about more personal stuff. But when it's business at hand, keep it to the business at hand. And those planners do wanna talk to you on a more personal level. But this moment, this isn't it. This is when we both need to get some of our goals accomplished. So I hope that helps. Those are my tips of working with Type A planners. Again, I'm not gonna lie, we're a tough bunch to work with. All we want is information and all we have our goals to accomplish. But we can be fun people, I think, just given the right situation and the right networking reception and the right glass of wine. We'll definitely be a little bit more friendly. And it's not that we don't wanna hear from you. We just all know that there's a lot of stuff that needs to get done and all the fun stuff we need to table for another time. Personally, I've learned a lot from writing this blog post. I've learned that I am very hostile and I probably have a reputation of being standoffish. And if I have offended you as one of my meeting partner suppliers in the past, then I do apologize. That's my working style and I don't think I'm alone. I think you're gonna find others like me out there. So I will do a better job of being more open and more friendly when we have discussions. But if you can meet me halfway and we can get some business done, I think that's gonna further our relationship in the long run. So I hope this has been helpful for more tips on how to attract a meeting planner's attention. Jump over to my website at liankholderwed.com. There you can download this incredible tips sheet that has networking advice, email advice, voicemail advice on how to connect with meeting planners. And once you sign up for that resource, not only do you get that great resource, but you get my weekly newsletter, which doesn't suck and it has the industry calendar on there as well as some tips and tricks that don't appear on the blog or in the videos. Thanks for watching. Hope you have a great week and we'll see you soon. Bye for now.