Pilot
fasttasks
«Let's get to the point.»
- Driver
- control, results
- Fear
- wasting time, losing control
- What to do
- move fast, be direct, respect the clock
The method
TANDEM
A method for preparing a sales conversation when the relationship weighs on the outcome. Six steps, four archetypes, three regulators. And a unit of analysis that isn't the person across the table, but the pair the two of you form.
The method comes from a book
TANDEM is the framework of Alessandro Ponte's book, forthcoming. The name is also an acronym for the cycle it describes: Traits, Archetypes, Navigation, Dyad, Execution, Measurement.
AllyWise isn't the book. The book covers wider ground; the product deliberately takes a small slice of it and delivers it where it's needed — the thirty minutes before a first meeting.
The six-step cycle
- TTraits
It starts from the Big Five, the only psychometric instrument we use.
- AArchetypes
Two axes generate four types you can name and hold in your head.
- NNavigation
The three Regulators say how hard to push on each lever.
- DDyad
Your archetype crossed with theirs. This is where the prescription comes from.
- EExecution
The Message Matrix turns the reading into concrete moves.
- MMeasurement
After the meeting you record what worked, and the reading sharpens.
01
It starts with you
The first step isn't about the customer. It's about you: how you usually open, what you lean on under pressure, which kind of counterpart costs you effort.
It's the half of the pair other tools ignore, and it's why two salespeople reading the same profile should get two different sets of instructions. In the product it's a mandatory step, not an option: without your profile there's no pair to read.
02
One instrument: the Big Five
We use OCEAN — openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism — and nothing else. It has the strongest empirical foundation in personality psychology, and it's the only one that survives a conversation with someone who knows the field.
We discarded DISC, which is widespread in sales training but lacks a comparable scientific basis and is calibrated for consumer contexts. And we discarded values-based segmentations in the VALS tradition, built for the consumer rather than for a buying committee.
You'll never see a score
Raw scores don't appear in the interface, by choice. A number next to a person's name invites two mistakes: believing it more than it deserves, and treating the label as the person. What you see is an archetype, guidance on how to communicate, and a stated confidence level.
03
Two axes, four archetypes
Pace comes from extraversion: how fast they move. Orientation comes from agreeableness: whether they look at the task first or the people first. Crossing them yields four types you can recognise in two minutes of conversation.
Promoter
fastpeople
«Let me tell you something.»
- Driver
- recognition, novelty
- Fear
- irrelevance, boredom
- What to do
- bring energy, vision, social proof
Architect
measuredtasks
«Could you send me the documentation?»
- Driver
- correctness, understanding
- Fear
- the mistake they'll be held responsible for
- What to do
- bring data, structure, rigour
Builder
measuredpeople
«How would my team experience this?»
- Driver
- harmony, the group's safety
- Fear
- conflict, abrupt change
- What to do
- emphasise reliability, low risk, consensus
04
Three Regulators
The other three traits become sliders rather than categories. The archetype sets the course; the Regulators say how much volume to put on each lever. Two Architects with opposite Security prepare differently.
Openness
proven
novel
How much weight to give what others have already done versus what's new. Low: cases, references, industry standards. High: anticipation, vision, the advantage of getting there first.
Method
lightness
structure
How much scaffolding they want around the conversation. High: agenda sent ahead, a document, numbered steps. Low: a conversation that gets to the point without ceremony.
Security
boldness
reassurance
How much they need the risk covered before moving. High: guarantees, phases, ways out. Low: tolerates uncertainty when the opportunity is good. Corresponds to inverted Neuroticism.
05
The Message Matrix
This is where the model stops describing and starts prescribing. For each archetype you fill in your own offer once, across six elements. The brief you read before a meeting is an instance of this matrix, calibrated on that person by the Regulators.
- 01Hook
the line that opens, and makes them look up
- 02Queen proof
the evidence this archetype weighs above all others
- 03Preferred format
written or spoken, before or during, summary or detail
- 04Call to action
the next step that feels natural for them to accept
- 05Words to use
the vocabulary that sounds competent to them
- 06Words to avoid
the ones that close the door without them telling you
The rule that holds it together
Order, emphasis, proof and format adapt. The facts never do. A method that had you change what's true depending on who's listening wouldn't be a communication method: it would be a manipulation technique, and that isn't this product.
06
The Bridge Rule
The salesperson covers about 70% of the style distance. Not 100%: whoever imitates ends up sounding false, and the mismatch between how you speak and who you are registers before any content does.
The goal isn't to become someone else for an hour. It's to remove the obstacles your natural style would put in this particular person's way.
And the mirror caution
Being alike makes the meeting pleasant and the decision harder. Two Promoters get along and don't close. Two Architects go deeper until they postpone. The easy pair isn't the effective pair, and knowing which one you're in is half the work.
07
What this method is not
Worth being precise here, because the difference between this and a corporate horoscope lies entirely in this section.
It isn't a personality test
The person fills in nothing and is subjected to nothing. We read what they've already published, and form a hypothesis about communication register. A test measures; this supposes, and says so.
It isn't a diagnosis
We produce no clinical assessment, don't touch health, and don't infer affiliations or beliefs. The perimeter is professional communication style, and the system is built not to leave it.
It isn't a certainty
Every reading comes with a confidence level, and dimensions where public evidence is thin are flagged as such rather than filled in with a presentable guess.
It doesn't decide for you
It's a hypothesis for a person who has to decide. If you realise in the room that the hypothesis was wrong, you drop it — and you tell us, so the next one is better.
Want to see what it looks like as a working document?
The sample brief is a real pair from the method: a Promoter salesperson meeting an Architect.