The Buddy Persona is one of the most flexible of all the Power Personas. This is everyone's friend who treats everyone equally and is respected by everyone. The Buddy Persona is popular with the later generations of politicians and the new breed of corporate executive who can no longer afford to be ruthless and unapproachable. The truth is that these buddies are very unapproachable, but they are very capable actors who inspire confidence through carefully crafted routines. They appear to be your friend – but only to achieve their objectives.

The corporate penthouse executive is a vanishing breed. The horizontal corporation is fast becoming the reality of corporate culture. To defend the power of their positions, many Emperor Persona executives are recasting their images to follow the Buddy Persona. They now use sympathy, smiles, rationales to accomplish what they used to execute on a whim.

Many corporations have hybrid Buddy Personas. The next time you see a sweet-talking ad that sways you with good old-fashioned down-home common sense, you are being sold to by the most influential of personas – the Buddy. The Buddy has a unique ability to sell to almost anyone. Buddies are more sophisticated than the stereotyped salesperson, but their techniques are basically the same: convince with reason, overcome objections, and close.

The Buddy Persona is a powerful weapon for the late nineties, but only in sophisticated hands. The Buddy can appear insincere and almost ludicrous when poorly executed. But a master Buddy can sell anything reasonable to any reasonable person.

You might consider adopting the Buddy Persona if:

You are a natural-born salesperson (there is such a thing as a natural-born salesperson!)
You are able to impart a sales culture to your venture
You genuinely like people but do not get emotionally involved with your audience
You are an Emperor Persona now and are finding this image unappealing to your cynical or value-conscious prospects
Your venture is very open with the audience, and those in the leadership have extroverted personalities.

The characteristics of the Buddy Persona are:

A warm and ostensibly caring surface that hides a cool and calculating strategy.
An appearance of being socially responsible by following current trends such as use of recycled papers and bare-bones packaging.
A flexible attitude to customer service, including responsiveness to complaints.
A reassuring guarantee or promise.
Token or genuine efforts to support local community activities.