The Emotionally Intelligent Salesperson
Understanding How Emotions Impact Sales Success
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As salespeople, it is important that we understand how our personality impairs or enhances our ability to act with emotionally intelligent behaviours while interacting with clients and prospects. By doing this, we have a greater chance of positively influencing our target market and achieving great results. It was really useful talking to Ian to see how DISC can be utilized from a sales perspective. We have only tended to apply it to our internal interactions, so this is something we can immediately apply to understand the triggers that manifest based on differing needs and expectations during the sales conversation.” “There is an important link between awareness of others and positive influence,” he noted. “They go hand in hand; if we are not aware, how can we influence? We can use our knowledge of the DISC tool to identify a potential client’s behavioural style and adapt the way we present our information, so it is received in a language or format they understand and prefer. Research does suggest that in high-performing sales organisations, clients feel significantly more involved, understood and valued, than those in mediocre-performing sales organisations, where clients feel manipulated, detached, and insignificant. Having an idea of their style enables us to manage the behavioural needs and keep them in a reward state, which maximizes open and productive communication.” He continued, “Sales is fundamentally about positively influencing relationships with clients and prospects to deliver mutually beneficial outcomes. Top performing salespeople are 12 times more productive than those at the bottom, and 85% more productive than an average performer. About one-third of this difference is due to technical skill and cognitive ability, while two-thirds is due to emotional intelligence. This is more than just a moral compass; it’s also a recipe for sales success. Organisations with emotionally intelligent salespeople achieve a critical level of sustainable competitive advantage over competitors: a high-performance sales culture and customer loyalty.”
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About the Book
The Emotionally Intelligent Salesperson explores how our emotions impact the decisions we make, the behaviors we display, and our performance in a sales environment. By understanding our emotions and the emotions of others, we are in a better position to positively influence the sales conversation to achieve sales success. In this sales guide, learn how to: • improve sales performance from an individual and organizational perspective; • listen attentively to clients and prospects and become aware of their feelings; • express how you feel in appropriate ways to avoid derailing the sales process; • bring your attention to the present moment and focus truly on their needs. Sales is fundamentally about positively influencing relationships with clients and prospects to deliver mutually beneficial outcomes. As a salesperson, you must understand emotional triggers that cause productive and unproductive behaviours in the sales process—then develop strategies to recognise and manage them. It all links back to the science of emotions and the relationship between your emotional brain, which encompasses the amygdala, and your thinking brain, which houses the prefrontal cortex. This is more than just a moral compass; it’s also a recipe for sales success. Take a step back and examine situations from a client’s perspective to develop emotional skills, resilience, and authenticity to develop a high-performance sales culture to boost sales.
About the Author
David R. Smith earned a master’s degree in human resources management and organisational development and is a fellow of the Institute of Managers and Leaders. He has more than twenty years of experience in leadership development. He founded EQhq to help organizations improve their leadership effectiveness. He has provided coaching to more than one thousand executives. He is also the author of The Emotionally Intelligent Leader. Dr Ben Palmer completed a PhD in Psychology at Swinburne University where he created the first Australian model and measure of emotional intelligence. Together with Swinburne University, Ben founded Genos International in 2002 to bring his model and measure of emotional intelligence to the market and Genos has been recognised by Training Industry in the USA as one of the Top 20 Global Assessment and Evaluation firms. Ben is a well-recognised academic in emotional intelligence having published a considerable number of peer reviewed papers and books on the concept.