It Takes Two to Tango
If you are in the sales business, then you are in the emotional intelligence business. They are inseparable. Why? Because when you are selling you are dealing with people and when you are dealing with people you are dealing with emotions. Both theirs AND your own.
Emotional intelligence is to sales what arithmetic is to multiplication. You cannot understand the next without learning the first. It’s a dance between 2 or more people and you can either step on toes or make something beautiful to behold.
I recently interviewed a colleague and sales expert Bob Britton with Sales Enablement Sherpas, LLC and we spoke about what makes for a good sales professional.
This article is the product of that conversation and I will be discussing 5 foundational starter sales skills along with the EI counterparts that make them possible.
- Comprehensive Listening
- Relatability
- Curiosity
- Communication
- Problem Solving
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Comprehensive Listening Skills
Listening skills are the hallmark of a master salesperson. They come in 3 areas:
- Comprehensive listening to understand – where you are a sponge and letting the other do all of the talking.
- Active listening – involves repeating back to and confirming your understanding of what the other is saying.
- Empathic listening – where you signal to the speaker both verbally and non-verbally that they are free to be transparent and express themselves safely.
Empathy as an EI skill is key here. Empathy is recognizing, understanding, and appreciating how other people feel. It involves being able to articulate your understanding of another’s perspective and behaving in a way that respects others’ feelings.
If we have difficulty wielding this skill in everyday life, how can we possibly do it in a sales setting?
Failure to close with a happy customer is certain when there is NO care or understanding of a client’s perspective. All 3 listening areas fail if the salesperson lacks empathy because it requires that you give the client your full attention, genuinely care about them, and not think about yourself.
No Empathy = No Sales.
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Relatability
To be relatable to the client is to have an emotional connection. It means you GET them. It feels good to feel understood and when a client feels you understand them they feel safe.
Self-awareness, self-expression, and empathy shine here.
The combination of these 3 traits enables you to recognize your and their emotions and express yourself both verbally and non-verbally to the client. This shines particularly bright when we include personal stories that demonstrate and illustrate our understanding of their position.
Again, if we have trouble demonstrating these abilities in everyday life we will have trouble demonstrating them in sales.
Innate Curiosity
Taking it further, this includes a genuine curiosity about their situation with an ability to ask what are called excavating questions. Questions that are delicate and probe deeper but are sensitive to the other person.
Remember we want the other person to feel safe. If they aren’t ready to reveal certain details we can put them on the defensive if we dig too deep too quickly.
Self-awareness enables the salesperson to sense when the client is at ease, if they are trusted and to judge what is appropriate to say and do and what isn’t depending on the situation.
With self-awareness we are also aware of our own emotional state and if this is interfering with the discussion. One might even realize they need to center themselves before initiating the conversation in the first place.
Emotions are literally contagious so if you give off a negative vibe you set yourself up for failure.
Communication
Good communication also requires an emotional connection. This means we have to be emotionally transparent and that means we have to go first and be vulnerable before they are. Fake vulnerability will fail.
Our words have to match our non-verbal cues. Non-verbal communication makes up anywhere from 75-90% of all communication. We “speak” before we literally speak.
High anxiety or being disingenuous will come out in our facial expressions and body language. We wind up speaking words that don’t match our non-verbal cues, the client senses something isn’t right, and we end up alienating them by promoting distrust – the exact opposite of what we want.
Distrust = No Sale.
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Problem Solving
You can’t solve a problem without first having a realistic and accurate understanding of the situation. Building off of the previous skills we have to have a dialogue with the client and constantly ask “why”, encouraging them to reveal what is really on their mind.
Being in a rush will sabotage this process so having a handle on our stress level is important. The EI skills of Problem Solving, Impulse Control, and Reality Testing will enable this to happen.
These skills cover how well the salesperson assesses facts in situations without over- or under- emphasizing them, how the facts affect the way they view situations, and how they problem-solve.
Do they problem-solve effectively while being emotionally charged? Can they maintain control over their impulses in various situations so they can think before acting? Failure to do so can easily find a salesperson being too aggressive with a client.
No Self-Control = No Sales
Final Thoughts
If you are in sales you are in the people business. Genuinely care about the client and their needs.
Listen closely, be authentic and vulnerable, be curious, communicate effectively, be aware of and manage your emotions, and only then will you be in a position to solve their problem and close a sale with a happy customer.
For further information about being effective in sales do check out articles from my fellow contributors Jason Cutter and Chad Johnson here on The Business Success Portal.
Learn about Adam’s bite sized Emotional Intelligence training and see samples here.
An Emotional Intelligence Specialist for seven years, native Floridian Adam Rosensweig is Chief Operating Officer of RR&D Inc. He is certified in, and responsible for administering/interpreting the EQ-i 2.0 and EQ 360.
Adam started RR&D in response to his wholehearted belief in, and support of, the Inglish Motivational Enhancement Method. After personally experiencing the program’s life-changing effects, he was moved to share this valuable knowledge with others. Adam works closely with Dr. Inglish, and values her as both co-worker and trusted friend.
Using emotional intelligence and motivational science, Adam and his team leverage their expertise to help individual and corporate clients reduce or eliminate internal barriers so they can be free to thrive.
Contact Information
(352) 572-0277
http://linkedin.com/in/adam-rosensweig-943931129
Header Image Credit: Jopwell. Find it here.
