It is the time of year when many sales managers and sales professionals are wondering how on earth are they going to make their budget next year! Emotional intelligence may be part of the answer.
Sales professionals who display emotional intelligence achieve success because they understand the impact they make and so tailor their style to demonstrate value to their customers.
Research suggests that sales people with emotional intelligence considerably outperform the average. For example at L’Oreal, sales professional with high EI scores sold over $91,000 more than their lower-scoring peers and at a major consulting firm, high EI scoring consulting partners delivered $1.2 million more profit from their accounts than their peers. (Boyatzis, 1999)
Put simply Emotional Intelligence is when an individual has the capacity for:
• Self-awareness
• Social awareness
• Self-management
• Relationship management.
I’m going to outline how by developing emotional intelligence a sales professional can use these qualities to their advantage.
Self awareness: The cornerstone of emotional intelligence is self-awareness. An emotionally intelligent sales professional will be aware of the impact they make and be able to flex their approach to a wide range of different clients each with different personalities, different needs and different values.
Social awareness: A successful sales professional will have the social skills required be able to quickly strike up rapport, ask all the right questions and really listen to the client. Intuition and social awareness will tell them whether or not their approach is effective, and they will be able to pick up on any genuine expressions of interest.
Self management: A sales professional with this key to emotional intelligence has the ability to manage their own emotions and so, handle the pressure of budgets, the to and fro of negotiation, the inevitable rejections aswell as the euphoria of making a big sale.
Relationship management: This enables the sales professional to maintain the relationship with the customer. They will intuitively know when to provide them with further information about the product and service they are selling. They will keep in touch with the potential client but without making them feel hounded or under pressure, invest time into building up a relationship, instead of losing the sale by trying to close a deal too quickly.
How much Emotional Intelligence runs through the sales teams within your organisation? Businesses talk endlessly about the cutting edge tools they design and develop to generate leads and close new deals with new clients. Maybe sales managers should also consider the emotional side of selling?
Iridium Consulting specialises in Emotional Intelligence coaching and bespoke in-house workshops. Speak to the team today to find out how our experts could work with sales professionals and sales team leaders to develop Emotional Intelligence amongst individuals and drive up sales, revenue and profits.
Call the team on 01604 589675 or click here to email.
