Sales is a key part of nearly every business. If you can’t get customers to commit, you can’t generate income let alone allow your business to grow. If you are struggling to close deals or make sales, you may want to consider how emotional intelligence can help customers say yes.
Emotional Intelligence is a Key Trait for Interpersonal Interactions
Emotional intelligence (EI) (sometimes referred to as a person’s emotional quotient or EQ) is your ability to identify, understand, manage, and make use of their own emotions, and the emotions of those around them. EI can directly affect a your effectiveness as a salesperson since it addresses your ability to build relationships and connect to the people around you. That includes leads and potential customers. Salespeople today need to be able to connect with customers on a deeper level to better understand and address their needs.
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Developing stronger emotional intelligence is key to improving your relationship with would-be customers. And that can, in turn, improve your close rate. There are 5 aspects of emotional intelligence:
- Internal Motivation: the ability self-direct and be productive
- Self-Regulation: control over one’s own emotions in the face of change or conflict
- Self-Awareness: understanding how one’s feelings and behaviors are perceived by others
- Empathy: the ability to perceive, understand, and often mirror others’ feelings, moods, and reactions
- Social Awareness: communication with others and understanding group dynamics
Each of these aspects can be used as a tool in sales to improve customer connections and increase the chances of closing the deal.
Internal Motivation Keeps Salespeople Engaged
Your customers will often say no several times before getting to yes. The internal motivation portion of emotional intelligence gives you the diligence to keep following up, giving your customer more chances to say yes. Emotional intelligence can help you understand delayed gratification, so you know that if you stay motivated it will work out in the end.
Self-Regulation Helps Overcome Rejection
One of the worst parts of any sales job is when customers say no. Fear of rejection can keep salespeople from reaching out when they should. An unexpected rejection can also trigger strong emotions and make you lose your cool while talking to potential customers. By developing stronger self-regulation and control over your emotions, you can learn to handle rejection gracefully and professionally. It can help you stay objective and remember that a rejection often isn’t a “no” but instead a “not now.”
Self-Awareness Can Help You Stay Calm and Appear Professional
While self-regulation keeps your emotions in check, self-awareness helps you know when you are seeming unreasonable. That can be essential when it comes to negotiating sales. If you are better able to read the tone of your emails, and understand how you are being perceived by potential buyers, you can edit your sales approach to better suit their interests.
Empathy Helps You Build Rapport with Customers
Increasingly, sales is about relationships between you and your customers. You need to understand their struggles and craft packages and options that solve their problems. Empathy can help you understand where your buyers are coming from, and what they need from you. If you develop trust and compassion for your customers over time, they will come to see you as a partner, rather than simply selling something.
Social Awareness Shows You Where Your Customers Fit Within a Broader Landscape
Social awareness is all about communication. At its most surface level, social awareness is important to sales because selling is all about communication. However, social awareness also makes you more receptive to social dynamics. This includes seeing your customer’s position compared to their competition. With a high emotional intelligence, you can help customers better position themselves for success, and communicate to them how your company’s product or service can help them get there.
Emotional intelligence is essential to successful sales. Properly using emotional intelligence can help customers say yes, and make you feel better about it when they do. It can also make you a more diligent and enduring salesperson in the face of obstacles and rejection. Working with an executive coach to build your emotional intelligence can lead to more successful sales, not to mention career advancement.
David Stanislaw is a leadership and executive coach with over 30 years’ experience helping sales teams and leaders develop their emotional intelligence. Contact us to meet with David and start building your emotional intelligence today.
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