The challenge facing many sales managers and business owners is the transfer of selling skills that made them a top sales producer to their sales team. When you take on the role of a sales manager, it’s no longer about what you can produce; it’s about what you can get others to produce. In the words of Jack Welch, former CEO of GE,
“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”
Hard working sales managers and business owners invest hours in coaching and training their sales teams. In far too many scenarios, their efforts fall short. The sales team doesn’t consistently execute their new prospecting and selling skills. The excuses vary from “I forgot” to “I’m uncomfortable” or “I’m getting ready.”
The driven sales manager listens and invests even more time and energy on teaching selling skills and techniques. Stop the madness! The reason your sales team isn’t executing may have nothing to do with selling skills; it has everything to do with lack of soft skills – otherwise known as emotional intelligence skills.
Right now you might be thinking:
• So what the heck is emotional intelligence?
• Why should sales organizations care?
• Is it the latest fad?
• Can soft skills really produce hard sales results?
In layman’s terms, emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive one’s emotions, understand why the emotion is felt, and adjust actions to achieve better outcomes. Here is the business case for “return on emotions”:
In analyzing data from 40 different corporations, the differentiator between average and star performers was the level of emotional intelligence versus pure intellect and expertise. (Goleman, WEI, cf. Jacobs and Chen, 1997)
American Express financial advisors sales increased 18% after attending an emotional competence training program. (Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations)
The U.S. Air Force found that by using emotional intelligence to select recruiters, it improved hiring practices that provided a gain of $3 million annually. (Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations)
People with high emotional intelligence make more money – an average of $29,000 more per year. (Bradberry and Greaves, Emotional Intelligence 2.0)
Emotional intelligence training is the key to improving sales performance because it bridges the knowing and doing gap. We have worked with thousands of salespeople and watched them execute a sales role play flawlessly during a training workshop. Then, the salesperson ends up in front of a tough prospect, starts buckling and gives away free consulting and/or discounts. The salesperson knew what to do, however, didn’t do it.
On the other hand, a salesperson, attending the same training workshop, faced with a similar tough selling scenario, sailed through the appointment. He applied his new persuasion and selling skills, didn’t buckle and converted the tough prospect to a client. What was cause for the different outcomes? The same instructor delivered the same sales content which yielded different results. This puzzling behavior led us to explore emotional intelligence in order to discover the missing link between sales training and sales results.
Emotional intelligence training helps sales managers better diagnose performance issues and become more effective in their role as sales leader and coach. Sales managers with this knowledge base develop sales teams that consistently achieve revenue goals, even in tough economic times. Ei Selling™ is a unique selling approach that integrates a consultative sales process with emotional intelligence skills. It identifies gaps where soft skills coaching is needed instead of or in parallel with sales skills coaching.
Emotional Self-Awareness: First Things First:
A successful sales manager has multiple titles: teacher, doctor, counselor and coach. The common denominator in all the titles is the responsibility of helping individuals get better. The first step in helping people improve is proper identification and diagnosis of the problems and challenges.
As a professional sales manager, the first area of diagnosis is to examine your salesperson’s self awareness – the foundation for emotional intelligence. Emotional self awareness is the ability to recognize personal feelings, know why you’re experiencing the emotion, and guide the feelings to a better result. In simple terms – “know thyself.”
Many well-intentioned sales managers invest hours in training sales techniques, only to have the salesperson present solutions too soon, discount, or not set agreements to meet with all the buying influences. These poor selling behaviors are not fixed with more sales technique training. Instead, work with your sales team on managing emotions triggered by tough prospects that lead to poor sales execution.
When a salesperson allows emotions to run wild, the brain freezes up. There is no recall of the sales responses practiced during role plays. The salesperson loses control of the call and turns into a high priced answering machine. “What is your price? Who else are you doing business with? Why should we choose your company?” The result is a price driven sale; not a value driven sale. It’s helpful to understand how the brain works in order to understand the emotions and resulting action of a salesperson.
There is a portion of the brain that receives all incoming stimuli called the amygdala. It is an almond-shaped mass of gray matter residing in the brain’s temporal lobe and is referred to as the “reptilian brain” or the “old brain.” The amygdala’s job is to receive and screen all stimuli reaching the brain. It’s like a gatekeeper at the front desk. Just as a salesperson must gain likeability from the gatekeeper in order to reach the decision maker, a salesperson must also gain likeability from the amygdala to influence buying decisions.
Take the case study of a salesperson that has been taught old sales methodology of overcoming the objection seven times. The aggressive salesperson sounds the alarm in the amygdala which goes into either fight or flight mode. The result is a prospect that is on the defense or a prospect that ends the call early. Either scenario results in no closed business.
This knowledge of the brain is also important when educating your sales team about their responses during a sales call. When faced with a tougher prospect, are they able to manage their emotions and think rationally or do they go into fight or flight mode?
An example of a fight response is when a prospect is pushing for a discount early in the sales call and the salesperson tersely replies, “You get what you pay for!” An example of a flight response in the same scenario is, “Sure, we can give you 10% off” with no discussion of a concession strategy. The rational response is, “I certainly understand your request for a discount, however, let’s back up and ask each other a few questions to determine if:
1. The problem is big enough to worry about or fix.
2. We are the most qualified company to fix it or address the challenge.
3. Your company is committed to investing resources to solve the problem.
Then, we can start discussing budget and resource allocation. Does that sound like a good plan? “
The emotionally intelligent salesperson controls his emotions to deliver a response that redirects the sales call to a qualifying conversation.
Research shows that highly successful people excel at managing their emotions. Take the profession of trial lawyers such as a litigators or prosecutors. Is it knowledge of the law that wins trials or is it the lawyer’s ability to manage the many dynamics that occur in the court room, i.e. a tough judge or opposing attorney saying, “I object” every 60 seconds? The answer is both. A good lawyer needs knowledge of the law and the ability to manage a tough opponent.
Now, let’s look at the profession of sales. Is it expertise that wins deals or the ability to manage all the dynamics that occur when interfacing with multiple buying influences and personalities? The answer, again, is both. Help your sales team become more self aware by slowing down and debriefing sales calls. Analyze any non-productive emotions and actions experienced during a tough sales call and figure out the root cause of the emotion.
• Was she intimidated?
• Was he too worried about having the answers versus having the questions?
• Was she too concerned about herself and not the prospect?
The number one attribute that highly successful people do to improve self awareness is slow down. It is in downtime that people can be introspective and reflect on their actions or inactions during the day. Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, writes about Richard Abdoo, CEO of the 2 billion dollar company Wisconsin Energy: “Richard has a firm resolution to reserve eight hours a week for solitary reflection. In his words, ‘You have to force yourself to spend some time away from the hustle and bustle of your job in order to get down to reality again.'”
Downtime allows you to ask thoughtful questions and ponder:
• What was the reason for my reaction?
• What would have been a better response?
• What can I do differently to prevent getting into that type of selling situation?
A best practice to establish in your sales organization is to teach your sales team to slow down in order to speed up. When a person has time to think, the result is greater clarity, creativity and positive change. Create technology free zones and turn off the electronics. The emotionally self aware salesperson takes time to figure out what stimuli causes a reaction. In layman’s terms, what are your hot buttons during a selling scenario? The emotionally intelligent salesperson knows that stimuli cannot always be changed (tough prospects and customers), however, one thing can be controlled…the reaction.
Be a great sales teacher, doctor, counselor and coach. Proper diagnosis leads to the right prescription for change and results.