Do sales professionals have high emotional intelligence?
Given that they deal with different types of customers - silent, loud, ignorant, knowledgeable, talkative, over bearing, respectful, disrespectful, aggressive, egoistic, eccentric, rude, manipulative, etc. etc., it's absolutely critical for sales professionals to have high emotional intelligence.
For three primary reasons - one, to be able to successfully handle any type of customer; two, to ensure every customer interaction ends only in satisfaction or delight, irrespective of how it started and three, the most important reason of them all - to maintain their own sanity.
So how do I know if I have the right amount of emotional intelligence to be a successful sales professional? A good way to answer this question would be to identify signs that actually indicate low emotional intelligence. Such signs are:
1. Trying to connect with customers more on basis of logic rather than emotions
2. Getting angry with customers when they refuses to buy
3. Getting aggressive with aggressive customers as well as with customers with complaints
4. Showing irritation at customer’s doubts & objections
5. Not closing the sales conversation on a positive note and with the required etiquette when customers refuse to buy
6. Trying to overly flatter a customer
7. Trying to out talk a customer
8. Overestimating their own capabilities to handle customers and in the bargain underestimating the customer’s intelligence
9. Stereotyping customers and dealing with them with pre-conceived notions & biases
10. Getting easily disheartened and demotivated at rejections
11. Looking for instant gratification rather than building relationships (penny wise pound foolish)
12. Talking about 'dropping the customer' or ‘changing jobs’ after a few setbacks
If you show any of the signs you probably need to work on building emotional intelligence.
Lack of emotional intelligence negatively impacts your sales interactions & conversations leading to customer dissatisfaction and possible loss of sale, which in turn, could lead to loss of your job.
So don't lose your job, and build a successful career in sales. Courtesy, emotional intelligence.
Selling Skills Workshop for Godrej & Boyce (New Delhi & Mumbai).
Comments