Emotional Intelligence in Sales Part 3
"Never make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion."
--Anonymous
If you’ve been reading along with this series, then you’ve gotten through the reflective part of Self Awareness and are moving into the action oriented part of Self Management. If you haven’t read the previous articles, I would recommend them, however, there’s nothing keeping you from starting here and thinking about Self Management. It’s just that, until you’re consciously thinking about your emotions and their causes, it’s going to be difficult to impossible to manage your responses to them. Self Management is not a way to manage your emotions, not completely anyway, it’s a way to manage your actions. It is, along with self awareness, a personal competency. Personal competencies and social competencies are what make up EQ.
When it comes to sales and working on a team, Self Management is how you respond to the situations you are in and the emotional stimuli in your brain. In sales, this equates to keeping your cool when a customer is upset or when your team makes a mistake. Self management does not mean being a pushover, it means being able to respond to situations in a way that is respectful, helpful, and solution focused or goal oriented.
Example 1. Let’s imagine, three customers just came in and did not make a purchase. You may feel frustrated, and notice it distinctly through your newly reinforced skills in Self Awareness. With Self Management you are able to treat the fourth customer with just as much attentive care. Allow me to give you two examples. Example 1. You think, “Yes, I am feeling frustrated, but this customer has nothing to do with that. I have every reason to treat this customer to our expertly curated experience. I want to get to know this customer. I’m going to give them the layout of the store now because that’s what I always do first.” The customer nods appreciatively and tells you it’s their fifth anniversary…
Example 2. Without self management you think, “I can’t close a sale, I’m going to reorganize the back room. Oh no, here comes another customer with some extra tax return money. I don’t feel very good right now, but I don’t know why. Well, maybe I’m feeling a little frustrated, but what’s the difference? I’m here to do my job. Let’s check this off the list, I’m already at my quota this month so what’s it matter.” You say to the customer, “Let me know if I can help with anything” because you are feeling done and they leave the store without buying.
The experienced emotions are very similar yet Example 1 generated a better result. The staff member managed their emotions, even though they still felt the same sense of frustration. That feeling, however, was inward. The management portion came from understanding their emotions while building towards their desired outcome, a relationship with the customer. In example 2, the staff member set aside their desired outcome to go through the motions. The customer sensed something was off and left the store without purchasing.
In your everyday sales situations, you’re going to feel the full gamut of emotions. From elation to disappointment. It’s your responsibility to manage these emotions to provide the experience you want to your customers. Let’s go with another example.
In this example you’ve just closed on a huge custom sale. You’ve walked the happy customer to the door and are looking forward to writing up the job, emailing the vendors, and showing it to your boss to expedite the turnaround time. Right at this moment, another customer comes into the store.
Example 1. “My oh my, this person has come to look at that watch three times now. They’re never going to buy. I could be doing something important right now but instead I’m going to have to tell them what makes this time piece special, again. They’ve never even opened up to me, but for some reason, they want to know about all the options every time. They’re never getting anything other than steel, but they want to know about gold.” This time the customer finally gets the hint and walks out, never to return.
Example 2. “My oh my, if it isn’t the window shopper. What’s it matter, I personally like the watch they’ve had me pull out a couple times so far. I really want to get them out of my hair so I can write up the custom job, but you never know, anyone can surprise you.” You make polite conversation and learn that it’s the 10 year anniversary for a business they started with their best friend. “Here’s the watch. I know you must love this piece.” Oh I do, says the customer, and that’s why I’m ordering two in solid gold. Can you engrave our names on the back in time for our 10 year anniversary soiree next month?
Wow, what a difference. We didn’t even get into the nuance, but that’s what’s there. Infinite possibility with any customer, or a zero likelihood that they’ll buy. This is Self Management. Both customers in the positive example were ready to buy, from someone they liked and had a positive experience with. The sales staff noticed their feelings, changed their thoughts, and their behaviors.
Use the following exercise to practice Self Management in difficult situations, and you’ll be astounded by the results.
Self Management Practice: Did you know that we have at least 50,000 thoughts per day? Some of these thoughts are self-talk. Self-talk can be positive or negative. Positive self-talk helps us to stay on track and get things done throughout the day by intercepting our emotions. Negative self-talk is self defeating, untrue, and not helpful. One way to improve self management is to decrease negative self-talk by turning them around. Here are key examples to practice (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009):
Turn “I never” or “I always” into just this time or sometimes.
“I never get the big sale” becomes “I sold that 2 carat diamond last Christmas and I can do something big again.”
Replace judgemental statements with factual ones.
“I am so dumb for not placing the order yesterday” becomes “I made a mistake and I will place the order now.”
Don’t play the blame game.
Thinking “It’s all my fault” or “It’s all their fault” becomes “We both made mistakes and here is a new action plan to improve our process and communication at work.”
In the next installments of this series, Social Awareness and Relationship Management, we’ll move on to reading the needs of your customers to build lifelong clients.
Wishfluence Connection: Custom features are built for each store to improve their process with special orders and staff communication.
