Recently, Mary Anne has been training sales professionals on what she calls “The Missing Piece to Sales Success.” Witnessing their challenges and their wins every day, she’s become clear that often what sales professionals are missing isn’t questioning skills, sales techniques, or even process. They’ve learned and know those things intellectually. Instead, the real struggle, the “missing piece,” is their inability consistently to implement those techniques because they don’t have the internal skills and awareness to stay centered and focused enough in challenging moments to do what needs doing – like asking the right questions, connecting on an emotional level, and setting good mutual agreements.
Mary Anne has been called “superb,” “a sales whisperer,” as it relates to identifying the helpful and unfavorable behavioral and motivational patterns of salespeople and helping them learn to work with this “missing piece.” Let’s look at some familiar situations that might be remedied by working with her on this.
Sue is an Account Executive, and on a recent sales call the prospect asked her why her pricing was now higher. He was hoping to have the price go down, not up. Sue’s face flushed. She got shaky, and she babbled on for five minutes defending her price. The client was visibly impatient as she continued to defend her price.
Brian was in front of a husband and wife who were not on the same page about what they wanted. Brian’s parents fought, and when they did, he would escape to his room. Faced with the couple disagreeing, Brian totally changed the subject and moved on to telling them how wonderful the company is. He defaulted to past behavior, and now he feels angry because he left the meeting without uncovering the couple’s core buying reasons, their decision making process, and investment range. He knows he has to follow up with the couple yet he has a knot in his stomach and is he’s dreading the call.
Mike has a mutual agreement with a client to sign an agreement today. He shows up to a meeting and the client announces that he has decided to talk with another financial planning firm before making a decision. Mike shuts down. He is completely surprised that the prospect didn’t let him know this nor did they discuss talking with a competitor. He is internally frustrated and a little short with the prospect, and then, abruptly ends the meeting saying “I look forward to hearing from you when you’ve made a decision.”
What each of these situations reveals is the sales person’s inability to manage his emotions and reactions. The most successful sales people have a higher Emotional Intelligence than those who struggle in sales. In fact, research shows that sales people higher in self-awareness and emotional control achieve more sales objectives (Roxell, Pettijohn, & Parker, 2006), and more specifically, sales reps who completed an Emotional Intelligence training and development program improved their Emotional Intelligence abilities by 18% and increased their sales revenue by 12% compared to a control group (Jennings and Palmer, 2007).
These statistics aren’t a surprise to Mary Anne. She knows that “the missing piece to sales success” is Emotional Intelligence, which is defined as the ability to recognize, manage, and adjust your emotions in any given moment, especially when you are triggered by an event or person. In Sales, Emotional Intelligence is a vital skill.
If Sue had been able to take a moment to pause, identify the “threat” she perceived in being challenged, and respond from a more neutral stance, she might have turned the call around using the sales techniques she’s been practicing all these years. If Brian had been self-aware and able to handle his discomfort around the fighting couple, who triggered a “flight” response in him, he might have been able to facilitate a conversation to get to core buying reasons using the disagreements as a way to explore what they agreed on, where they were not on the same page, and how to work toward decisions. Lastly, if Mike had been able to catch himself as he felt the internal frustration rising, take a deep breath, and detach from the outcome of expecting a decision, he might have been able to say, “It sounds as if you are having second thoughts about our agreement. Can you tell me what’s gone on since the last time we met?”
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