The Emotionally Intelligent Salesperson: Understanding How Emotions Impact Sales Success

By David R Smith and Dr. Benjamin Palmer

The Emotionally Intelligent Salesperson explores how our emotions impact the decisions we make, the behaviors we display, and our performance in a sales environment.
By understanding our emotions and the emotions of others, we are in a better position to positively influence the sales conversation to achieve sales success. In this sales guide, learn how to:
• improve sales performance from an individual and organizational perspective;
• listen attentively to clients and prospects and become aware of their feelings;
• express how you feel in appropriate ways to avoid derailing the sales process;
• bring your attention to the present moment and focus truly on their needs.
Sales is fundamentally about positively influencing relationships with clients and prospects to deliver mutually beneficial outcomes. As a salesperson, you must understand emotional triggers that cause productive and unproductive behaviours in the sales process—then develop strategies to recognise and manage them. It all links back to the science of emotions and the relationship between your emotional brain, which encompasses the amygdala, and your thinking brain, which houses the prefrontal cortex.

This is more than just a moral compass; it’s also a recipe for sales success. Take a step back and examine situations from a client’s perspective to develop emotional skills, resilience, and authenticity to develop a high-performance sales culture to boost sales.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: May 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781504322782

David R Smith

David R. Smith is a 15-year youth ministry veteran who helps youth workers and parents through his writing, training, and speaking. David specializes in sharing the gospel, and equipping others do the same. He provides free resources to anyone who works with teenagers on his website, DavidRSmith.org.

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Copyright © 2021 David R. Smith & Dr. Benjamin Palmer.

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ISBN: 978-1-5043-2277-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-2278-2 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 07/12/2021

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Prologue

Chapter 1 What Is Emotional Intelligence?

Chapter 2 Emotional Intelligence Development Tips

Appendix Your EI Sales Success Profile

My Development Goal

This book is dedicated to Jillian Workman. No one spread

more love in one lifetime. Always in our hearts.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I had a light bulb moment five years ago, having read Daniel Goleman’s book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ. This book discusses people who are motivated by the need for achievement or the need to help others. When I reflected on all my roles to date and my life experiences, it was clear that my motivation was the latter and hence the stimulus to write this book. I couldn’t have done it by myself; I would like to thank those who have supported my ambitions over the years.

Firstly, thank you to my three treasures in life: my wife Gayle and my two children, Hazel and Max, who inspire me to challenge my assumptions and give me the opportunity to think outside the world I live in. Thanks to Ben, the Genos team, Ian, Marie-Jean, and all their support staff, who provide me with the tools and opportunity to inspire and help others. And finally, to Eileen, who provided me with the courage to be who I wanted to be, and Sue, who said once upon a time that I had a book or two in me (it turns out I did).

This book will help sales professionals apply core emotional intelligence skills that enhance their self-awareness, authenticity, resilience, empathy, and sales effectiveness.

David Smith

In 1996 I was a young psychology graduate looking for a PhD topic when I came across Daniel Goleman’s book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ. By the time I’d finished the first chapter I knew I had my topic. Little did I know however, that I had also stumbled across a concept that would keep me fascinated for the next 20 years and beyond. A concept I’d also go on to build a successful business around. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Daniel Goleman and all other inspirational pioneers of emotional intelligence, notably Peter Salovey, Jack Mayer, Richard Boyatzis, and Rueven Bar-On to name a few. I’d also like to thank those who have supported my own study and work in this area. Firstly, to my partner Georgia and our three kids Lachlan, Louis and Maia, and secondly to all my colleagues and clients of Genos International.

Ben Palmer

FOREWORD

Would you like to know why you’re not getting the sales performance you’d like despite your investment in sales training?

It’s estimated that organisations globally spend a total of US$1 Trillion (12 zeroes!) on their sales teams – with an estimate of between US$2.5Billion (trainingindustry.com) and US $15Billion (Harvard Business Review) of this spent on sales training alone!

Most of that is spent on sales process training. Most of this sales training is based upon the fairly solid premise that capturing the steps successful salespeople follow in our organisations, and training all others to follow those same steps, is an effective way to help all salespeople achieve the best possible results.

This type of sales process training works – at least up to a point.

Unfortunately, not everyone achieves the stellar results of our sales stars. In ‘Working with Emotional Intelligence’, Daniel Goleman observed that …top performing salespeople are 12 times more productive than those at the bottom, and 85% more productive than an average performer.

So, there must be something more that helps consistently top sales performers get the results they get – or everyone would be nailing their targets every year just by attending conventional sales training programs.

In this excellent book, David and Ben expose that ‘something more’ – Emotional Intelligence.

With a parable-based approach they’ll show you how salespeople who not only follows the best-practice processes, but also intentionally supplement this by ‘showing up’ to their prospects and clients in an emotionally intelligent manner, will always outperform their peers.

Not only will they show how the ‘why’ – but they’ll take you step-by-step through the ‘how’.

Whether you’re a salesperson wishing to improve their results, a sales manager seeking more consistent top performance from every member of your sales team, or a small business owner looking for an edge over your more well-resourced competitors, there’s a lot in this book for you.

You’ll never look at sales and selling quite the same way again.

Deiric McCann, MD Genos EU

PROLOGUE

The emotionally intelligent salesperson sat down at his desk, looked out across the industrial landscape, and sighed contentedly. This had been an incredible journey, but the sense of satisfaction that he was now experiencing had made that journey all the more rewarding.

He took one last look at the latest sales figures and smiled. Productivity was up, sales performance had improved, and the organisation was at last delivering on its high expectations. He shut the report and put it in his desk drawer, closed his eyes, and reflected on how this had come to pass. At last, he was part of a great sales organisation.

This is his story.

CHAPTER 1

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What Is Emotional Intelligence?

I was sitting in my office with my manager, looking at the sales forecasts for the end of the financial year. The organisation was performing below expectation; productivity was good, but not great, and overall, staff did not seem to be engaged in the sales process. I was performing reasonably well, but several of my colleagues appeared to be struggling and becoming frustrated with the lack of results they were delivering. Our manager had empowered the sales team to drive the organisation, but although they were smart people and worked hard, they seemed to lack a special ingredient required to drive sales in the business. Something was missing.

Over the past twelve months, the sales team and I had attended several highly regarded training courses, but they had no enduring impact and proved to be expensive, with little return on investment. Performance did improve initially, but after the enthusiasm from the learning dissipated, it soon returned to business as usual. Something had to change; this organisation had the potential to be great.