Sales trainers teach salespeople to give their buyers insights, educate them, challenge them and add value to their lives. None of this promotes sales. Emotional intelligence (EQ) does. To make sales, develop strong interpersonal skills, learn to control your feelings, leverage your buyers’ emotions and manage your relationships with them. Master salesman Jeb Blount teaches salespeople how to use the psychology of “sales EQ” to close deals. Despite some rough language, MicroAbstract finds that salespeople everywhere can learn from his insightful manual.
Take-Aways
* “Sales EQ” is “sales-specific emotional intelligence.” It derives from “empathy, self-awareness, self-control” and “sales drive.”
* A buyer’s emotional experience with a salesperson is more important than product features, benefits or pricing.
* An “emotional wall” separates buyers and sellers. Salespeople can use their sales EQ to knock down this wall to make sales.
* Salespeople should leverage buyers’ subconscious mental processes.
* Buyers’ purchase decisions are primarily emotional, not rational or logical.
* “Ultra-high performers” (UHPs) control their emotions, build interpersonal skills and master human relationships.
* These excellent salespeople perceive and understand buyer emotions and influence them to make sales.
* They have “innate, acquired, technological and emotional intelligence.”
* They flip “buyers’ scripts” by disrupting their expectations.
* “People buy from people they like.”
Summary
The Brown Bag Approach
When he was 23 and new to sales, Art learned a valuable lesson from Joe – his sales manager and a legendary deal closer. Art had been trying to convince the Colaizzi Bakery to lease trucks for its delivery fleet. But Mr. Colaizzi, the bakery owner, said Art’s leasing bid wasn’t competitive.
As a sales professional, understanding how emotions dominate and drive buying decisions is critical to supercharging your income and advancing your career.
Art tried to convince Colaizzi that despite the higher price, his bakery would benefit from the added value of having really good trucks. Colaizzi wasn’t convinced. To him, all truck leases were the same. Art explained the problem to Joe, who took him to the local grocery store and filled a shopping bag. Then they went to see Colaizzi.
People feel more comfortable with you when you interact with them based on who they are – not on who you are.
Joe acknowledged that Colaizzi found his truck rental rates too high and explained, “I came down here to learn more.” Colaizzi was appreciative, but he explained that the fees were higher than their competitors’ prices. Unless Joe could charge less, Colaizzi had nothing else to discuss.
Joe pulled two loaves of bread out of the shopping bag and placed them on Colaizzi’s desk. He asked the bakery owner what the difference was between the grocery store bread and the bakery’s bread, which cost nearly three times as much.
Bulldozing your way through sales conversations while ignoring the human and emotional component inherent in sales leads to disaster.
Excited, Colaizzi stood up and passionately listed his bread’s virtues. He explained that his bakery used better, fresher ingredients, a superior process and a special family recipe. After 10 minutes of listening to him sing his product’s praises, Joe said, “Mr. Colaizzi, that’s exactly what we’ve been trying to tell you about us. We are the Colaizzi bread of truck leasing!”
Disruptive emotions manifest themselves in destructive behaviors that fog focus, derail relationships, cloud situational awareness, and cause irrational decision making, misjudgments and overconfidence.
Colaizzi grinned and shook Joe’s hand enthusiastically. He agreed to lease from Art and Joe. These events occurred many years ago. Art Vallely is now chief operating officer of Penske Truck Leasing. He spends time with every sales training class the company offers so he can help both entry-level and advanced sales professionals improve their skills.
Becoming an “Ultra-High Performer”
To become ultra-high performers (UHPs), salespeople must take charge of their emotions, develop interpersonal skills and control their sales relationships. Unfazed by Colaizzi’s predictable “buyer’s script” messages (your prices are too high, all truck leases are the same), Joe offered an unpredictable response. He produced the two loaves of bread. This intrigued Colaizzi, who wondered what Joe might do next.
We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgment of the intellect is only part of the truth. (Carl Jung)
Joe gently pushed Colaizzi to defend his bread. The baker’s bread speech triggered a “dopamine loop in his brain” that made him feel good. Joe’s explanation, “We are the Colaizzi bread of truck leasing,” created a significant emotional connection. The rapt attention Joe and Art paid to Colaizzi’s explanation made the bakery chief feel important and also obligated to the salesmen. The feeling prompted him to reciprocate, enabling negotiations and leading to a sale.
If you are not likable, you have no chance. Stakeholders don’t buy from salespeople they don't like.
Joe understood that buyers make emotional decisions, which they try to support with logic after the fact. They don’t make “rational, logical decisions.” Thanks to his understanding of psychology, Joe flipped the Colaizzi’s buyer’s script and took command of the “decision process.” He left Colaizzi with only one choice: saying yes.
Everything ultra-high performers (UHPs) do, from developing sales strategy to managing the sales process and shaping the buying process, is all directed toward influencing the decision process. Everything.
Joe knew that for buyers like Colaizzi, “the emotional experience of buying…is far more important than products, prices, features and solutions.” Salespeople at the ultra-high performer level sense, regulate, handle and influence their buyers’ “nonconforming, irrational, human emotions.”
UHP Intelligence
Sales professionals need four types of intelligence to become ultra-high performers:
* “Innate intelligence (IQ)” – You need above average intelligence to become a UHP. But, IQ is a function of DNA, so you can’t really enhance it.
* “Acquired intelligence (AQ)” – People who work hard can maximize their AQ with education and training.
* “Technological intelligence (TQ)” – Sales professionals with TQ are at ease with and adapt to the latest technology. Salespeople without TQ often fall behind.
* “Emotional intelligence (EQ)” – People with EQ control their emotions, and they understand how to affect other people’s emotions in positive ways.
Disrupting Buyer Expectations
Armed with these four types of intelligence, UHPs can disrupt buyers’ expectations by doing something unexpected – like putting Colaizzi’s bread on the desk. In so doing, they can offer “bright, shiny things” that appeal to the brain’s amygdala. The brain automatically seeks patterns. UHPs find imaginative ways to cut through these patterns and flip buyers’ scripts. Like Joe, they change the game and make the sale.
UHPs tune in to the emotions of stakeholders and respond appropriately to those emotions, often adjusting their own behavioral and communication style so other people feel comfortable and at ease.
Using these strategies requires an intuitive understanding of psychology. For example, UHPs know that minor commitments lead to major commitments. They try to get buyers to commit in small ways: agree to another meeting, perform introductions to higher-level decision makers, participate in facility tours, come to a restaurant for dinner, and so on. Such “micro-commitments” enable salespeople to test buyers’ engagement. Micro-commitments help UHPs move buyers through each sequential step of the selling process. Every step on the path to a sale increases a salesperson’s “win probability.”
Sales EQ
When speaking to buyers, be sensitive to their emotions. Listen carefully as they answer your questions. Do they speak openly or control their responses? Are they walled off or transparent? What does their body language say? What can you learn from the inflection of their voices and their level of eye contact?
UHPs never forget that they are dealing with emotional, fallible, irrational human beings.
Don’t just be acutely sensitive. Rely on your Sales EQ – “sales-specific emotional intelligence” – which comes into play at the intersection of “human psychology and influence frameworks.” UHPs with strong sales EQ “leverage human behavior frameworks, heuristics and cognitive biases” to sway buyers. They use the “four pillars” of sales EQ:
* “Empathy” – High performers want to improve their customers’ businesses. These salespeople use empathy to understand their customers’ needs and serve them better.
* “Self-control” – “Disruptive emotions” are a salesperson’s biggest enemy. These forces include “fear, anger, uncertainty, insecurity, impatience, attachment, detachment, arrogance, blaming” and “delusion.” Good salespeople control these negative emotions.
* “Self-awareness” – Ultra-high performers know their own emotional blind spots, strengths and weaknesses. They understand that their behavior and speech affect others and that disruptive emotions sabotage sales.
* “Sales drive” – Few professions are as tough and potentially heartbreaking as selling. If you don’t deliver, you don’t get paid. Ultra high-performers have drive, which requires optimism, competitiveness and the burning desire to succeed.
The “Emotional Wall”
At the start of any sales relationship, an emotional wall separates sellers and buyers. You must tear down that wall. If it remains, consider if your words or actions are getting in the way of creating an emotional connection with the buyer.
Whatever business you’re in, you’re in the people business. After all, people prefer to do business with people and companies they find likeable. (Karen Salmansohn)
Ask yourself if you should change how you communicate. Are you talking and not listening? If so, try a new approach. Ask a colleague to role-play being the buyer and objectively assess your new style in terms of sincerity, believability, likability, communication effectiveness, and so on. Learn about the individual buyer-stakeholders you’re working with so you can close sales.
Average salespeople delude themselves into believing that buyers make rational, logical decisions based on empirical data and information. But that's not how the human mind works.
Large sales involve five different stakeholders:
* “Buyers” – An organization’s purchasing decision makers can approve a purchase but may lack authority to dispense funds.
* “Amplifiers” – Some people within your buyer’s firm are good at identifying internal problems that your product or service could solve. They broadcast information about the problem to others in the firm in the hopes of buying a product or making a change that will fix the issue. Amplifiers have varying degrees of influence on the purchase decision.
* “Seekers” – Some employees inside your customer’s organization conduct research to learn about available resources and vendor options to fix the problem amplifiers target. Seekers have minimal influence on purchase decisions.
* “Influencers” – Some managers and executives have major clout as to whether the company will buy what you’re selling. Seek advocates among them, get the fence-sitters on your side and nullify the naysayers.
* “Coaches” – Specialized employees can support your sales effort and give you valuable internal information to help you close the deal.
You Like Me, You Really Like Me
Buyers want to know that you’re listening and understand them and their problems. As you talk to them, they are deciding whether to trust you, believe you and like you. Since “people buy from people they like,” it makes a difference to show that you understand your buyers and care about them. To increase your likability, consider 10 suggestions:
* “Smile” – This makes a positive first impression.
* “Voice tone” – Maintain a “neutral, friendly” and “upbeat” tone. Regional dialects don’t help salespeople. If you have one, work to eliminate it.
* “Be polite” – Rudeness drives away clients. You know good manners; use them.
* “Dress” – Never let your appearance sabotage your sales success. Always dress well.
* “Grooming” – Look sharp. Cut your hair neatly and manicure your nails.
* “Attention focus” – Strive to remain fully engaged and present. Keep your mind on the buyer in front of you. He or she wants and deserves your undivided attention.
* “Style” – People like people who are similar to them. Match your style to your buyer’s.
* “Language” – Speak the way your buyers speak; match their “words, jargon and approach.”
* “Enthusiasm” – Everyone likes high-energy people, so show your passion.
* “Confidence” – Self-assurance is contagious. Be confident, but never arrogant.
People act on emotion and justify with logic. From complex to completely transactional impulse purchases, emotions drive buying decisions.
Buyers sense whether you make them feel important. People have a primal need to feel that they matter. To make your buyers feel significant, use their names, mention something personal about them and demonstrate that you respect their perspective.
Alternative Strategies
If your personal style is fine, but you’re still not making progress with a prospect, try these end strategies:
* Target a different stakeholder in the same organization.
* Offer to “shake hands” and part ways.
* Forget this sale and move on.
Emotions come first, then logic.
Ultra-high performers are hardheaded realists. They value their time and they know when to walk away from deals that just won’t close.
Being a salesperson today isn’t easy. Thanks to the Internet and other high-tech advances, buyers have more tools, product knowledge and purchasing power than ever. Technology makes it easy for an army of “me-too competitors” to enter your market. These new firms and their goods or services make product and pricing differentiation a challenge for long-established companies and their salespeople.
Sales EQ can be your competitive edge. Busy buyers with short attention spans don’t want “kitchen-sink data dumps of features and benefits and canned product pitches.” Today’s buyers crave “authentic human interaction.”
About the Author
Jeb Blount’s SalesGravy is the world’s most visited sales-specific job board, and he is iTunes’ most downloaded sales podcaster. He also wrote Fanatical Prospecting and six other sales books.
