009: How Emotional Intelligence & Soft Skills Produce Hard Sales Results

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About This Episode

The number one complaint prospects have about salespeople is they talk too much. Also, business leaders’ common complaints about salespeople aren’t meeting their sales quote; it’s typically related to things like a bad attitude, not being a team player, or being overly aggressive with prospects. Soft skills resolve all of these issues. However, most leaders focus on hiring new sales team members based on hard skills like industry and selling experience.

In this episode, we’ll be talking about how emotional intelligence and soft skills produce hard sales results with Colleen Stanley, a sales trainer and the president of SalesLeadership, Inc., a sales development firm. She will talk with us about how to build high-performing sales teams through the power of emotional intelligence.

1. When salespeople underperform, they are often underdeveloped.

Personality traits like ambition, passion, drive, and competitiveness will take a salesperson far, but it’s not enough for elite levels of sales success. Even industry expertise or mastery of effective sales strategies will not consistently produce results. While basic sales skills are necessary, emotional intelligence and soft skills, like assertiveness and emotions management, are what enable top salespeople to customize their expertise and strategies to the needs of prospective customers. Improve the soft skills of your sales team members by hiring and training for them.

2. Self-awareness is the starting point for developing emotional intelligence and empathy.

Most people go to work reacting to external circumstances or others behavior instinctively rather than intentionally. We are proud of some responses and regret others. The key to changing our responses is becoming aware of them. We can do this by taking time to pause, reflect and evaluate our behavior, what triggered it, how others responded to or perceived us, and what we want to do differently going forward. Becoming aware of ourselves, especially when selling, enables us and our team to clearly draw the line between ourselves and others during interactions and respond productively.

3. Sales is a team sport, and everyone is on the team.

It’s easy to assume the sales process ends when someone completes a purchase, but it’s not. Your customer service or client success team is essentially in charge of reselling your customer every month. Some companies, especially those with in-depth client onboarding or setup processes, may require team members typically in back-office roles to become client-facing. If your team has well-developed soft skills, this is an opportunity to deepen your relationships with clients and further separate yourself from your competitors.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with one representing ‘non-existent’ and 10 representing ‘perfect,’ how would you rate your organization’s training on soft skills? Why did you choose that rating?

What’s one thing you’d like your organization to do immediately to improve the soft skills and emotional intelligence of your team members, especially members of the sales team?

What will need to change in your hiring process to better evaluate the soft skills and emotional intelligence of job candidates?

It takes a sales village to win and retain business. — Colleen Stanley

Once you start tuning in to what you’re thinking or feeling, then you develop the mega influence skill, and that is empathy. — Colleen Stanley

Emotional intelligence starts with emotional self-awareness. — Colleen Stanley

Emotional Intelligence for Sales Leadership: The Secret to Building High-Performance Sales Teams [a book by Colleen Stanley]

Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success: Connect with Customers and Get Results [a book by Colleen Stanley]

“135 Soft Skills List to Stand Out on a Resume or Job Application” [an article via DevelopGoodHabits.com]

BELAY’s Marketing Assistant Services

Colleen Stanley on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Colleen’s personal website

Colleen’s sales development firm, SalesLeadership, Inc.

Free e-books by Colleen Stanley

Hiring Top Sales Talent
Emotional Intelligence and Likeability
Elevate Your Elevator Pitch
What’s Your Sales EQ?

(04:03) Today’s listener question: “How do I develop my salespeople?”

(05:33) An introduction to the Sales Leadership Insanity Loop — why business leaders struggles to find and develop great salespeople

(07:33) Why hiring for and developing soft skills is important

(09:16) The value of selling as a team across the entire organization

(12:37) How to get ourselves and our organizations off the Sales Leadership Insanity Loop and effectively train our salespeople

(14:30) What leaders can do to develop their emotional intelligence

(20:20) How empathy can co-exist with a salesperson’s ambition, drive and competitiveness

(22:54) How to help your team understand the value of emotional intelligence

(27:14) Tricia and Lisa share their takeaways

(30:20) Today’s One Next Step: Download our Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Resource List and Sales Team Training Guide

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