Want better sales? Loyal, happy customers? Want
better job satisfaction and earning potential? Look at emotional training.
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) directly affects sales performance. It arms the
sales professional with the ability to respond appropriately to situations and
to influence other people on an emotional level. It provides her/him with
confidence and helps to avoid bravado (which is often – detrimentally - used as
an alternative to confidence). Emotional intelligence makes us likable to others, which is really the key to maintaining those big accounts. It makes us
likable to ourselves, which is the key to landing the big account in the first
place. So, what exactly is emotional intelligence?
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) as defined by
Psychology Today is the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and
the emotions of others. Sounds kind of basic – especially for those who deem
general intelligence to be the be-all, end-all. However, EQ testing is
conducted by Fortune 500 companies for their new hires all the time – and
there’s a reason for this. High emotional intelligence is that “je ne sais
quoi” that you see in top sales performers all the time. Top performers are
confident, dedicated, and they like themselves. They work hard. They will
gladly talk to those who ‘get it’, but they avoid spending time with
complainers and energy vampires. Many C-level executives have taken and given
these tests and those who work for these esteemed companies have scored high on
them, including sales professionals.
There are three standard models to EQ testing:
The Ability Model, The Trait Model, and the Mixed Model. These models cover the
emotional intelligence landscape and they uncover the vital ways that emotions
facilitate thought and understanding.
So now that we’ve determined what emotional
intelligence is as well as the impact it has on sales performance, let’s take a
closer look at the three standard models:
1.
The Ability Model (allows you to navigate your social environment)
a.
The ability model uses EMOTIONS to ENHANCE thinking. It rates
one’s ability to:
i. Perceive and correctly
interpret emotions in others,
ii. Use emotions effectively,
and
iii. Manage their emotions and
the emotions of others
2.
The Trait Model
a.
The trait model rates one’s level of self efficacy or confidence.
3.
The Mixed Model rates
a.
Self-awareness,
b.
Self-regulation,
c.
Social skills,
d.
Empathy and
e.
Motivation
If you’re reading this blog, you may be asking
if there is a way to rate your own EQ levels and how to improve upon these.
There’s an excess of online tests available to help you rate your level of
emotional intelligence (see links below). But there are problems with these. The
trouble with “self-assessment” is the “self” component. Are you really able to
answer questions honestly? One serious weakness in these tests is the subject’s
tendency to answer how s/he thinks s/he should answer, rather than with total
honesty.
If you are serious about wanting to improve
your sales, you may answer more truthfully than most. If you are serious about
wanting to improve your career, then you may be even more motivated to be
truthful. But if you really want to improve your life, if you’ve had enough of
repeating the same story in every relationship and in every job, then you will
likely be ready to be self-honest, which is really where change can begin. A
big distance lies between truth and honestly (roughly the distance between your
head and your gut!).
So – again - can emotional intelligence be
improved upon? The answer would be a qualified
yes. You probably have to be desperate enough to do it. It takes a lot of
emotional intelligence to be self-honest enough to improve your emotional
intelligence to begin with!
While there are some conflicting opinions on
the relevance of EQ, most would agree that scoring high in this area would
positively affect one’s life. Sales requires many skills that can be learned:
product knowledge, company information, research skills, time-management, et
al. Emotional intelligence cannot replace general intelligence. Specific
personality traits will always give some people a greater edge in sales. But high
emotional intelligence is a major component to creating positive interactions
and mutually beneficial exchanges. The Big 5 Personality Traits help sales
people to get the appointment, but EQ helps sales people to get the
relationship, and this is the key to loyalty.
http://www.maetrix.com.au/meit/eitest.html
http://www.iq-test.net/eq-test.html
No comments:
Post a Comment