How do you manage emotions in sales?

3 Regulate your emotions

The third step to managing your emotions is to regulate them when they are too intense, negative, or disruptive. You can use self-regulation techniques such as breathing, relaxation, or distraction to calm yourself down and reduce stress. You can also use positive psychology techniques such as gratitude, optimism, or humor to boost your mood and resilience. For example, if you feel anxious before a presentation, you can use breathing exercises to relax your body, gratitude to appreciate your strengths and opportunities, and humor to lighten the mood and connect with your audience.

4 Respond to others' emotions

The fourth step to managing your emotions is to respond to others' emotions in a way that is supportive, helpful, and respectful. You can use interpersonal communication skills such as emotional intelligence, rapport, and influence to understand, connect, and persuade others. For example, if you encounter a customer who is happy with your product or service, you can use emotional intelligence to recognize and share their emotion, rapport to build trust and loyalty, and influence to ask for referrals or testimonials.

5 Learn from your emotions

The fifth step to managing your emotions is to learn from them and use them as feedback and motivation. You can use self-improvement techniques such as goal-setting, action-planning, or coaching to set realistic and challenging goals, plan effective strategies, and seek guidance and support. You can also use self-evaluation techniques such as feedback, reflection, or review to measure your progress, identify your strengths and weaknesses, and celebrate your achievements. For example, if you feel proud of closing a deal, you can use feedback to get constructive criticism, reflection to identify what worked and what didn't, and review to celebrate your success and reward yourself.

6 Develop your emotional skills

The sixth and final step to managing your emotions is to develop your emotional skills and habits. You can use self-development techniques such as training, reading, or mentoring to learn new skills, knowledge, and strategies. You can also use self-practice techniques such as role-playing, simulation, or experimentation to apply and test your skills in different scenarios. For example, if you want to improve your empathy skills, you can use training to learn the theory and principles of empathy, reading to learn from other people's experiences and perspectives, and role-playing to practice empathizing with different customers and situations.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?