Achieving a Balance Between Assertiveness and Empathy in Sales

While a lot has been mentioned about how one needs to have EQ to be successful at work (regardless of the type of work), but not much has been said about which aspects of EQ are the most useful at work.

As such, we use the sales job as an example of how EQ needs to be applied correctly to be successful.

Essentially, sales is a balance of assertiveness and empathy. The salesperson needs to assert influence over the customer and drive the sale. Empathy because the salesperson needs to listen and empathize with the customer's needs and then seek to deliver solutions to fulfill those needs.

Here are some further insights on how having the right balance of both qualities will bring sales success and how having an imbalance might result in poorer performances.

Assertiveness

By and large, salespeople need to be assertive enough to reach out to different customers, both existing and prospective ones. They would have to take action to drive their ideas across and take the risks of possible rejections and stalemates along the way.

In a complex sales situation, salespeople must know how to be assertive to reach out to different stakeholders and influencers that could impact the final buying decisions.

In a way, the assertiveness that a salesperson exhibits could include the following components:

Having the initiative to make things happen;

• Guide and influence customers' thinking;
• Asking questions to find out hidden needs and agenda;
• Navigate through different stakeholders and influencers that could have an impact on the final buying decisions;
• Being persevered to follow through long sales cycles;
• Not be discouraged by rejections or when customers say "no";
• Overcoming objections and winning over customers;
• Working through and influencing internal colleagues to give the customers what they want;
• Doing whatever it takes to meet sales targets; etc.

When facing rejections, salespeople can be assertive in the following ways:

• Be persevered and follow up with the customer over the long term;
• Not be discouraged by the rejections, and move on to other, more suitable customers?

Empathy

Empathy, on the other hand, works differently. In this aspect, salespeople must be attentive to customers' needs and seek ways to fulfill those needs.

Empathy can imply:

• Listening to what customers say, as well as what they did NOT say;
• Building trust with customers;
• Be mindful of the customers' feelings and avoid antagonizing the customer;
• Having a positive "can do" attitude, providing great service, etc.

Having empathy doesn't mean being friendly to customers or not saying "no" to customers. It simply means stepping into customers' shoes and seeing things from their points of view.

Striking a Balance

It would be evident that if salespeople are overly assertive and under-empathize, they could become aggressive and offend customers. On the other hand, if they over-empathize but are not assertive enough, they may lose control of the sales process and be pushed around by customers.

Here's a typical scenario of how salespeople need to apply a balance of assertiveness and empathy in sales.

Let's say you have a prospective customer with whom you are trying to make contact. They told you that they are pretty happy with the current suppliers that they have right now and do not need to buy from a new one.

A less assertive salesperson would walk away.

An assertive, but not empathetic salesperson, would try to convince the customer that the new products or solutions will deliver much better performances than the existing ones. However, the customer would see this as aggressive sales behavior and become defensive. The customer might then avoid seeing the salesperson in the future.

A salesperson who is assertive and empathetic could explore with the customer a few aspects, such as:

• What would be some of their selection criteria if the customer were to work with an additional supplier (instead of changing suppliers)?
• If the customer were to explore how to make their existing equipment or materials perform better, what areas would they like to see an improvement?
• Who in the customer's organization is currently satisfied, and who else is presently dissatisfied with their solution?

Do note that in the initial phases of selling, the empathetic salesperson will avoid issues such as:

• What products to recommend;
• What price point to hit;
• When would the customer buy;
• What quantities would they buy

This is because the customer does not have a strong need at the moment, and being assertive to close the sale would push the customer away rather than pull them closer. The right kind of assertiveness would be to probe further, find out if the customer has other unfulfilled needs, and explore different options.

Now, assume that the customer is willing to explore and actively engages with your technical colleagues to test your samples and get their advice. However, this "technical interaction" has been going on for a long time, and there has been no further inclination of the customer's wish to buy from you. In fact, the customer had asked for your quotation in a couple of new product purchases but did not buy from you. You felt that the customer could be taking advantage of your company's resources, and there's no firm commitment for purchase from you.

The overly empathetic salesperson and under-assertive would maintain the way it is in case the customer gets offended and refuse future communication.

The salesperson who is assertive and empathetic would:

• Politely ask the customer if there could be a commitment to buy something in the foreseeable future;
• If the customer could not give an affirmative answer, let the customer understand that the resources provided can only be given to customers with confirmed purchases. The resources that had been provided to the customer will have to be reduced;
• If the customer still decides not to buy, have the assertiveness that there will be other customers who will buy, and be assertive enough to walk away

Hence, salespeople can improve their sales performance if they could have better EQ. In this case, balancing their assertiveness and empathy would be the constant practice.