How to Become a Mindful & Emotionally Intelligent Salesperson
Deiric McCann
Leveraging Emotional Intelligence & Psychological Safety, I equip leaders with skills to drive engagement & productivity. Build a safe culture of empathy, authenticity & wellbeing for higher impact.
It's hard to find a professional salesperson who hasn't been trained to within an inch of their lives on their products' features and benefits, and on the tools and techniques of professional selling. I've been there, in a variety of jobs in my career!
And still the reality is that research shows that 20% of all salespeople are 'bottom performers', 68% are 'average performers', and just 20% are 'top performers' those salespeople who sell dramatically more than anyone else - our 'sales stars'.
The difference is not product knowledge or sales technique, but the ability to manage themselves and relate effectively to others: their Emotional Intelligence.
Without emotional intelligence salespeople struggle to establish rapport with prospects and clients, manage stress effectively, and stay motivated in tougher times.
The two core foundational skills underpinning the success of emotionally intelligent salespeople are Self-Awareness and Awareness of Others.
Self-Awareness is the ability to recognise one's own emotional reaction to what's going on in the sales environment - how it's affecting your behaviour, what you say, and the decisions you make; while Awareness of Others is the ability to notice how those around you are responding to their interactions with you - how it's affecting their behaviour, what they say, and the decisions they make.
Self-Management is all about managing your mood and emotions so that stress levels remain manageable - especially when under the pressure of the challenging or difficult emotions created by the so called 'normal' pressures of a salesperson's life.
In the US, selling causes so much burnout that the annual turnover rate amongst salespeople is about 27% - twice as high as the workforce in general. It's safe to assume it's pretty close everywhere else.
No other profession demands so much - every day salespeople are told 'no!' and are knocked back as the try to drive their case with clients, whilst all the time having to deal with the time-based pressure of sales quotas.
A critical differentiator of effective and successful slespeople is the ability to effctively manage the impact these highly emotional events have on their stress levels - whilst remaining healthy and motivated.
It's about time salespeople and teams learned to develop their emotional intelligence and resilence to be more successful, and most importantly -to live happier, healthier lives.
I know exactly what its like to struggle to be resilent enough to deal with the job and industry. This situation was near and dear to my heart. So, that's when we decided to offer up seats on "The Mindful & Emotionally Intelligent Salesperson" series as part of our 2019 Social Responsibility Programme.
Join us live & online for 4 powerful masterclasses and discover how to harness the principles of mindfulness and emotional intelligence for success. Register here.
Who is this programme for?
This highly practical programme is designed specifically for salespeople and for in-house or external coaches, consultants, HR professionals, trainers or sales managers who have responsibility for raising the sales skills and performance of salespeople
What will I learn?
This programme is packed full of insights, but here's a little taste of what's to come...
- Why the ability to manage how you 'show up' is critical to your sales success
- How you currently 'show up' to those at work and/or in your professional life
- Why successful sales teams are increasingly turning to Emotional Intelligence to raise performance
- The three places salespeople get derailed in the sales process - and how can you avoid being derailed
- A simple 15-minute practice that will raise your self-awareness
- How low awareness of others sabotages your sales success - and how to tune into your prospects and clients more effectively
- How to work on your self-management and resilience (ability to bounce back from stress)
- How to deal with the stress that comes quite naturally from the setbacks and challenges that are such a standard part of professional sales
- The neuroscience of sales and selling
- The results Sanofi Aventis, L'Oreal and other major organisations achieved from raising the Emotional Intelligence of their salespeople.
It gets better. We're also offering up the chance to complete a complimentary Genos Emotional Intelligence assessment, so you can evaluate your EI behaviours and pinpoint areas for development.
All the information is on the registration page, but feel free to comment below to let me and the team know if you have any questions. I hope you enjoy it!
On hiatus for a more important cause!
5 年It would seem that as long as the metrics for sales success are measured in "orders this quarter" (and not how many clients were persuaded to consider ordering) most companies are not going to be ordering sales training programs that focus on the soft skills (which most of know can help make for longer-term sales career success).? Obviously, no sales training organization has got this right, not just yet.? There are hundreds of sales training programs (just as there are books on management and leadership) all of which claim to be the "newest" or the "best."? ?The reality is that people buy for all kinds of reasons - mostly their own.? Hiring a entire team of young energetic order takers and proliferating the market with them still works for many companies.? Its a choice of how we choose to go to market.? ? ? ? ??
Looks like a good programme. Many salespeople who are long-term successful already display emotional intelligence and mindfulness. The huge challenge for sales leadership is to nurture and encourage these behaviours in a short-term culture. Not only would this enable deeper relationships with clients, it would also be a huge step towards protecting the mental health of salespeople and reducing burnout.