Empathy and Emotional Intelligence: The Ability to Connect

For more on increasing your sales effectiveness, subscribe to the RSS Feed for The Sales Blog and my Email Newsletter.

The eighth essential attribute for salespeople is Empathy and Emotional Intelligence.

Empathy and Emotional Intelligence follow the first attribute, self-discipline. The self-discipline that is the foundation of all future-oriented goals allows the professional salesperson to set aside their thoughts, their feelings, and their emotions and to instead focus on feeling what another person is feeling. It allows them to control their communication.

Empathy and Emotional Intelligence follow the second attribute, optimism. Optimism enables you to turn your empathy and emotional intelligence into a positive experience for other people.

Empathy and Emotional Intelligence follow the third attribute, competitiveness. In order to win, you must be competitive. Competitiveness may get you in front of a prospect, but it is your empathy and your emotional intelligence that creates the connection once you are there.

Empathy and Emotional Intelligence follow the fourth attribute, initiative, because to act empathetically and with emotional intelligence is a proactive approach to understanding how other people feel before acting. It couples the ability to act with the ability to include others needs.

Empathy and Emotional Intelligence follow the fifth attribute, resourcefulness. It isn’t enough to simply generate ideas that allow you to succeed. To succeed, you need others, and empathy and emotional intelligence allow your resourcefulness to be leveraged with the thoughts and ideas of the people on whom your success depends.

Empathy and Emotional Intelligence follow the sixth attribute, determination. Being determined requires action, action often involving other people. Empathy and emotional intelligence enable that determination to be coupled with a deep understanding other peoples needs, their thoughts, and their emotions.

Empathy and Emotional Intelligence follow Caring. Caring is what underlies both the ability and the intention to act empathetically and with emotional intelligence. It conveys they authenticity of your caring.

What Is Empathy? What is Emotional Intelligence?

Empathy is the ability to feel what the other person is feeling. It is to experience their emotions. It is the ability to put yourself in the other person’s shoes in a big and meaningful way. Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage your own emotions, as well as the emotions of others. This is a skill that all great communicators possess (more about this tomorrow).

Empathy and emotional intelligence at work play a crucial role in sales, as they are enabled by genuine care to build long-lasting relationships. Together, they form the foundation of trust.

Empathy and Emotional Intelligence in Sales

Empathy is what allows a salesperson to understand deeply what their prospect is feeling. It is the patient exploration of the other’s person’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions. In part, it allows them to create a connection with their prospect and customers.

Emotional Intelligence solidifies that connection. While empathy allows the salesperson to understand what the prospect or customers is feeling, emotional intelligence is what allows them to communicate that they understand those feelings and their implications.

Together these abilities allow the salesperson to understand the other person’s communication in not only their words, but also in what lies beneath their words. Working to understand another person’s thoughts, their feelings, and emotions, and communicating with emotional intelligence, are the foundations of building trust.

You see these attributes in great salespeople. You see it when their clients and prospects open up, sharing their business problems, challenges, and opportunities with the salesperson. You see it in the client’s sharing of the politics that exist in all companies and that may break or win a deal. You see it in the great salesperson’s ability to communicate that they do in fact feel what the prospect or customer is feeling, and by the sense of trust that is created. You see it in the customer’s willingness to share their dissatisfaction and the implications of that dissatisfaction. You see it in the salesperson’s ability to help manage the prospect or customers emotional state, using their connection with this customer to build a vision of something better.

You see the twin attributes of empathy and emotional intelligence in the salesperson’s ability to lead and orchestrate their own team to create a positive outcome for their clients, paying attention other’s needs. And you see these attributes on display whenever there is a problem or an issue. Great salespeople leverage the ability to feel what the other person is feeling, and to use their high emotional intelligence to communicate with them, as well as others, to resolve the issue.

Empathy and emotional intelligence are the currency of trust and rapport.

When Empathy and Emotional Intelligence are Missing

When empathy is missing, the salesperson has a difficult time connecting to their prospect or customer’s feelings, their thoughts, and their emotions. To the prospect, it comes across as a lack of interest, a cool distance, a lack of engagement. It leaves the prospect wondering if the salesperson really understands their problems or dissatisfaction. It manifests itself in a weak needs-analysis, one that focuses only on the superficial presenting problem, and not the underlying problems.

When empathy and emotional intelligence is missing, salespeople are poor at picking up the prospect’s verbal cues and their physical communication. The client feels this is as a lack of consideration, as unprofessionalism, and assumes her thoughts and feelings mean nothing. Rapport is never gained. It feels too much like the salesperson is simply there to sell, not create a positive outcome for the client.

The lack of empathy and emotional intelligence results in fewer second sales calls with the same prospect.

The lack of empathy and emotional intelligence at work can also be problematic when working within teams. This deficiency manifests itself in difficulties developing relationships with cross-functional team members, who are essential for producing positive outcomes for clients. It shows up in demands made without understanding what the team may need to meet those demands. As a result, adversarial relationships form where the feelings of others are ignored, and poor emotional intelligence at work leads to ineffective communication choices.

Conclusion

Great salespeople have the ability to create high-level rapport with their prospects and their clients. Great salespeople have the ability to connect on a very human level. This rapport is built upon the modern sales professional's empathy and their emotional intelligence. These attributes combine to generate trust and confidence, and they are the foundation of long-term relationships.

Questions

1. Do have the ability to empathetic? Can I feel what my prospect or client is feeling?

2. Can I imagine myself in their situation? How would I feel if I were? Frustrated? Angry? Anxious?

3. Do I postpone sharing my thoughts and ideas until I understand not only the prospects presenting problem, but the deeper, underlying issues and how those issues affect them?

4. Do I have the ability to control my own emotional state? Can I communicate with others in way that I can create a positive emotional condition for them?

5. Do I use my empathy and my emotional intelligence within my own organization as well, in leading or orchestrating my business teams?

6. Are these skills that I need to develop?

For more on increasing your sales effectiveness, subscribe to the RSS Feed for The Sales Blog and my Email Newsletter. Follow me on Twitter, connect to me on LinkedIn, or friend me on Facebook. If I can help you or your sales organization, check out my coaching and consulting firm, B2B Sales Coach & Consultancy, email me, or call me at (614) 212-4279.

Read my Blogs.com featured guest post on the Top Ten Sales blogs.

Read my monthly post on Sales Bloggers Union.

Get The Sales Blog iPhone App to read The Sales Blog and Twitter Feed on your iPhone.