Sales EQ

1. Emotional Intelligence Trumps IQ in Sales Success

Sales EQ—sales-specific emotional intelligence—equalizes the investment in interpersonal relationships and achieving your primary objective of advancing opportunities through the pipeline.

Emotional intelligence is crucial. In sales, the ability to perceive, interpret, and manage emotions—both your own and your stakeholders'—is more important than raw intellectual ability. This sales-specific emotional intelligence (Sales EQ) allows top performers to:

• Regulate disruptive emotions like fear, desperation, and attachment
• Empathize with stakeholders and understand their motivations
• Build deeper, more authentic connections
• Navigate complex interpersonal dynamics

Ultra-high performers (UHPs) in sales excel at balancing emotional connections with stakeholders while maintaining focus on their sales objectives. They leverage four key pillars of Sales EQ:

• Empathy
• Self-awareness
• Self-control
• Sales drive

By developing these skills, salespeople can differentiate themselves in a marketplace where products and services often appear similar to buyers.

2. Align Sales, Buying, and Decision Processes for Maximum Impact

When these processes are aligned, serendipity happens.

Three processes must align. To maximize win probability, ultra-high performers focus on aligning three key processes:

1. Sales Process: Your defined steps for selling
2. Buying Process: Your prospect's steps for purchasing
3. Decision Process: The emotional journey of each stakeholder

Most salespeople focus solely on their sales process, ignoring the other two. This misalignment leads to:

• Missed opportunities
• Stalled deals
• Frustrated stakeholders

UHPs shape the buying process to match their sales process, while carefully managing the individual decision processes of key stakeholders. This alignment creates a smooth, almost serendipitous path to closing deals.

Strategies for alignment include:

• Getting involved early in the prospect's buying journey
• Using leverage to reshape inflexible buying processes
• Mapping and influencing individual stakeholder decision journeys

3. Master the Five Questions That Matter Most to Stakeholders

These are the five most important questions in sales. Ultra-high performers get this. From the first moment they engage stakeholders and until the deal is closed, they are intensely focused on answering these five questions with an affirmative yes!

Five crucial questions drive decisions. Throughout the sales process, stakeholders are subconsciously asking themselves five critical questions about you:

1. Do I like you?
2. Do you listen to me?
3. Do you make me feel important?
4. Do you get me and my problems?
5. Do I trust and believe you?

UHPs focus relentlessly on answering "yes" to all five questions. They do this by:

• Building genuine rapport and emotional connections
• Practicing active listening and deep empathy
• Making stakeholders feel valued and understood
• Demonstrating expertise and problem-solving ability
• Consistently following through on commitments

Failing to address even one of these questions can derail a deal, regardless of how well you perform in other areas. Trust, in particular, is the linchpin that can overcome the powerful pull of the status quo bias.

4. Leverage Micro-Commitments to Shape Win Probability

Each time a stakeholder makes and follows through on a micro-commitment, they must shift their value and belief system to be consistent with that commitment so as to reduce dissonance.

Small steps lead to big commitments. UHPs understand the power of micro-commitments in shaping stakeholder behavior and increasing win probability. By securing a series of small, easy-to-make commitments throughout the sales process, salespeople can:

• Build momentum towards larger commitments
• Increase stakeholder engagement and investment
• Overcome resistance to change

Micro-commitments work because of two key psychological principles:

1. Consistency: People have a strong drive to act in ways consistent with their past behavior.
2. Cognitive Dissonance: People adjust their beliefs to match their actions to reduce mental discomfort.

Examples of micro-commitments include:

• Agreeing to a next meeting
• Providing access to additional stakeholders
• Sharing internal data or documents
• Participating in a product demo or trial

By carefully orchestrating these small commitments, UHPs make the final decision to purchase feel like a natural, almost inevitable next step.

5. Speak Your Stakeholder's Language for Deeper Connections

When you speak other people's language, they readily pull you into their in-group.

Language is a powerful connector. UHPs recognize that adopting the language, jargon, and communication style of their stakeholders is crucial for building trust and demonstrating understanding. This involves:

• Learning industry-specific terminology
• Adopting the stakeholder's unique phrases and acronyms
• Mirroring communication styles (e.g., formal vs. casual)

Benefits of speaking the stakeholder's language:

• Builds rapport and likability
• Demonstrates empathy and understanding
• Reduces cognitive load for the stakeholder
• Makes your message more memorable and impactful

To master this skill:

1. Listen carefully during discovery conversations
2. Take detailed notes on specific phrases and terms used
3. Research industry jargon and common acronyms
4. Practice incorporating stakeholder language into your communications

Remember: The goal is not to mimic, but to genuinely adopt the language in a way that feels natural and authentic.

6. Embrace Objections as Opportunities for Trust-Building

Objections suck.

Reframe objections positively. While objections can feel like personal attacks, UHPs view them as opportunities to:

• Demonstrate expertise
• Build deeper trust
• Uncover hidden concerns
• Strengthen their value proposition

Instead of trying to "overcome" objections, which creates resistance, UHPs use a five-step framework to turn objections around:

1. Listen fully without interrupting
2. Empathize and validate the concern
3. Ask clarifying questions
4. Reframe the objection
5. Collaborate on a solution

Key mindset shifts:

• Objections often signal engagement, not rejection
• Many objections stem from fear of change (status quo bias)
• Trust is the most powerful antidote to objections

By embracing objections as natural parts of the sales process, UHPs can turn potential deal-killers into relationship-strengthening moments.

7. Ask Confidently and Assumptively to Close More Deals

The assumptive position is the strongest selling strategy in the world.

Confidence is contagious. When it comes to closing deals, how you ask is often more important than what you ask. UHPs master the art of the "assumptive ask" by:

• Projecting unwavering confidence
• Using assertive language
• Assuming agreement is the natural next step

The three keys to effective asking:

1. Ask with confidence and assume you'll get what you want
2. Shut up (allow silence after the ask)
3. Be prepared to handle objections

Examples of assumptive vs. weak language:

• Weak: "What do you think about moving forward?"

• Assumptive: "Let's go ahead and get the paperwork started."

• Weak: "Would you like to schedule a demo?"

• Assumptive: "I've got an opening for a demo next Tuesday at 2 PM. Does that work for you?"

By asking confidently and assumptively, UHPs transfer their belief in the deal to their stakeholders, making agreement feel like the natural and expected outcome.

Last updated: August 14, 2024