Boosting sales by investing in emotional intelligence
What makes a good salesperson? We’ve all experienced being sold to and will have our own memories of both good and bad sales techniques – those purchases we didn’t even know we needed, versus those badly targeted sales pitches that hugely missed their mark.
For business leaders tasked with managing sales teams, finding the secret to an effective salesperson is essential for overall business success. After all, if your team is unable to nurture leads and guide them through your sales funnel, your business will not generate any income.
From a psychological point of view, emotional intelligence is the number one trait all salespeople must possess. It allows them to be empathetic to their potential customers, connect with them and establish a relationship built on trust.
Another key ingredient you need to develop in your salespeople is charisma. As the saying goes, people buy from people. If your prospective customers don’t like your salespeople, you’re in trouble.
While emotional intelligence and charisma doesn’t come naturally to all of us (as you will doubtless be aware from your own encounters with poor salespeople), the good news for businesses that want to boost their sales process is that these skills can be taught.
Pinnacle Wellbeing Services did just this for British cybersecurity company Sophos by coaching their UK sales team in emotional intelligence, specifically charisma.
“From a psychological point of view, emotional intelligence is the number one trait all salespeople must possess.”
Richard Reid, CEO & Coaching Psychologist
Pinnacle Wellbeing Services
The Challenge
Due to the nature of their work, the UK sales team at Sophos have to constantly meet tight deadlines. It was important to ensure that these sales targets didn’t affect the conversations their salespeople were having with prospects and that they always dealt with people carefully and diplomatically, no matter what pressure they were under personally.
“We recognised that our staff needed to become more self aware and work on managing their emotions to help their negotiating influence, impact and presence,” says Bartholomew.
“These crucial personal skills give more credibility to clients and prospective clients, helping us to be taken more seriously.”
Sophos understood the importance of helping their people to develop high levels of emotional intelligence. This would enable them to empathise with prospects and clients in order to understand what is important to them and the drivers that motivate them.
This knowledge, which can only be gleaned by listening and putting clients first, is a powerful tool for sales teams; once you understand the customers’ needs you can use that information to your advantage to tailor your approach with the ultimate goal of closing the sale.
For Bartholomew that means “our clients recognise that they are not having our products forced on them, only those products that they need or want. This allows us to become trusted advisors to our clients.”
He goes on to explain that by handling a situation with emotional intelligence, their sales teams will have the ability to professionally acknowledge that Sophos might not be the right fit for that particular client at that time.
This approach is the first step to a better long-term relationship built on trust, rather than just trying to meet a sales target that may not be appropriate for the client.
The Solution
In order to improve the emotional intelligence of Sophos’s UK sales team, we designed a bespoke two-day charisma workshop to meet Sophos’s particular business goals. Every member of the UK sales team attended and this was followed up with three individual coaching sessions, held over a number of months, for every member of the team.
In addition, Pinnacle Wellbeing Services provided one-to-one coaching in presentation skills to the UK Channel Director, Bartholomew.
This one-to-one coaching was particularly beneficial to the team as it focused on the mechanics of what they had learned during the initial workshop. This extra support helped team members embed what they had learned, consider how it applies to their particular situation, and implement the learnings in their day-to-day work and dealings with customers.
In addition, Pinnacle Wellbeing Services provided one-to-one coaching in presentation skills to the UK Channel Director, Bartholomew.
Noticeably improved relationships with their existing clients and new prospects
Stronger, more cohesive relationships within their own internal teams
Presentation and sales tools that can be deployed in business and everyday life
Could coaching boost your sales team?
