Month: October 2020

Revising the Sales Playbook to Ignite Sales EQ

There was a book a few years ago called Blue Ocean Strategy. The concept was that a blue ocean means that the water is deep, has a lot of fish, and has fewer people fishing. Thanks to COVID-19, however, businesses are suddenly finding themselves in a red ocean; shallow water, fewer fish, more competitive fishing, bloody with competition.

This pandemic is a 360-degree issue. It’s not like a hurricane that just hit New Orleans. COVID has happened everywhere. It’s affected everybody. And it’s disrupted the very basic levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

So, the landscape has changed. From a sales perspective, this means competition. The pressure is going to be on sales team management to select the right sales talent and to revise the sales playbook. And that sales playbook is going to require igniting the talent’s sales EQ to create a high-performing sales team. Sales leaders and their teams are going to need to learn how to think on the fly, to improvise, to get creative.

Have you ever wondered how a SEAL team, who strictly operates in times of uncertainty, can have an 80 percent success rate? They have an extremely high EQ. Most SEALs teams prepare for seven to eight scenarios prior to a mission, though less than 30 percent of the time do any of those scenarios they prepared for actually happen. Their success is based on great decision-making in the moment and having a red-ocean mindset at all times.

For sales leaders to succeed in today’s marketplace, they need to train their sales talent to think like SEALs and ignite their sales EQ!

For additional ideas on using Sales EQ to build a high performance sales team, get your copy of Igniting Sales EQ, available online at Amazon.

In the early 2000s in the Atlantic, there was a tense showdown between Spain and the US Navy. Essentially, there’s an emergency frequency that maritime uses, and a message went out at night from a what the crew thought was a small Spanish boat to the USS Lincoln, the second largest battleship in the Navy.

The Spaniard said, “We need you to adjust your course by 15 degrees North. You’re headed right for us.” Do you think the United States Navy was going to bow down to a foreign ship? Hell no. The US responded: “No, we need you to immediately move 15 degrees South.” The Spaniard got back on and said, “Look, that is not possible or convenient. We need you to adjust.” The American’s response was: “We actually demand that you change your course.” Spain responded with: “Sorry, we can’t, it’s not convenient.”

This exchange went back and forth for a while, until finally the US captain picked up the radio and said, “Look, I’m the captain of the USS Lincoln. We’re the second largest battleship in the US Navy. We need you to adjust your course very quickly.” Again, Spain responded “That’s not going to happen.” The US Navy replied: “We are accompanied by two battleships, six destroyers, five cruisers, and multiple support craft. We demand that you change your position 15 degrees South.” Moments later, the Spaniard responded: “There’s two of us—we’re accompanied by a dog, some provisions, and a Canary that’s asleep. We highly suggest you change your course because we’re actually on dry land. We’re a lighthouse, not a ship. And you’re not far out.”

The US response? “Okay.”

How EQ Helps You Navigate This New Business Reality

What this story demonstrates at the end of the day is that bullying, intimidation, shaming, guilting—low EQ tactics—doesn’t work anymore. What worked then won’t work now. Power lies in the ability to connect emotionally.

With everything that’s happening in the world, the uncertainty in business, the uncertainty in sales, the social climate, the wokeness, using EQ to sell is more relevant than ever. The landscape of everything has changed, not just with sales. We need to have more empathy as human beings. We NEED to change our mindset and ignite our EQ.

I get it, there’s a ton of misinformation and uncertainty out there. Do we go or do we wait and see? Do we actually have the right people on the team? Can we sell our way through this? We’re training, but training for what? And as many times as I hear people ask, “What’s the new normal?” my response is: “There is no new normal. There’s a new business reality.”

In some cases, opportunities are going to be scarce. There are industries that are going to be hunting in winter for a long time. On the flip side, there are also going to be new opportunities. There are going to be new products, new services to offer. This uncertainty is going to require us to sell more creatively.

And when you’re being creative, you’re going to think like a buyer, not a battleship.

Have you ever thought about the potential of a $5 bar of iron? If you’ve never seen one, there’s not much to it. Just a simple rectangle, like a bar of gold bullion, though a heck of a lot less expensive. But just because it’s a $5 bar of iron doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. There are actually lots of things you can do to increase its value.

If you take that $5 bar of iron and melt it down and turn it into horseshoes, you could more than double its value to $12. Not bad. And if you take that $5 bar of iron and turn it into sewing needles, you increase the value to nearly $3500. Pretty good for a $5 bar of iron, right? But get this: if you take that same bar of iron and turn it into watch springs for the finest Swiss watches, you increase its value to $300,000!

If you’re in the sales game during these times of economic uncertainty, you have your work cut out for you. But the good news is you have a bar of iron ready to be shaped. No, I’m not talking about your product or service. Even in a recession, individuals and businesses still have problems that need solutions. And as long as you have a product or service that’s efficient and effective, it has the potential to sell.

The bar of iron I’m talking about is your sales team.

The Impact of EQ on Your Sales Team

To unlock that potential, you need to understand that there are a whole lot of new variables with selling in today’s world. Something called COVID-19 changed the rules of the game—maybe not permanently—but for the next decade or so at least. Virtual conferences, limited-capacity sporting events and entertainment venues, online retail, virtual education, video training; new models for our new world are emerging every day. But the bedrock of sales is what it always has been: having a high emotional intelligence, colloquially known as emotional quotient or EQ.

EQ, the psychological equivalent of IQ, is “the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.” EQ is an absolute requirement for effective and sustainable relationships, and should not be regarded as a “soft” skill in business, but as a critical one.

When you think about it, buyers actually might have a lot more information than you, or a different version of information. So, you’ve got to somehow get into their head and enable them to share, so you can help them ultimately weigh out whether the decision’s right or not.

In times of economic uncertainty and our post-COVID-19 world, igniting the EQ factor in your sales team is more important than ever.

Having a high IQ might get you on Jeopardy!, but when it comes to selling, it’s just not enough. EQ also matters. In fact, psychologists generally agree that among the ingredients for success in sales, IQ counts for only 10 percent; the rest depends on EQ!<1>

<1> Michael D. Akers and Grover L. Porter, “Your EQ Skills: Got What It Takes?”, Journal of Accountancy. March 2003