Premier Flooring Retailer | D3 | 2024

How to GET REALLY GOOD AT SALES Using 3 Rules of Emotional Intelligence

Bill Murphy Jr. & Carl Phillips

T here are no guarantees, but tactics like these make your desired outcomes a little bit more likely. It’s probably the most famous challenge in sales, to say nothing of an increasingly dreaded interview question: “Sell me this pen.” Even if people didn’t know it before, the 2013 movie The Wolf of Wall Street made it famous. And the images of would-be salespeople foundering, trying to describe the positive attributes of a pen without any real sales strategy, are hard to forget once you’ve seen them. Regardless, what if I were to tell you that there are some simple tricks and tactics that almost anyone can use to improve their ability to sell almost anything to almost anybody? It all comes down to emotional intelligence and an understanding of the ways in which we constantly communicate in multiple dimensions, intentionally or not. Here are three simple tactics to remember, plus a bonus at the end.

1. Ask Questions. A lot of Questions Selling involves persuasion, and persuasion is basically the intersection of two actions: 1. Giving advice. 2. Hoping that people will act on your advice in a particular way. The secret to offering advice that people perceive as good advice is simply to ask a lot of questions before you make any recommendations. Emotionally intelligent people realize that if you ever have a chance to see a transcript of your advice-giving, you should count the number of question marks -- and hope that they vastly exceed the number of periods. Why does it work? Both because you’re learning, which helps you hone whatever advice you ultimately give, and because people understand intrinsically that you’re more likely to give tailored advice -- and hopefully effective advice -- if you’ve at least taken the time to ask questions and understand their situation. Also important: Listen to the answers.

22 Premier Flooring Retailer D3 | 2024

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