Emotional Reasoning for Sales Professionals

Phil is a hard-charging sales guy who knows and practices one main strategy to drive business: push and push some more to close the sale. “Customers don’t really know what they need. I have to show them” is the attitude behind Phil’s sales efforts. Recently, Phil employed this philosophy with a procurement manager at a struggling company in the midst of a painful downsizing. Despite the manager clearly working under incredible stress, Phil kept following up and pushing to close a large deal. To Phil’s surprise, the negotiations abruptly broke down with the prospect walking away and Phil coming up empty handed.

Marty is also highly motivated to close business, but he tempers his approach with an understanding of the prospect’s business outlook and state of mind. During a recent pitch meeting, Marty sensed that his prospect was strapped for budget and under pressure from her bosses to be conservative when it came to new purchases. She was definitely interested in Marty’s solution, but she was exuding some tension around going forward with a big purchase. Feeling her vibe, Marty proposed a scaled down equipment package made even better with a special financing option that worked with the client’s budget. After some additional conversation, Marty successfully closed the deal and the customer thanked him for understanding her situation and working with her in a cooperative spirit.

Here we see two salesmen with matching levels of ambition, but very different levels of emotional reasoning. Phil is oblivious to his prospects’ state of mind, being totally focused on closing the largest deal he can with the greatest commission possible. Marty also wants to earn good commissions, but he knows that ultimately his success hinges on understanding his customers and working to satisfy their long-range needs and requirements. This implies sensitivity to their state of mind and placing their needs ahead of his own.

Simply put, Marty employs emotional reasoning in his sales work while Phil does not.

The Power of Emotional Reasoning

Emotional reasoning is about using the information in feelings (from oneself and others) and combining it with other facts and information when decision-making. A person with strong emotional reasoning has a refined sense of intuition that sees the deeper truth in a situation, despite there sometimes being contrary indications on the surface.

Intuition or “gut level” reactions are often discounted as passing thoughts with little relation to reality. Yet, they should be viewed as a source of inner wisdom guiding a person to make the right decision. A savvy salesperson who listens to their intuition and acts accordingly can harness the power of emotional reasoning to close more deals and retain more long-term clientele.

Developing the Sense of Emotional Reasoning

Emotional reasoning falls under the broader umbrella of Emotional Intelligence, which, as discussed in prior blog posts, consists of:

Self-Awareness
Awareness of Others
Authenticity
Self-Management
Social Skills
Empathy
Motivation

Emotional reasoning is therefore a people skill apart from the numbers and metrics that seem to steer so much of today’s sales activities. Sales professionals seeking to sharpen their sense of emotional reasoning can do so beginning with these actions:

Involve others in decisions that affect their work (the teamwork angle)
Consider issues from multiple perspectives (it’s not always about you)

In the first case you are making decisions only after considering how it might impact others at an emotional level. For example, you have the opportunity to close a big deal that’s going to put you ahead of your quarterly goals. You’re super excited to get this business. However, the prospect says your company will need to deliver the product twice as fast as your usual lead time. Hmm, that could be done but it will require a significant amount of overtime put in by the manufacturing team. Considering it’s the holiday season when people want less overtime to be available to friends and family, they might be pretty unhappy if you close this deal.

So, before you push for the business you request a meeting with your manager and the leader of the manufacturing team to talk it over. After this conversation you realize this deal could affect morale and in the bigger picture that’s more important than getting this deal. Taking that into account, you go back to the prospect and offer to improve the speed of delivery but not to the degree originally requested. If the client can accept the extended lead time, you will throw in some free training for the prospect’s team, which will help them get up to speed faster using your new product. Your prospect likes the offer because it shortens the adoption process, which saves them the time they’re giving up to get the product a little later than originally planned for.

Can you see how emotional reasoning led to a creative solution that worked for everyone? That’s what it can do for you when you employ it in your work. A little extra effort can go a long way towards strengthening relationships with people inside and outside of your organization.

Considering issues from multiple perspectives is essential to developing emotional intelligence and emotional reasoning capabilities. When you step away from a self-centric viewpoint to consider other points of view, the world opens up to you.

If you think back to the example of Marty and the deal he was working on, his perspective was to get the business and maximize the deal size. However, the perspective of his prospect was almost completely the opposite. Why? Because the perspective of the prospect’s manager was that cash was tight and while we need to continue to solve problems, we need to be more careful in how we allocate budget towards any new solutions. What was Marty’s manager’s perspective? Sure, they’d be happy if Marty closed the deal and maximized the revenue. More importantly, the manager had been with the company a long time and realized the importance of lifetime value.

When you make a sincere effort to meet the needs of the prospect with care and consideration, they become a customer who is very much open to doing business with you again and again. So, whatever revenue may be sacrificed by pitching a smaller deal with more favorable terms will be made up with repeat business coming in and possibly referrals, too.

People like working with people who see a situation from multiple perspectives and take them into account when making decisions. It makes sense right? But that doesn’t mean that salespeople regularly do it. Oftentimes salespeople get so caught up in making their number that they lose sight of how other people are looking at the situation and what they might like to see done differently. This creates the possibility of short-term gain and long-term loss due to a weak and unfulfilled relationship being established.

What kind of sales professional do you aspire to be? Exercise emotional reasoning in your work by sensing the emotions of others and how they might be impacted by decisions you make and by looking at situations from multiple perspectives. The more you practice slowing down and taking these actions, the more it will become a natural part of how you make great decisions for all parties.

If you gained much from this post, we invite you to read the rest of the series. If you want to do more than imagine how heightened emotional reasoning can positively impact your sales and take action with help, then consider our emotional intelligence training.

Are you emotionally intelligent enough to build trust and lead? Read our article on, “How to Build Trust and Connection Through Emotional Intelligence.”

If you’re interested in learning more about Emotional Intelligence, here are some resources:

Articles

YouTube Videos

Assessment