3 Characteristics Of A Selling From The Heart Professional

"The essential difference between emotion and reason, is that emotion leads to action, while reason leads to conclusions."

Donald Calne

Emotion leads to action! To increase client loyalty and retention, you may have to change your focus from client satisfaction to creating an emotional connection and experience.

According to a recent Forrester report, emotion is the most important driver behind the client experience.

According to the results of Iterable’s Holiday Quick Poll, 83% of those polled indicated that they were more likely to purchase from a brand that they have an emotional connection with.

Let's replace the word "brand" from the statement above and add in "sales professional" - of those polled indicated that they were more likely to purchase from a sales professional that they have an emotional connection with.

No question about it, emotions play a part in sales. There's the emotional side of your clients and the emotional side of salespeople.

Emotions play into the decisions we make and buying decisions are no different. Emotions and how sales professionals manage it, is the key to winning more sales.

“Emotional competence is the single most important personal quality that each of us must develop and access to experience a breakthrough. Only through managing our emotions can we access our intellect and our technical competence. An emotionally competent person performs better under pressure." 

Dave Lennick, Executive VP, American Express Financial Advisers

Please key in on this for a moment...

It's not your motivation to sell, it's their motivation to buy

Have you uncovered the emotional motivators of your clients?

EMOTIONAL MOTIVATION

The Harvard Business Review listed over 300 emotional motivators including concepts such as “being seen as unique,” “enjoying a sense of well-being,” and “feeling a sense of belonging.”

Furthermore, the report referred to an emotional connection pathway describing the phases of emotional connectivity people progresses through:

• Being unconnected
• Being highly satisfied
• Perceiving differentiation
• Being fully emotionally connected

Let's all stop for a moment... I would like for you to think about your client relationships as well as the potential new opportunities you're working on... now ask yourself the following:

• Am I connected or unconnected?
• Are they satisfied or unsatisfied?
• Am I creating differentiation or sameness?
• Am I emotionally connecting?

If you want to drive exponential sales growth, then I encourage you to get to the heart of what matters with your clients.

What concerns me is the amount of mediocrity running rampant inside the sales world.

Average salespeople are a dime a dozen.

Truly original, creative thinking, sincere, heartfelt, genuine and trustworthy professionals are hard to find.

This is why Selling from the Heart has struck a chord inside the sales world. It is about bringing honor, dignity, respect and nobility back to the sales profession.

Heartfelt professionals stand out. They are leaders: they build relationships, they connect, they cast vision, and motivate people to take action.

"It's about having the heart to rise up"

Authenticity in a world full of sales fakes is sorely lacking within the sales community.

What makes these sales professionals different from all the other sales reps?

3 CHARACTERISTICS OF A SELLING FROM THE HEART PROFESSIONAL

If you're your authentic self, you have no competition

AUTHENTIC

Authenticity is one of the biggest challenges for salespeople in a profession riddled with unscrupulous, fake and disingenuous sales reps; that quite frankly many despise. However, authenticity separates sales professionals from sales reps, and this is what buyers want!

Authenticity is about being congruent. Does your walk match your talk?

It's about moving from being seen as untrustworthy to being seen as authentic, genuine and trustworthy.

This requires vulnerability. You must be willing to get vulnerable with yourself. To build relationships and change the way people think, you need to understand who you are and what goods you bring to the table. 

If you struggle to connect to the emotional side of who you are, you will struggle to connect to the emotional motivators of your clients.

Authenticity requires self-knowledge and self-awareness. A Selling from the Heart professional accepts their strengths and weaknesses. They are accountable to themselves.

They are deeply connected to their values and desires. They act deliberately in ways consistent with those qualities.

Plain and simple, at the core of a Selling from the Heart professional lies one word... CARE!

Never trade your authentic self for approval

PRESENT

A Selling from the Heart professional is self-aware and is highly capable of moving from being disconnected to being present in the moment.

A Selling from the Heart professional continually works to hone in their craft. They are not lost in the anxiety about hitting quota or where the next meeting may come from, they are present in the moment.

In client meetings, they connect through intentional and active listening.

How many in sales are present in the moment during their client meetings?

Unfortunately, many in sales are not present. You all may be present in your meetings but how many of you are truly present in your conversations?

Let's think about this... How many in sales ask a few generic-based questions, listen for a few keyword responses, and then pounce on the responses like a lion on their prey?

Being present in the moment is all about showing you care!

Give your clients the gift of being present

RESILIENT

Being resilient is at the core of a Selling from the Heart professional. Salespeople take a ton of hits, face a ton of rejection and hear the word "No" often. If you're to sustain success as a sales professional, you must learn to buckle down and move on.

We can ride the wave of taking down deal after deal but what happens when adversity hits?

What happens when you lose a big deal or things just don't go your way? A Selling from the Heart professional controls their temperament, understands what self-management is all about and has developed a heartfelt shield of resiliency.

A resilient professional understands there will come a time when things don't go their way.

They buckle down, hold themselves accountable and do the things necessary to prevent it from happening.

They commit to planning, preparation and practice. They commit to keeping their sales and relationship funnel full of opportunities by making prospecting a non-negotiable activity.

“No matter how you define success, you will need to be resilient, empowered, authentic, and limber to get there.” 

Joanie Connell

Selling from the Heart professionals realize the work they do today will pay off for them tomorrow.

FINAL THOUGHTS

How can you adopt these characteristics to become more effective?

“The Foundation of Emotional Connection is Trust, and the Foundation of Trust is Consistency”

Deloitte Digital

Inside the Deloitte Digital study, they go onto to say,

"If brands can remain consistently trusted, they stand a better chance of deepening their connections, gaining forgiveness when they do wrong, and build stronger loyalty."

Isn't this what you want with your clients?

Therefore, Selling from the Heart is a lifestyle and not a fad.

Will you join me?