Media Selling. Warner Charles Dudley

with a person is to begin by being very open about yourself. The goal is to reach out with personal details about yourself to enable the other person to get to know you. At that point you can ask the question, “How about you?” to learn more about the other person. People will normally reciprocate with openness and talk about themselves, their families, their hobbies, and interests. As they are talking, you must search for common interests and associations, such as being married, having children, or loving sports. This is an application of Rule #2, “people like and trust people exactly like themselves,” and your job is to talk about and emphasize those things in each of your personal lives that are similar. By showing a genuine sense of caring about their personal interests, they will know that you care. After the meeting, write down all the personal details for future reference. Always keep in mind the greatest advantage you have over algorithms is your ability to connect emotionally with people.

Also, be prepared to encounter different responses from men and women, for as Goleman writes, men generally “take pride in a lone, tough‐minded independence and autonomy” and women generally “see themselves as part of a web of connectedness.”⁸ These gender differences are pointed out to encourage you to be aware of your own tendencies and to know what you might expect in an initial encounter with someone to be more like them and to build rapport. You can and probably should change these gender generalizations and initial stereotypes once you have had the opportunity to get to know someone better.

      Also, when meeting with a group of people for the first time, it pays large dividends to research their personal backgrounds and interests prior to your meeting.

Step 5: Listen with “emotional synchrony,” as Goleman calls it. “The degree of emotional rapport people feel in an encounter is mirrored by how tightly concentrated their physical movements are as they talk… One person nods just as the other makes a point, both shift chairs at the same moment, or one leans forward as the other leans back.”⁹ This type of synchrony is a major way to transmit a “social virus” or emotional state or mood. It is also makes you more similar to the other person in the conversation, gets you closer, and makes them feel that you care.

      Having learned about the importance of emotional intelligence in building relationships in this chapter, in the next chapter you will learn how to put your EQ knowledge to work in communicating with, listening carefully to, and understanding what makes people tick.

      Test Yourself

      1 Why don’t old‐fashioned sales techniques work in today’s media selling environment?

      2 What is emotional intelligence?

      3 Why is EQ more important for success in business and other fields than IQ?

      4 What are the four major elements of EQ?

      5 Why is optimism important in selling?

      6 What are the three EQ rules of selling?

      7 What are the five steps in applying the EQ rules?

      Project

      Select a week in your life (next week might be good) in which you commit yourself to taking notes on encounters you have with people during the week whose job it is to serve you and be pleasant: waiters in restaurants or retail salespeople, for example. Take notes in two columns. In the first column, note the type of or lack of emotional intelligence you observe in each of the service people you encounter. Did the person try to connect with you, did the person cause you to leave the encounter feeling put off, angry, dissatisfied, happy, or pleased? In the second column, makes notes on your feelings and your ability to control your emotions in reaction to those encounters. You might copy into your notebook the EQ elements in Exhibit 5.1 and use it as a guide. At the end of the week, look over your notes and see if you picked out those people who displayed EQ and how they were different from those who did not display EQ and if you were able to recognize your emotions.

      Resources

      1 EQ at Work website (www.eqatwork.com.au)

      2 The Consortium on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations at Rutgers University (www.eiconsortium.org)

References

      1 Alessandra, Tony PhD, Wexler, Phil, and Barerra, Rick. 1992. Non‐Manipulative Selling, 2nd ed. New York: Fireside Books.

      2 Gardner, Howard. 1983. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

      3 Gardner, Howard. 1993. Multiple Intelligence: The Theory in Practice. New York: Basic Books.

      4 Gardner, Howard. 1999. Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century. New York: Basic Books.

      5 Goleman, Daniel. 1995. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. New York: Bantam Books.

      6 Goleman, Daniel. 1998. Working with Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.

      7 Goleman, Daniel. 2006. Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships. New York: Bantam Books.

      8 Goleman, Daniel, Boyatzis, Richard, and McKee, Annie. 2002. Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

      9 Sternberg, Robert J. 1988. The Triarchic Mind: A New Theory of Human Intelligence. Viking Penguin.

      10 Zaiss, Carl D. and Gordon, Thomas PhD. 1993. Sales Effectiveness Training. New York: Dutton.

      Notes

      1 i Google changed the name of AdWords to Google Ads effective July 24, 2018.

      2 1 Goleman, Daniel . 1998. Working With Emotional Intelligence . New York: Bantam Books.

      3 2 Ibid.

      4 3 Ibid.

      5 4 Ibid.

      6 5 Goleman, Daniel and Nevarez, Michelle. 2018. “Boost your emotional intelligence with these 3 questions.” Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2018/08/boost‐your‐emotional‐intelligence‐with‐these‐3‐questions

      7 6 Ibid.

      8 7 Ibid.

      9 8 Ibid.

      10 9 Ibid.