The Emotional Dynamics of Selling with Dan Hill, #191

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When it comes to selling to the modern buyer, there are so many new and intricate complexities to navigate. From how to leverage social selling techniques, to how to craft an email that gets you a booked sales call, to the best way to handle a sales conversation without selling – modern sellers have their work cut out for them.

But, in this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast, we’re throwing in emotional dynamics into the mix and exploring how sales leaders must use emotional intelligence (EQ) to better engage buyers.

This conversation will go deeper than just reading body language. Because my expert guest, Dan Hill, will review all of the incredible distinctions you need to know to not miss a single emotional cue in your next sales conversation.

Dan Hill, is the Founder of Sensory Logic, market researcher, podcast host of the New Books Network (NBN), and the world’s leading emotional dynamics expert. Dan pioneered the use of facial coding in business which has become a game-changer for sales organizations worldwide. For the past 20+ years, Sensory Logic has used facial coding to capture and quantify emotional responses in conducting market research for the world’s largest B2C companies.

Dan’s industry-changing insights have been routinely featured in annual conferences, spanning now 25 different countries, where he has provided expert guidance to everyone from leading politicians, athletes, and cultural figures, to analyzing England’s royal family. So, when it comes to knowing the emotional language of selling – Dan’s genius is truly unmatched!

Download the full episode and tune in because the strategies Dan shares in the first 15 minutes alone will change how you approach your next sales call.

How Does Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Apply to Sales?

With so much to cover this episode, I jumped right in to get Dan’s thoughts on emotional intelligence and if it really played an important role in how we sell to the modern buyer.

Dan breaks down emotional intelligence – or aptly termed ‘EQ’ – into three crucial questions:

1. Are you able to perceive emotions around you? (Yes, even in a Zoom call!)
2. What is the significance of the emotions you perceive?
3. How can you manage your own emotions and adapt them accordingly?

The key is to master #3 so you can carve out an unshakable advantage over your competition. Because when the emotions around you are intense (i.e. an angry customer), you’re able to read the room, know what the emotions mean, and respond in a way that de-escalates the situation to achieve a faster resolution.

The important thing to note here is that EQ is equally important even in completely digital environments where you may be meeting someone for the first time across a computer screen.

To illustrate how enhancing your EQ skills can help you navigate a tense customer situation, listen in around the 10-minute mark for a story I share about a recent (and unexpected) customer interaction and how I used EQ principle #3 to keep my cool.

How Does the EQ Approach Apply to Interacting with Customers?

I wanted to get clearer on how Emotional Intelligence can (and should) shape how we interact with customers, especially in a digital environment. At Vengreso, we often teach a lot about setting the right tone early on in a sales conversation and giving prospects numerous touchpoints to get to know who we are. That’s why leveraging videos in your sales emails can be such an effective sales tool. Videos enable the buyer to see who you are and to create an instant connection with you.

But, what Dan shared in regards to EQ and its role in the sales call was so important, “People have observable patterns that we can look out for. If I’m a salesperson on a call, I’m immediately looking for any patterns that tell me who I might be dealing with. I might pick up on cues that tell me about who they are or I could be picking up on cues that tell me how they’re feeling at that moment. That way I can narrow down my emotional playbook to know how to respond and to adjust my emotional cues in the conversation.”

As a sales leader, it’s so critical to be able to take that emotional temperature really quickly and pivot however you need to, to meet your prospect where they are.

Make sure to tune into the full conversation to hear the specific visual cues to look out for that could quickly indicate that your prospect is uncertain or questioning moving forward.

Plus, at 23:50, I share an easy way to instantly build trust in a Zoom conversation. It literally takes just 3 seconds to do, but many sales professionals aren’t doing it – and missing out on converting skeptical prospects into trusted customers.

Does EQ Change How We Write Sales Emails?

At Vengreso, we’re advocates of short emails that drive value for the prospect. In fact, our research has found that subject lines with fewer than six words and emails no longer than 111 words perform consistently better than longer sales emails.

In our prospecting article, we dive into a host of other important nuisances to consider when writing sales emails to engage prospects to set up an initial sales call.

It was refreshing to hear Dan’s guidance from an emotional dynamics perspective, “I’m always surprised at how many people misread emails. They’re likely in a hurry or don’t read the entire email, which can be very problematic because there are no other emotional cues for them to pick up on in an email. The average person looks at a printed ad for 1.7 seconds, which is why I always tell my clients don’t assume that people read past the first 4 words of an email.”

That’s why we’re big champions of personalization at every communication touchpoint. Even adding the prospect’s name to the subject line of an email is a highly effective way to grab their attention and get them to open and read what you’ve sent. To learn more personalization tips and strategies, be sure to check out our The PVC Sales Methodology.

And, don’t miss out on the full discussion with Dan Hill as we dive even deeper into what sales organizations can do to incorporate more emotional intelligence into the sales prospecting process to book more calls and to close more deals.

This episode of The Modern Selling Podcast was brought to you by OrgChartHub. The B2B purchasing process can be quite complex. OrgChartHub seamlessly integrates into your existing HubSpot account, giving your sales team the ability to immediately map out the key decision makers, so you can get to a “Yes!” – even faster. It takes just two clicks to get set up – try out OrgChartHub today!