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When Pratyush Shukla and David Youngblood had a meeting scheduled with one highly qualified lead, they knew they’d have to bring three things to the table- power-packed research, clear communication, and high emotional intelligence. ‍

‍Emotional intelligence or Sales EQ refers to the practice of being aware of one’s own emotions and being able to comprehend the emotions of others.

Our top Account Executive, David Youngblood is a huge believer in creating an upbeat and positive environment for the entire team and the prospects in order to crush the monthly targets in time.

Using the same tact of maintaining a high sales EQ, David and one of our ace SDRs Pratyush Shukla have mastered the art of being able to ‘read the room’ and quickly get a hold of their own emotions.

Tryst with emotional intelligence

One recent win at Outplay was when we heard David share a prospect's feedback that immediately brought a smile to our faces. We’ll get to the feedback in a bit, but let’s take a look at what went behind gaining that praise.

Pratyush showed the importance of first-hand research and the necessity of identifying the client’s pain points before the call. Thus, research-backed by empathizing with the client acted as a huge determinant in winning the client’s heart (and eventually the deal).

With his prospecting approach, he managed to stand out from the crowd and create a difference in the prospect's buying process.

Also, surprisingly, this entire conversation took place in discord. The prospect overheard Pratyush mention Outplay to someone else and that’s exactly when the prospect reached out to him personally as he wanted to know more.

Sales EQ to humanize your sales process

Since our SDR created a great first impression, when the prospect spoke to David - the next interaction was the icing on the cake.

In the prospect’s words, speaking to David was the “highlight” of his day. He termed David to be very “energetic, curious, funny and most of all human.”

He further stated that due to these factors he placed Outplay at the top of his list for the final evaluation compared to other, much bigger tools whose sales processes were robotic and lacked emotions.

He mentioned that the conversations with Outplay’s team stood out from the rest as they pumped in a lot of energy into the interactions and rightly understood the prospect’s needs.

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Our takeaways from this episode

Humanizing an interaction sets you apart from the robotic sales pitches that usually lack empathy, human sentiments, or any personal touch.

As David rightly says, “The better the journey/experience of the prospect, the higher their likelihood is to buy!”

When the prospect was riddled with several repetitive, redundant, and aimless questions throughout the day from a variety of sellers, the only thing that would set the next meeting apart would be personalization.

And by rightly mapping the prospect’s pain points, correctly gauging their emotions, adding a genuine touch of curiosity, and being human helped in steering the conversation accordingly.

Delivering the correct emotions into the meeting and picking up the prospect’s reactions beforehand are ingredients that help in making any sales meeting a hit.

Adding a human touch to your sales process

Humanizing your sales process cannot really be taught to the entire team, but a set of skills can be developed to result in that.

  1. Personalize the touchpoints, wherever necessary.
  2. Praise your peers more and create a positive work environment.
  3. Empathize with your buyer and understand their pain points.
  4. At the same time, balance your emotions by not being afraid to ask critical questions such as the prospect's budget, true decision-makers, etc.
  5. Work on how to solve a problem and not be affected by rejection.
  6. Always be ready to train and develop in the area of sales.
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In a fast-paced environment like sales and with the surge in competition, one of the factors that’ll mainly set you apart from the constant noise will be to personalize your sales outreach.

One of the biggest advantages of using Outplay is that you can personalize at scale. If you’d like to know more, schedule a 30-minute call with us and we'd love to show you how we do the same using dynamic sequencing and account-based prospecting.