Emotional Intelligence; A highly underrated skill in business
Do you know the difference between animals and human beings? Humans are emotional creatures whereas animals are not. Humans are inherently social creatures who want to feel respected, loved, and belonged.
Something I have recently started to look into is the EQ component in business. Gary Vaynerchuk, a massively well-credentialed entrepreneur preaches a lot about the importance of connecting with customers at a personal level. This could mean following up, being kind, or giving them the highest standards of customer service.
Any company which has ever been successful made customer service a priority. This doesn’t mean you don't develop a great product, use conversion funnels, guerilla marketing techniques, or enhance other aspects of your business, but they all should align with filling the need of the customer.
Let me give you an example of how obsessive Sam Walton, CEO of Walmart was about making his customer happy.
Sam Walton knew exactly how to keep customers coming to his store. He would serve free ice cream to cool off his customers in the summer and had popcorn stands outside the store for the kids.
In addition, he made sure the prices of his goods were subsidized compared to other competitive retail stores.
The Predicament
We live in a world where there is so much mistrust between the salesman and the customer. Even if the salesman is genuinely doing a random act of courtesy, the customer becomes suspicious and feels like he is deploying another selling tactic, this needs to stop!
Some Practical Tips
Information is so overloaded in today’s world, nobody is hidden. It takes literally a few minutes to find out the other person’s hobbies, interests, where they work, etc.
Many entrepreneurs use their customers’ data to their advantage by running ads in their Facebook feed that they would most likely click on. It's truly remarkable how you can target such niche demographics to market your products/services.
Small business owners can use this strategy at a micro level to emotionally touch their customers. For example, if somebody places an order on your website, the first thing you should do is learn more about their personal and professional life by looking them up on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
When you find something that emotionally captivates their attention, make it part of your products and send it to them for free!
For example, if you find a customer who really likes a certain basketball team because they are always tweeting about it, you can buy that teams’ jersey from your own money and ship it to their house. Then send them an email asking them if they liked the jersey or not. That gesture of goodwill will make them your best friends for life because they’ll see that you genuinely care and are not just looking to make a quick buck.
Don’t make this Mistake!
Some people may disagree with this point since it’s so counterintuitive, but it’s totally cool.
A lot of salespeople after processing a transaction ask the customer to leave a good review or refer them to someone. As soon as you do that, you blow up your entire reputation because the customer realizes that he was just a name on a spreadsheet and nothing else.
Unless the customers genuinely want to leave a positive review and they ask you where they can give you some feedback, only then it’s a good idea to let them know.
Conclusion
So that’s essentially it. Congratulations to you if you have made it this far. I would like to end this post with something……… maybe a little unexpected.
Let me make something very clear.
I am not trying to be the next Mother Teresa of business. Literally, the only reason I emphasize emotional intelligence is because it boosts up the conversion rate like nothing else.
But most people think way too short term and don’t make an effort to keep their customers for the rest of their life.
Please….. I implore you to start paying attention to kindness because it's going to dominate how we do business in the decades to come.