Needs Analysis - Listening to Your Customers

This is always going to be a customer who feels that he or she has been wronged, and is upset and emotional about it. These customers will then complain.

The upside to this is that research indicates that customers who complain are likely to continue doing business with your company, as long as they feel that they were treated properly.

And, it's estimated that as many as 90% of customers who perceive themselves as having been wronged never complain – they just take their business elsewhere. So, angry, complaining customers care enough to talk to you, and have not yet decided to take their business to the competition.

It takes a real professional to be successful with the difficult customers.

On the other hand, handling it improperly will result in lost business and upset people. Here are ways to not let this happen.

Emotional Intelligence and Sales Results – Closing the Knowing and Doing Gap customers. The challenge facing many sales managers and business owners is the transfer of selling skills that made them a top sales producer to their sales team. When you take on the role of a sales manager, it's no longer about what you can produce; it's about what you can get others to produce.

In the words of Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, "Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others."

Hard working sales managers and business owners invest hours in coaching and training their sales teams and far too often, their efforts fall short.

The reason your sales team isn't executing may have nothing to do with selling skills; but may have everything to do with a lack of soft skills – otherwise known as emotional intelligence skills.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive one's emotions, understand why the emotion is felt, and adjust actions to achieve better outcomes. Here is the business case for "return on emotions":