In this episode, we pull back the curtain on one of the most overlooked skills in sales—awareness. Forget polishing your pitch for the hundredth time. The real breakthrough comes when you can see what others miss: your own emotional state, your buyer’s emotional cues, and the subtle shifts that tell you exactly where the conversation is headed.

You’ll discover:

• Why emotional intelligence is the secret driver behind top sales performance.
• The 3-Question Emotional Check that resets your state and builds instant trust.
• How to use the Emotional Pulse Technique to read and respond to your buyer in real time.
• Practical ways to create conversations that feel less like a pitch and more like a partnership.

If you’re ready to close more deals—not by working harder, but by connecting deeper—this episode is your playbook.

“Unlocking Sales Success with EQ”: https://a.co/d/28vLY04

“Fruitful & Free: Living the Abundant Life Through

Spirit-led Emotional Intelligence”: https://a.co/d/3Pfwhm9

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Welcome to the EQFIT Podcast.

Our mission is to equip people to prosper in every aspect of their life, whether

you're at home or in the workplace.

We explore practical ways of improving success, satisfaction, finding

balance, and building enjoyable and beneficial relationships.

Thank you for joining us.

So today I wanna focus on sales breakthroughs.

The more you see, the more you sell, and I'll explain what I mean by that.

Let me give you a little background.

I've spent 40 plus years in some form of sales.

Now as a business owner, you're always selling.

You're selling who you are, you're selling your services,

you're selling your products.

But I've also been a salesperson and I've been a sales manager and

a sales director, so I've had a lot of different experiences in selling

and influencing other people to buy.

So I really have a heart for entrepreneurs who are trying to do

their passion but didn't really want to be a full-time salesperson, but

found out that if you start your own business, you have to sell yourself.

And for salespeople who are out there every day in an ever increasing complex

world that is just crazy at times, and the sales dynamic has changed with technology,

it's so much easier to find things online.

More than 55% of the buying decision is made before somebody

ever talks to a sales person.

And the sales person's role has changed.

Whether you're an entrepreneur, a business owner, a salesperson, it isn't

as much about passing on information, features, benefits, and all of that.

Most of that can be searched out online.

It's more about the emotional connection that you make.

So that is the framework behind what I'm gonna share with you today.

Most salespeople think the path to closing more deals is about polishing their pitch.

But here's the truth.

The most powerful sales tool you have isn't your pitch.

It's your ability to be aware, to see things that maybe others don't see.

Aware of yourself, aware of your buyer, aware of the emotional environment.

Two salespeople can say the exact same words to a potential buyer.

One gets a yes, the other gets a polite no, or maybe not a polite no.

The difference isn't the product, the price or the pitch.

It's the emotional connection

that they create.

Let me share a story with you.

True story.

I've had the opportunity to work with hundreds of salespeople and

entrepreneurs in their efforts to sell their products and services.

There are many stories of success and failure.

Let me share one of those success stories with you.

Jim is an owner and what I think of as a natural salesperson.

He started his company about 12 years ago.

It has grown into a leader in their industry.

One day I was riding along with Jim, watching him do his thing.

It was clear he loves what he does.

Sometime later in the afternoon we stopped to get a soft drink and

talk about how things were going.

I asked Jim about his sales style.

Being an owner of his company, he has a different perspective

than his salespeople.

He has more confidence, a better understanding of what

he's trying to accomplish.

He has greater flexibility in what he can offer his customers.

I made a statement to him.

Here's what I said.

You really don't have any fear in you when you're selling.

Do you?

The answer I got back actually surprised me.

Here's what Jim said, wrong.

I am filled with fear.

Fear I will blow the deal, fear I will not serve somebody well,

fear I will say the wrong thing.

Fear of how I'll show up for the potential buyer.

I took a minute to process what Jim said.

Then I asked him a simple question.

How do you navigate that fear?

Again, his response was interesting.

I just pushed through, but at the end of the day, I am completely spent.

Jim is typical of many entrepreneurs and salespeople who look like they

have it all together, but they live on an emotional rollercoaster.

Jim's challenges are not his sales skills or his drive

or his IQ.

He is smart enough.

He is skilled enough and he is driven enough to grow a very

successful company, but at what cost.

Jim's challenge was ending each day with nothing left in the tank.

His ability to come home at the end of the day and enjoy his family, his personal

time were significantly diminished.

Several days later, Jim reached back out to me, and I wanna walk

you through this conversation.

I've been thinking about our conversation.

Is there a way to do what I love doing without all of the dream?

Jim, when the oxygen mask on the plane drops down, what are you supposed to do?

put it on yourself first so you can help other people.

Exactly!

What happens if you don't take care of yourself.

I guess you won't be able to serve others well but isn't that selfish?

is being at your best to be the most helpful for others?

Being selfish?

I never thought about it like that.

Wow.

That really makes me rethink the way I've been doing things.

And that is when I was able to begin working with Jim on infusing

emotional intelligence skill development into his daily activities.

The critical turning point here, Jim's awareness or what in

emotional intelligence we call self-awareness, was ignited.

And he realized there was a better path forward.

Years later, I look back at that conversation as an inflection point in

the direction of the work that I am doing.

I equip people to prosper.

That's my mission.

Prospering comes in many different forms.

One of the most important forms of prospering is the ability to create

a mindset that is resilient, agile, adaptive and emotionally intelligent.

In a world that is constantly changing and demanding more and more of us,

the best way to prosper is to be prepared and create a mindset that

is strong, resilient, and embraces growth, but that isn't enough by itself.

Jim thought he had to go it alone.

Because he's the owner, right?

He came to a realization that surrounding himself with people who

could provide different perspectives, skills, and insights actually reduced

the load that he was carrying.

The next year, Jim's company experienced a 26% revenue growth

and a doubling of their net profit.

I was honored to be a part of that experience.

So what is the science behind why awareness wins more deals?

Neuroscience tells us that emotional drivers are up to

95% of the buying decision.

That's right out of the Harvard Business School.

That means people aren't just buying what you're selling.

They're buying how it feels to buy from you.

People buy from people they like and trust, but they're also buying from

how it feels to buy from you, and that is such a critical understanding.

Remember we talked about those two salespeople using the

same words, the same pitch.

That is the difference between someone who infuses emotional intelligence, the person

that gets the yes, and the person that gets the no is basically selling on pitch.

And if up to 95% of the buying decision is based in emotional drivers.

What if you're just focused on the facts and the details, the features and the

benefits, you're missing the vast majority of the opportunity to sell because

you're not triggering those emotional drivers or you're not aware of them.

Awareness starts, that's where we have to go first.

Here's why this matters when you're not aware of your own emotional state.

You can unintentionally project stress, urgency or doubt

emotions that erode trust.

And that's very real.

I've seen it.

I've seen it in myself.

When I want something to happen and I get a sense of urgency or I'm pushing too hard

there's this emotional state that I enter

a conversation with that other people are going to pick up on.

It's why it's so important that we navigate our emotions and we enter

those selling conversations in a much, much better emotional state and

emotional environment that is going to be productive, not counterproductive.

When you're not aware of your buyer's emotional cues, you miss the moments

when they're curious, when they're concerned, or ready to move forward.

Again, I see this so much in the entrepreneurs and

salespeople that I work with.

They miss the emotional cues

that could help them open the door for a greater chance to make a sale.

High self-awareness allows us to manage our presence.

Our presence is really important in sales.

High situational awareness allows us to guide the conversation

based on the buyer's emotional reality, not just a sales script.

When I created the EQFIT Smart Selling Approach, I realized as I

went deeper and deeper that there are multiple layers of connection,

where we as salespeople, business owners, entrepreneurs can

connect with a potential buyer.

It's not just one avenue of connection.

There are many different avenues.

A time avenue, or what I call a budget layer, an emotional layer.

A logical layer.

There are so many of these different layers we can connect with potential

buyers, and we need to connect with them on as many of those as possible.

But you know what the common denominator is for all of those?

Every single one of those layers has emotional drivers.

If it's a budget thing, there's a certain set of emotional drivers for that buyer.

If it's a time or sense of urgency thing for the buyer, there's a certain emotional

driver set that goes along with that.

So I think you can start to see how powerful it is to use emotional

intelligence in the sales process.

That high self-awareness and situational awareness is so critical.

When I work with new salespeople, meaning new in sales.

They may be older in age, but new in sales, say the first

five years in actual selling.

What I find is they're taking from other people, they're taking from

books they've read, they're literally acting and that acting isn't authentic.

And the more I can get them to be their authentic self and to show up as genuine,

the better success they're going to have.

Because the reality is that is what people want.

They want to know who you are so they can learn to trust you as an authentic

person instead of this veneer, that many salespeople put up and the buyer

knows there's something behind that mask, but they don't know what it is.

So you know what the emotions are that are generated there.

Fear, uncertainty, wariness, just this sense of, okay, I don't

think I can trust this person.

And obviously I'm using a lot of emotion words here, but they're

very common to the selling process.

Let me give you another case study that was able to actually double the closing

rate by changing the conversation.

One sales person I worked with, let's call him Mark, was great at presenting features

and benefits, and his pitch was airtight, but his close rate hovered around 22%.

Through our work together, mark realized he was treating

every sales conversation like a performance instead of a connection.

When you perform instead of connect, it comes across as fake and

disingenuous, and people are very smart in picking up on those things.

He rarely paused to check in with his own emotional tone or to

read the buyer's emotional state.

We implemented a pre-call awareness check and an in-conversation emotional

pulse technique, and within 90 days his close rate jumped to 45%.

His feedback was telling.

I am still saying a lot of the same words, but I'm saying them at the

right time in the right way and understanding the emotional state,

so that helps me be more aware.

The more we see, the more we can sell.

I don't wanna leave you with just stories and ideas and concepts.

I always like to provide some practical things you can put into play.

So I'm gonna give you a three question emotional check before

every sales conversation.

This is a tool you can use.

And as you think about how you can use this tool, feel free to adapt it.

The point here is this is not

something carved in stone, right?

It's something that you can adapt and modify and probably needs it a bit, but

understand that setting your emotional state correctly before you go into a

sales conversation is so critical because people will pick up on the emotional

state that you're presenting to them.

So here's the first question.

What am I feeling right now?

If you're tense, you're rushed, or you're distracted, reset before you start that

conversation, why does this matter?

Emotions are contagious.

Neuroscience calls this emotional contagion, your buyer will

pick up on your state even if you never say a word about it.

If you start the conversation carrying stress, urgency, frustration, you

risk transferring those emotions to your buyer, which can create

resistance instead of receptivity.

The connection to emotional intelligence here is self-awareness,

which is the first and foundational competency of emotional intelligence.

By naming your emotion, you create space to manage it before it manages you.

The impact of this resetting your emotional state allows you to be

more intentional in tone, body language, and pacing, which builds

trust from the very first moment.

Sales is probably one of the most stressful jobs out

there, so is owning a company.

But the reality is if we start to understand these concepts

and put them into play, we can be much better at what we do.

Here's the second question.

What do I think my buyer might be feeling going into this conversation?

Are they skeptical?

Are they curious?

Are they frustrated?

Are they hopeful?

Why does this matter?

Every sales conversation begins in an emotional environment.

It's not always a neutral one.

Your buyer might be distracted from a meeting that ran over,

they could be frustrated from a vendor issue or cautiously

optimistic about finding a solution.

If you don't acknowledge this context, you actually risk missing

the emotional undercurrent that is going to drive their decision.

What is the connection to emotional intelligence?

It's empathy.

Accurately perceiving the emotions of others and

understanding their perspective.

Empathy doesn't mean agreeing with everything they say.

It means you start where they are, not where you want them to be.

And how can this impact our outcomes?

Anticipating your buyer's emotional state allows you to adjust your

approach, ask more relevant questions and create a connection

that feels personal and respectful.

Here's the third question.

How can I show up in a way that builds trust and safety for the buyer?

Match their pace, acknowledge their concerns, and validate their perspective.

Why does this matter?

People buy when they feel safe.

Safe that they're making a good decision, safe, that you're credible,

safe, that you understand their needs.

Without psychological safety, even the best solution can be stalled by doubt.

The connection to emotional intelligence is social skills.

Using awareness of your own emotions and others' emotions to manage

the interactions successfully.

It's where emotional intelligence turns into visible influence.

And this impacts the closing opportunities because when a buyer feels understood

and not pressured, their brain shifts from a defensive risk averse state

to an open collaborative state.

This dramatically increases your ability to guide the

conversation toward a decision.

This quick check-in primes both your internal state and your external approach.

It aligns with three of the five core emotional intelligence

competencies, self-awareness, empathy, and social skills.

Which research shows are directly linked to higher sales performance.

Harvard Business Review found that salespeople with high emotional

intelligence outperform their peers by 20% in sales results and

50% in customer loyalty metrics.

That is huge.

In other words, mastering this small intentional habit can move the needle on

both your numbers and your relationships.

Now, let's talk about why this matters more today than ever before.

In a sales world that's increasingly digital, your competition isn't

just other salespeople, it's also distraction and distrust.

Buyers are overwhelmed.

Skeptical and short on attention.

Your edge isn't louder pitches, your edge is the ability to make your buyer feel

heard, feel understood, and feel safe.

That's what awareness does.

It turns a transaction into a trusted relationship.

Awareness is a skill.

Like any skill, it can be measured, it can be developed, and it could

be turned into a productive habit.

That's exactly what we do in our EQFIT Sales Mastermind.

In this small high impact group, people experience the following,

measure their emotional intelligence so they know where they stand and

where they need to develop skills.

How to develop advanced awareness skills to better approach buyers

and not ride that emotional rollercoaster that Jim was riding.

Apply proven neuroscience based selling strategies that actually increase

success and enhance pipelines and get live feedback and collaborative

learning from other people that are going through the same things.

They're walking the same journey.

If you're ready to close more deals.

Not by working harder, but by working smarter.

Then I would invite you to check out our EQFIT Sales Mastermind.

It is forming right now, the next group, and it will start in the

very near future and there are a very limited number of seats.

I hope this has been helpful today.

If you take anything away from this, take this.

Your emotional state that you enter into a sales conversation with is

what the buyer is going to feel.

So if you can navigate and reset your emotional state to be as positive, as

productive, as inviting and safe, as possible for that buyer, you are more

likely to see them be more receptive, more willing to listen, and more

attentive to what you have to say.

Thank you for joining us for this episode.

If you have any questions about this week's episode or maybe a

suggestion for future episodes you'd like us to explore, please contact

us through our website@eqfit.org.

For more information and inspiration, connect with us on LinkedIn,

Facebook and YouTube at EQFIT.