Sales professionals who have the emotional strength and social agility to
navigate through such difficulties have much greater rapport with clients than
those who avoid dealing with the situation or try to minimize the matter.
Intentionality is bringing a positive or calming emotion to negative interac-
tions with clients, and it is an axiomatic skill for survival in the sales world. As
one client stated, “I would much rather have my account representative deal
bad news to me personally than to find out on my own or get it from a third
party. Then I feel like they don’t have enough regard for me to warn me.”
SMOKE IN THE EYES
A man named Duane Pearsall was testing an electronic device
that controls static electricity, when he noticed that smoke from a
technician’s cigarette caused the meter in the device to go bad. At
first, he was irritated because he had to stop the experiment and
install another meter. Later, he realized that the reaction of the
meter to the smoke might prove to be a valuable bit of informa-
tion. This brief irritation proved to be a great opportunity, because
it led to the invention of the smoke alarm—now a standard part of
every home.As a sales professional, you will experience a constant stream of irrita-
tions. Some annoyances come from the field, and others come from the
home office. How you react to those irritations will determine your emo-
tional state, level of resilience, and, ultimately, the quality of interpersonal
relationships—which are critical to your success.
If you are easily rattled or thrown off your emotional game by small an-
noyances, offenses, and irritations, your troubles can be attributed in part to
a lack of intentionality—not settled on being a dominatingly positive inter-
personal force. If so, you may not yet have constructed an emotional agenda
that you want to bring to the table. Take a moment and answer the ques-
tions in Figure 15.2 to help organize your emotional intent with others.
Decide to be a force of nature, not a reed blowing in the wind. This is
intentionality and, as such, will build rapport when others do not believe it
is possible. If six monks can possess enough calm to walk into a firestorm
of bullets and cause everyone to lay down their guns, you can walk into any
situation and dominate it with a resolutely positive emotional agenda.
Winning the Emotional Tugs-of-War / The Power of Positive Intent 133