emotional intelligence

i've always thought i was a pretty good salesperson.  it's what i do for a living, i like it, and so far i've been pretty successful.  it was review time for work last week and i went into my review thinking "i'm 112% of goal!  i did a good job!  they love me!"  the actual review was waaaay different and i was kind of caught off guard. 

while it was acknowledged that i reached my goal, far more time was spent on all the things i did wrong.  i didn't have enough meetings.  i'm not hitting my potential.   i felt like jennifer anistons character in office space when she's being lectured by her boss about how many pieces of flair she needs to wear. 

after getting off of the call and bursting into tears (which i was amazingly able to hold back during the call), i thought about it a little and realized that my boss was just trying to motivate me.  but he has NO idea how i am actually motivated.  he's treating me the way he would want to be treated, instead of treating me the way i want to be treated.

i've been reading a lot about emotional intelligence lately and how it is a much larger factor in success than IQ is.  the book i'm reading right now is how to sell with emotional intelligence and it has been very helpful for me to learn about my traits and why i find some other people SO annoying or hard to get along with.  

i scored pretty evenly in all categories - the range was from 12-48. My dominant personality is that of "motivator" (35), and my secondary is "enterpriser" (34).  the two that were equally my lowest were "togetherness" and "analyzer" (32).  i think this will help me recognize other people better and conscientiously adjust my personality so that i don't irritate them. 

here are a few of the traits - which one are you? 

 

A larger version of this chart can be found here. 

miscommunication

one thing that has been bugging me lately is the plethora of communication choices. between calling and texting and emailing and facebooking and twittering.. trying to figure out who prefers what is exhausting!

i personally prefer texting and emailing. i hate phone calls, unless there is a lot of specific information that is too complicated to text or email. a lot of times i can't understand the person on the other end very well because i am in my car and there is road noise or the connection is bad. if someone leaves a voicemail, you have to dial your voicemail, enter your password, listen to the pre-recorded "you have 1 new message. first message.." all to hear "hey, it's so and so, give me a call when you have a chance". seriously? if you CALL me, PLEASE leave the reason you called in my voicemail, or it is an utter waste of time! and don't even get me started on having to sit through the 2 minutes of pre-recorded crap in order to leave someone a voicemail. does anyone EVER "press 5 to page this person"??

with my customers, i try to ask them what method they prefer. even if i hate talking on the phone, i will do so for my customers who prefer it. that is just good business. i wish the vendors i work with would take note. for example, i have 2 contractors who insist on calling me practically every day. not because there is an emergency or question, but just to "update" me, even when nothing has happened. i'm sure they think this is good customer service, but it drives me batty! i have been trying to get through to them that i am very busy and can't take 10 minutes 5 times a day to chat with them about nothing. even though i've told them i prefer texts, it doesn't seem to be sinking in. so i've resorted to ignoring their phone calls and then texting them back with "can't talk, what do you need?".

they still aren't getting the hint.