An Empirical Assessment, and Exploratory Study, of Emotional Intelligence in the Personal Selling Field

Emotional intelligence (EI) has recently found its way into marketing's discussions. Originating from the psychology domain, EI is the notion that people have differing abilities to pick up on emotional meanings in interpersonal communications and ultimately in their abilities to use that information when making decisions. Researchers have suggested individuals possessing high EI are more successful than their low EI counterparts. To investigate such claims a concentrated and in depth personal interview field study, including both salespeople and sales managers, was performed to empirically explore the EI/personal selling relationship. Findings indicate EI is positively related to sales performance – those salespeople with the highest EI levels reported higher sales performance abilities. Additional findings indicate EI may be learned over time, EI was not different across genders in the personal selling field, and EI may be more important in the service sector. The contribution to this field of study is most salespeople EI surveys and performance measures are self-reported; this research was also able to get peer-reported sales performance information from sales managers