(Long-Term Playbook™ Publication) Emotional Intelligence VS The Marketplace

As The Enterpriser, I'm typically working with clients who want to uplevel. They have the vision, the grit and the determination. They've thought of everything logically. But they're often leaving out a key component to the business world. I'm talking about heart— in other words, emotions.

If you're reading this, you're probably seeking a business advantage that helps you stand out from the competition. And rightly so. The market has never been more competitive, and with a recession looming, being on top of your game (and quick!) is the priority. I work with brilliant entrepreneurs, but I'm here to tell you that emotions are powerful, and harnessing and understanding them is arguably more important than any well-thought-out business plan. Today I'd like to walk you through the power of emotional intelligence or EQ— the science behind it, why it's needed in the marketplace, and some personal anecdotes of its power drawn from my own life. We'll close by reviewing some next steps you can take in order to bring EQ into your day-to-day life, and watch your business thrive.

So you're probably familiar with the term IQ, or intelligence quotient. IQ tests your reasoning ability, and scores range from 1 to 180 plus. A typical IQ test question looks like this:

Question: Which number should come next in the pattern?

40, 37, 34, 31?

Answer: 28, as the numbers are decreasing by 3.

Einstein had an IQ of 205, Bill Gates has an IQ of 160. But having a high IQ or reasoning ability score alone doesn't make you a better leader. In fact, in 2020, Forbes pulled from various research findings to show that time and again, successful CEOs are not necessarily those who have the highest IQ or are the "smartest". Rather, they all had high emotional intelligence or EQ. EQ is a test that measures how much a person can relate, understand and empathize with others. EQ tests are typically multiple choice and/or facial recognition questions. For example: what emotion is the person in this photo showing?

These tests were popularized in the 1990s and are now employed by many companies when screening new employees. The book that pioneered the importance of EQ is Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. In the book, Goleman writes: "Leadership is not domination, but the art of persuading people to work toward a common goal." In other words, using brute force to persuade others rarely brings about the results you seek. So whether you are managing your own employees, or trying to tap into the mentality of your consumers, harnessing EQ is essential.

But what does high emotional intelligence look like? Simply put, it means that somebody anticipates the needs of others and knows how to behave across different social situations. They have high empathy and know how to be likable. Humans are emotional creatures and they understand that and use those emotions to work in their favor. Having high EQ means you pay attention to your interactions with others, how people interact with you, and you are strategic and considerate when forming new relationships.

In business it is necessary to have an understanding of your consumer, your employees and yourself. In an annual review done at the end of 2020 by Carat, a media and marketing agency, Google ranked as the brand with the highest EQ. They won this distinction because consumers view them as understanding of their needs, friendly, and find their products easy to use. But a brand with one of the lowest EQs? Uber. Uber made some bad PR moves in 2020 which alienated their consumers, and this made them score low in empathy. Understanding how your audience operates doesn't just help you form better relationships, it helps your bottom line. In a data analysis, the stock prices of companies correlated with their level of brand EQ -- the more EQ the company was perceived to have, the more likely they were to have market success.

And that is why EQ is so necessary in the marketplace. Now more than ever, consumers make decisions based on their emotions. We are constantly being marketed to out in the world -- whether billboards or a ping from an app -- and it's up to us to separate our emotional and rational minds. However, people are far more likely to do business with companies that they have an emotional relationship with. Younger generations like Gen Z report that they prefer to buy from brands that care about the same issues they do -- in other words, that are empathetic and aligned to their wants and needs. We see this often on social media, where you are as likely to follow a brand as a close friend, and even interact with their posts the same way!

When helping people build brands, I champion empathy and understanding. I recently helped a client that was trying to transition from the products to the service side, and was having some difficulty. Unlike in the past, she now had to sell the intellectual, intangible part of the service. She asked me, "how can I sell something that people can't see or touch?" My answer? I told her she needed to be relatable! And most of all, she needed to approach clients from a place of abundance, not lack. Money has a million emotions running through it. Once she approached clients with calm and grace, they couldn't sign up faster to work with her. She had made the unseen, seen by becoming the embodiment of her product.

At the end of the day emotional intelligence is a skill that deserves your focus and to be honed properly. With my work as the Enterpriser, I dedicate myself to making my clients understand their market, so they have relationships with their customers that go beyond the transaction. Because whether you are a small business owner, or CEO of a major corporation, you will live and die by the relationships you foster. When clients work with me, they are guided through my trilateral approach to business -- business development, taxation, and money management. I am detail oriented and have been known to throw the kitchen sink at people! But if there's one thing you can take away from reading this article today, it's that no business is an island, and we need to support each other more than ever before, in business and beyond. And it starts by opening up your heart.