Case Studies in EQ: Sanofi-Aventis and L’Oreal

Did you know that Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is measurable and learnable?

Companies like L’Oreal and Sanofi-Aventis have demonstrated a link between EQ and sales performance and other organizational measures of success.

Courtesy of Six Seconds, this month we’re taking a brief look at how developing the EQ of team members has positively affected the bottom lines of these companies and others.

(See our previous posts about how Sheraton Studio City in Orlando and Adobe have benefited from EQ training.)

A powerful study by researchers Sue Jennings and Benjamin Palmer demonstrates that EQ skills are worth more than $2 million per month.

At pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis, a group of salespeople was randomly split into two groups – a development and a control group.

The development group received EQ training and increased their EQ by 18% (on average).

As a result, the development group they out-sold the control group by an average of 12%, or $55,200 each.

Multiply $55,000 x 40 reps in the group = $2,208,000 per month better. The firm calculated that they made $6 for every dollar they invested in the EQ training.

L’Oreal had a similar outcome. Sales agents were selected based on certain emotional competencies. Using their EQ, these agents significantly outsold other salespeople who used the firm’s standard selection procedure.

On an annual basis, the “EQ Sales Agents” sold $91,370 more than other salespeople did – and the net revenue increase was $2,558,360.

These "EQ Sales Agents" also brought added benefit to the company – they had 63% less turnover in staff during the first year.

Learn more about the business case for EQ

Sources:

Image, Six Seconds

Joshua Freedman, The Business Case for Emotional Intelligence, Six Seconds, 2010

Jennings, S. and Palmer, B (2007), Enhancing Sales Performance Through Emotional Intelligence Development, Organisations & People, May 2007, Vol 14. No 2, and personal correspondence between Joshua Freedman and Dr. Palmer. The salespeople in the study were selected because all were in the in the same revenue band starting at $460k/mo in sales.

#EQ #EmotionalIntelligence #CaseStudy #SanofiAventi #LOreal