The IPS-EQ Model: Interpersonal Skills and Emotional Intelligence in a Sales Process

This paper offers the IPS-EQ model, which attempts to conceptualize interpersonal skills in a business-to-business sales process. A literature review within the discipline of sales/marketing reveals that even though interpersonal skills are proclaimed valuable for salespeople’s performance, the field’s understanding of the concept is limited, sporadic, and seemingly conflicting. However, by exploring the link between interpersonal skills (IPS) and emotional intelligence (EQ), already established in the field of psychology and management but never investigated in the discipline of selling, the IPS-EQ model emerges. This model offers valuable insight to the field of selling as well as practitioners by bringing together the former seemingly conflicting conceptualizations of interpersonal skills.