This study was designed to reveal relationships between emotional intelligence (EI), as represented by indices on the EQ-i, with actual sales performance of financial advisors in the insurance/financial service sector. The sales performance measure used was actual commission earned by the financial advisors in 2003. The researcher hypothesized that a positive relationship exists between emotional intelligence and sales performance.

Emotional intelligence can be defined as "the ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotions; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotions and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth" (Mayer & Salovey, 1997, p. 10). The company is considered medium size and offers insurance and financial service products throughout the nation. These products are both internally and externally developed.

The sales force is a diverse group. The main differentiating variables identified were age, gender, experience in the business, and sales performance. The sales force was considered stable and collectively had an average of 10 years of experience with the company. During the past five years, the company reported retention of the top financial advisors was consistently above 95%, one of the highest in the industry.

In this study, the assessment instrument used was the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i). Dr. Reuven Bar-On, a clinical psychologist, developed this assessment. The instrument was beta tested in the early 1990s and normed in 1997. It is one of the few Emotional Quotient (EQ) tools that has published metrics identifying its validity and reliability.

The EQ-i is distributed by Multi Health Systems (MHS). It is comprised of 133 questions, which are then put into 15 content subscales. These are then compressed into five composite scales. The five composite scales are: intrapersonal EQ, interpersonal EQ, stress management EQ, adaptability EQ, and general mood EQ. The EQ‑i was normed with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. This was done to mirror the metrics used to measure intelligence quotient (IQ).

The EQ‑i was given to a stratified random sample of 100 financial advisors. A stratified random sample was taken based upon commission earned in the year 2003. The sales force was divided into five strata. This was to ensure representation of financial advisors from the whole spectrum. The confounding variables in this study were years of experience in the business, age, gender, and region of country. The sales force was divided into five regions of the country. In analyzing the data, the Pearson correlation and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were applied to the data yielding meaningful information.