What Does “Sell With Empathy” Actually Mean?
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That line appears quite often in my articles, and it’s all over my LinkedIn profile. So what the hell do I mean by, “sell with empathy”?
In short, it means to always treat customers the way you would want to be treated by another salesperson.
It’s actually quite simple! If you simply treat customers the way you’d want a salesperson to treat you, or someone in your family, you will begin to see an improvement in your sales process.
But how exactly do you want a salesperson to treat you?
What exactly does an empathetic salesperson do differently?
They Exhibit Exceptional Personality Traits
Treating customers any certain way simply requires behavior. Behavior is a direct reflection of personality, so an empathetic salesperson is going to have a personality full of empathy.
More specifically, they exhibit:
Honesty
Integrity
Compassion
Understanding
Caring
Active Listening
Curiosity
Enthusiasm
Good Sense of Humor
Positive Attitude
Now those words are obviously very familiar to you, and you can define each of them accurately.
However, these words mean very specific things in regard to selling with empathy. Here is how Sales Therapy defines the above words.
Honesty - In sales, honesty is best represented when a salesperson can acknowledge and admit the limits of either their knowledge, skill, or product capability. But, generally speaking, being honest in every other aspect of sales is hugely important. But to sell with empathy, and be honest, you must acknowledge and admit the limits of either your knowledge, skill, or product capability.
For more detailed examples, please read, “What Does ‘Honesty’ Mean in Sales?”.
Integrity - In sales, integrity is best shown by always honoring your commitments. This can either mean you always show up to the meetings you agree to attend, or send a customer an important document they urgently need. However, integrity can also mean the willingness and ability to understand your limits and not over commit yourself. And if you over commit yourself, you are honest with the customer and let them know you cannot finish the work when they need it done. Saying “no” is much better than saying “yes” to something you know you don’t have the bandwidth to do.
For more detailed examples, please read, “What does ‘Integrity’ Mean in Sales?”
Compassion - In sales, compassion is best understood by simply understanding that your customer has several other people they have to speak with, and possibly hundreds of projects on which they should be working. This means you should not try getting their attention with “clever” guilt trips or in any way pointing out that they are “hard to get in touch with”. Be understanding of their other responsibilities, and show them that.
Understanding - In sales, being understanding is simply trying to understand everything about your customer, their pain, their needs, their likes and dislikes, and understanding how their company makes decisions. If you understand how their company makes decisions, you can better help your customer navigate the buying process. Sure, it helps the salesperson too, but if you can make the process easier for the customer, that’s even better!
It can also mean to be understanding of your customers’ faults. Customers miss meetings, and don’t answer phone calls. It happens! You miss phone calls too, right? Show them you are understanding by never trying to make them feel badly for “ignoring” you!
Caring - When I say “caring”, I sincerely mean caring about them as a person, not just as a customer. In sales, you can show this by simply taking an interest in their hobbies or extracurricular activities. This also helps you build an extremely good business relationship, but the customer will actually appreciate you for taking an active interest in them and their personal life, and they will be more likely to call YOU when they need something.
Active Listening - Being an active listener means to genuinely listen to the customer when they speak, and truly try to understand what they’re saying. As the saying goes, listen to understand, not to respond. To truly understand what this one means, please read the article, “How to Listen Actively”.
Curiosity - Similarly to being an active listener, part of that is always being curious. You should always be curious about everything in regard to your customer, what they do, what they like, what they don’t like. Just be curious. There is a fine line between nosey and curious. Don’t cross it.
Enthusiasm - Generally speaking, people respond in kind to how they are treated. If you speak to someone with a negative tone, they’ll most likely show you negativity. However, if you are always enthusiastic with them, they are more likely to be enthusiastic with you as well! Remember, treat the customer how you want to be treated by a salesperson. Who doesn’t love enthusiasm?
Good Sense of Humor - You’ve got to be joking, right? This one should go without explanation! But all jokes aside, having a good sense of humor and a thick skin is going to serve you well in your sales career. But you have to be mindful of your audience and your surroundings. There is a time and a place for humor in a business setting.
For more detailed examples, please read, “Does Humor Belong in Sales?”.
Positive Attitude - This should go without explanation, but selling with empathy means you are always positive. Why? Because you wouldn’t want a salesperson to speak to you with a shitty attitude. If you wouldn’t like that as a customer, don’t do it to your customer. This applies even when the customer is not treating you with kindness or respect! Actually, especially when they aren’t treating you with kindness or respect.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, 90% of sales is how well you treat customers. The other ten percent is showing up!
If you were to treat customers the way we outlined the ideal salesperson in this article, I assure you that you’ll start seeing improvements in your customer relationships.
CONCLUSION
As always, there is nothing too Earth-shattering in this article. It’s all common sense and common decency, but it’s still just as important as an Earth-shattering revelation.
I should also add that “Selling With Empathy” also requires the salesperson to always put their customers in a position of empowerment, and that is detailed in another article that I strongly suggest you read, if you liked this one.
Everyone should have a “BHAG”, or a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal”. My BHAG is to change how salespeople are viewed by customers and the general public. We all know the cliche of the used car salesman who is just out to rip people off and make a buck.
I want to rid the world of that image, and we can do that together by simply treating customers the way we would want to be treated by another salesperson. It’s just that simple!
