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Before a farmer could even finish posting the Puppies for Sale sign he felt a tug on his overalls. He looked down into the eyes of a little boy who said, “Mister, I want to buy one of your puppies.”
The boy reached deep into his pocket and pulled out a handful of change and asked the farmer if that was enough money for him to take a look. The farmer whistled and the mama dog came running followed by four little balls of fur.
The little boy pressed his face against the chain link fence as his eyes danced with excitement. Then the boy noticed another little fur ball, noticeably smaller and hobbling as it tried to catch up to the others.
“I want that one,” the little boy said, pointing to the runt. The farmer answered by saying, “Son, you don’t want that puppy. He will never be able to run and play with you like these other dogs would.”
Then the little boy stepped back from the fence and began rolling up one leg of his jeans. He revealed a steel brace on both sides of his leg attached to a specially made shoe. Looking back up at the farmer, he said, “He is the right one, because you see mister, I don’t run too well myself, and he will need someone who understands.”
With tears in his eyes, the farmer reached down and picked up the little pup, handing him to the boy.
That’s a great example of what empathy looks like.
Empathy, the way most salespeople understand it, is often not really empathy. Confused? What is meant to be empathy is actually sympathy, even though both expressions are different.
Sympathy is more logical while Empathy is more emotional. It’s similar to the way many of you have heard me describe ‘benefits’ of the features your products and services have. You might remember me saying that benefits come in two flavors; logical and emotional. Logical benefits tell the buyer how the feature works, and emotional benefits tell how the buyer will feel as a result of having the feature.
Sympathy is more logical in nature. We understand, through our senses, when a prospect has strong feelings as they express their emotions. We can see and hear when a prospect is satisfied with something we want to replace or grumpy and upset over something that is causing real unhappiness and keeping him up at night. When we gather information like this we move to synch our own responses appropriately.
This is simply natural, logical sympathy although we think it’s “empathy.” Sympathy is that response that says “I’m so sorry you feel that way.” We may really mean it as we acknowledge other people’s feelings and may go as far as feeling bad or good with someone else.
But when we merely sympathize, it is not sufficient to really collaborate and communicate with our prospects.
Empathy is different and goes beyond sympathy. Empathy requires a conscious effort to sort of step outside your own skin temporarily to look at a situation through another person’s eyes as if you were in their skin. It’s similar to what an actor does; experiencing human emotion from the point of view of someone who is not them.
Empathy requires learning new emotional skills and is difficult, like working to develop a muscle. If you are fortunate enough to achieve true empathy it’s almost like possessing a superpower.
Developing your empathy ‘muscle’ starts with active listening, a critical topic I’ve written about before. By applying empathy in order to ask relevant open questions, you will be able to gain the prospect’s perspective on needs, wants, challenges, timing, and generally how they are feeling about the entire situation.
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Empathetic salespeople treat prospects the way they like to be treated and refuse to avoid tough subjects or potential objections. They simply forego the closing process so they can first focus on connecting with the prospect.
For example, if your service or product is exactly what the prospect needs, but purchasing it requires re-allocation of funds and additional approval by decision makers, an empathetic salesperson will step into the picture and addresses those concerns. To a prospect this might sound like, “There are several things my service can do to improve your current situation. However, if our roles were reversed I would be concerned about the roadblocks you mentioned in order to make this change. To ensure this is your wisest move would it be helpful for us to discuss this further?”
This prospect will no doubt be reassured and unpressured knowing that you truly understand AND feel his dilemma. The empathetic salesperson is exactly the one your sales prospects want to do business with.
————Thank You, Doug————
Thanks for your help and the info you sent! My sales guys enjoy your sessions and really listen to you. I have noticed that they talk about the strategies you teach and I’ve seen them improve. Jennie Cash-Branch Manager, Gainesville, FL. Look for yourself.
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