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Empathy

Written by: Sam Allman

Article Overview: When your customer feels understood they are more open to influence. Ability to read people, feel what they are feeling What is it? Understanding a need is as good as fulfilling it. People buy what they need from salespeople who understand what they want. Empathy leads to sensory acuity – “Unlike the mind, the heart finds it difficult to lie.” Robert Cooper.  Empathy leads to trust – It makes the connection. Integrity

Empathy

Empathy is the number one quality of top performing salespeople. To be empathetic is to be understanding and considerate, and to attempt to see things from another person’s perspective. People with high emotional intelligence have high amounts or empathy. We all get frustrated and discouraged when others fail to give it to us.

Empathy stems from the acceptance of four facts of life:
1) there are other people in this world besides me;
2) there are other viewpoints in this world besides mine
3) your feelings and beliefs are just as valid to you as mine are to me; and
4) the better we understand each other, the better we’ll be able to work together and contribute to each other’s success.

Empathy is not the same as sympathy. Sympathy is feeling and agreeing with the other person. A salesperson with sympathy, will not push the sale when he should (Brent) .

Empathetic people know that you do not have to agree with different perspectives in order to understand and accept them. They make a real honest effort to uncover all sides of an issue before acting. That effort invests the emotions and feelings of the sales person, resulting in increased valuing

You have all heard the expression, “the customer is always right.” It’s not true. Customers are human and make mistakes, bad judgments, and sometimes-inconsiderate behavior. Some customers have no idea what they want or need. All of this comes with the sales territory. The customer isn’t always right, but that doesn’t matter. The customer is always the customer. Right or wrong, they are the lifeblood of your business and they must be treated accordingly. Your empathy must be genuine. If you don’t really care about the customer, he or she will pick up on this right away.

According to Barry Maher, a famous sales trainer from Santa Barbara, all of the great salespeople are honest. They are also aggressive, persistent, and non-threatening. “If the prospect tells you you’re a great salesperson, you aren’t. What he’s saying is that he feels he is being sold something he would never purchase on his own.” The customer may eventually buy, but he won’t be happy about it. He won’t be happy to see you on the next visit (if there is one), and he’s far more likely to develop buyers’ remorse.

To Maher, the highest praise a salesperson can receive from a customer is simply, “You make a lot of sense.” That’s empathy. These customers don’t feel sold; they simply feel that their needs are being met. “Of course, they may never have realized they had those needs until [the salesperson] walked in the door. And I guarantee they’ll buy more from the salesperson who appears to make sense than from anyone they consider a great salesperson.”

When you genuinely care about a customer, your chief motivation becomes providing the best solution for her needs (you’d even pass up a sale rather than sell against her best interests). Genuine empathy builds trust and generates loyalty that leads to life-long customers.

Generating Trust

Have you ever sold a customer a second time? How big of an issue was price the second time? Have you ever had old customers return to your store? When you asked if you could help them, did they say, “No thank you, I’m just looking.” Why do customers come back? Trust. To customers that trust you, “the price issue” and “I’m just looking” never happens.

Great salespeople have the ability to generate trust and credibility. Unfortunately, sales has received a bad rap. I had one lady say to me, “you’re in sales, I thought you were honest.” I’m sure you have heard, “How can you tell moving.”

The foundation of any relationship is trust, as is the foundation of leadership, as is the foundation of sales. Bottom line, without integrity, most success is short term. Unfortunately, trust takes years to build, only seconds to destroy.
So how do we build trust with a customer? Easy, always tell the truth, do what you promise and act in the best interest of the customer and not your self. Congruency and consistency build trust. Walking the talk. Consistency is better than great salesmanship. Great salespeople would walk away from the sale rather than sell something that is not right for the customer.

Without personal self-awareness, being able to recognize your own feelings and emotions, you’ll be unable to have them for others. If you are out of touch with your own feelings, you’ll likely be unable to relate to the feeling of others. It all starts within you.

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Article Tags: barry maher, different perspectives, emotional intelligence, emotions, empathetic, empathy, expression, facts of life, feelings, honest effort, judgments, lifeblood, sales person, sales territory, salespeople, salesperson, santa barbara, sympathy, true customers, viewpoints



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