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Salesmanship and Empathy

Written by: Jeff Blackwell

Article Overview: Increase sales production by tuning in to your prospect's point of view.

Salesmanship and Empathy

One of the simplest ways to increase your productivity as a salesperson is to tune into your buyer’s point of view. When you are in tune with your buyer you have empathy. This means that you can identify with and understand their situation, feelings, and motives.

When you are in tune with your buyer everything you say or do seems to be right on the mark. The buyer gets the feeling that you really understand them and the road to a successful sale lights up like an airport runway. The opposite is also true. When you are not in tune with your buyer nothing you can do or say will seem to be right. When you push they pull and vice versa.

Master salespeople know the importance of empathy and tune in to their buyers as quickly as possible. Novice salespeople on the other hand, rarely make the effort. This lack of empathy between buyer and seller accounts for much of the negative experiences many consumers experience.

This kind of selling requires a genuine desire on the part of the salesperson to try and be of service. It is pretty easy to spot the salesperson with this kind of desire. These salespeople take an interest in the buyer on a more personal level. The empathetic salesperson asks more questions and better questions. They ask the type of questions that get the buyer to open up and talk about their situation.

Buyers like salespeople that reach them on a personal level. Everyone likes to be listened to and understood. When you demonstrate to your buyer that you are interested and paying attention they will open up to you and tell you what it will take to make a sale. Here are a few reminders to help you focus on your buyers;

* Focus your attention on your buyer. Do not allow yourself to become distracted.
* Look for something you like in the other person. What do you think their friends like about them?
* Get your buyer to tell you their situation, hopes and fears with well prepared questions.

Sell with empathy and increase your productivity immediately!

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Pitch Like A Girl: How a Woman Can Be Herself and Still Succ - Pitch Like A Girl: How a Woman Can Be Herself and Still Succeed Ronna Lichtenberg 2005 From the inside cover: "As a woman, you probably feel uncomfortable when it comes to promoting yourself and asking for what you want." WHAT IN THE HECK IS THIS, I asked myself when I read that. Women are the fastest growing business owners in the US and Canada, there are t housands of women executives and CEOs - though not as many as might be expected, admittedly, yet the book opens with this surely out of date stereotype. However, as she continued to give examples of women who had high paying jobs but were routinely not paid as much as men because it hadn't occurred to them to ask for raises, etc., I decided it was probably true for a majority of businesswomen... Anyway, more of the info from the jacket: "Other books have told you how to get what you want by being more like a guy. Pitch Like A Girl tells you why its an advantage to be who you are and how to do better by bringing more of yourself to work." The TOC: 1. Pink and Blue 2. The Quck-dry Chapter 3. What's In your head that's not in his 4. The Me, Inc Mindset 5. Visioning: Discover What You Really Want 6. Identifying Prospects 7. Pre-pitch homework and heartwork 8. Crafting the pitch 9. Pricing the pitch 10. Packaging the pitch 11. Delivering the pitch 12. Closing Conclusion A Word to the guys The Empathy Quotient The Systemizing Quotient Bibliography And on a side note - non-fiction books without indexes - of which this is one, annoy me.


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