A better way to sell: the rise of empathetic Sales

Disclaimer: The views stated here are my own and do not reflect the ways of my current and past companies.

Please don’t be a "Wolf of Wall Street" type when you deal with your clients! 

Some of your colleagues have been ruining the reputation of the sales departments during the last 50 years. An army of minions used to sell aggressively on the phone or in-person tons and tons of features, highlighting how good their product was and giving you a special price, which must be taken now! This created some problems, even for you:

• Bad stereotypes and reputation. In the mind of a lot of people sales are sleazy people, which will do anything to sell you the maximum they can sell. Unfortunately, sometimes this is still true. This is also reflected in Academic research: compared to a wide range of topics, sales is still something relatively not extensively treated in academic settings.
• Adverse effect on personal branding. You want to put sales on a CV because you really love speaking with clients and want to learn about and consult businesses. However, be prepared: sometimes you will be “marked” just because you come from Sales. People might inquire you about your integrity. And this fine, just be aware of it.
• Aggressive clients. With the rise of the digital era, your clients are getting a huge amount of sales emails and calls every day. Sometimes they will not exactly be tolerant: this is fine and expected. Unless they are impolite, you can continue the call and focus on the value you can give to them.

In the past, the wrong way of selling created TODAY adverse spillovers which makes your job difficult and impact your personal branding. However you have the choice and sell in a smarter and more compassionate way!

You can definitely reach and beat your targets while selling more compassionately, which means:

• Research your prospect story before making contact. You have to be interested in the type of clients you deal with and their business model. Be ready to share an insightful and actionable tip tailored to him or her: if you do this act of giving before asking, a client will most likely frame you in a different and positive light.
• Respect your prospects as you would do with yourself and your friends. Ask them if they have time if the tips were useful and state that you will actually want to hear more about their business (FOR REAL!).
• State the obvious: tell them actually what is your role, but make it clear that before selling anything you would genuinely understand if your solution can be of any help. This is following the previous two points.

"I will never do my targets this way!"

I can already hear you: "You are crazy! What does this even mean? I have to do my targets, otherwise, my boss will fire me". If your boss threatens to constantly fire you, I would indeed make an act of self-love and question if you are valued enough in your current company. But this is another topic and you can look at my article on what highly successful people do when their potential is underutilized.

Back to us, let me explain what I mean, and let’s start from the following assumption: clients are people and as such they react positively if you treat them with respect and understanding of what their problem is.

Do not actually sell! Be an advisor instead!

Connected to the previous point is the question: What you can do to sell better? DO NOT SELL. Be an advisor instead and put a tremendous amount of attention on the person you are speaking with.

Look, you might think I am even crazier, and probably I am a little! But listen: if somebody is emailing you out of the blue with a cool product, what would you answer among the two:

1. “Hi, I am Don and I work from ACME. We have this fantastic solution that might think it might be the right fit for you. We have tons of features and a wonderful price for you. Can we schedule a call?”
2. “Good morning Kirsten. My name is Don, and I am a Digital Expert in ACME. I have seen your work in the E-commerce sector. I have analyzed your website and it looks like it has a loading time of more than 5 seconds which might impact conversion rate. I would like to share a few actionable tips you can implement now: ***you share the tips***. If you have 5 minutes of your time, I would love to explain to you more about what you can do to optimize your conversions”

Guess what you will choose between the two ??. The second approach is more personal, warmer and you are sharing before giving! And this is just the start.

A (maybe not so) new framework of selling: putting the human perspective at the center

The complete methodology I am presenting here will require maybe a small book…and mostly is common sense! However, you can summarize in the following steps:

• Be truly passionate about your product. Don't you love it? Fair! Then change the company you are working for. Life is too short and there are so many things to learn :)
• Genuinely have an interest in the businesses you are contacting. If not, maybe this is not the right job for you: back to the previous point then! How can you even try to sell something in a sector you do not like? On top of the product, you have to be insanely passionate about the sector, type of clients (B2B vs B2C), and type of profile you will find within it! Are you not? Again: back to the previous point :)
• When you cold call, introduce yourself and ask politely if it is a good time to talk. Be prepared to share a useful, specific, and actionable insight for your client. The insights should be tailored to your client, his product, his business model, his sector. This is where your personal preparation kicks in! 
• If a client agrees to talk, do not jump on the selling features! You are not a lion hunting in the jungle! First and foremost: listen ACTIVELY. This is your role for a good part of the call: nowadays even more.
• Did I mention listening actively? Yes, sorry for the repetition. But you are speaking with a person on the other side who is giving you the gift of their time. And actively means something: you are present, you are focusing on the information you are receiving. You do NOT already think ahead what to answer. Be mindful, be present.
• Understand for real their business model and challenges. Something is not clear? Ask! Something is not specific? Ask! Clarification questions will help you map out the context in where the person is moving
• Connect empathetically with your prospect, understand his role within the company and personality type. Who is he or she? A CMO? CEO? Head of Sales? Digital Specialist? Again, they are human…in a suit! They have a role in the company: you must speak their language and think about their goals. 
• Seek a win-win-win! In other words a solution that would reflect the best value for your company, the company you are selling to AND the person you are speaking to.
• Tap into crowd wisdom! This is another crucial point. You might be passionate and well-intended, but if you are working with a bunch of sharks you will have a miserable life. Having a bunch of smart and well-intended colleagues like you will actually empower your job. If you don't have this, then you should change the team. But this again is the subject of another topic.

Once upon a time there was a potential client....

At this point I would like to give a practical example:

A client tells you he runs small flower e-commerce in Italy. You have researched your client before initiating contact, and you know for sure he could do better by optimizing his website with a less noise customer journey to checkout and improving his website speed (currently at 5 sec). Therefore you have a specific and actionable insight.

You send him an email sharing this tip, and ask him if he is interested in talking to you. He enthusiastically agrees.

While on the phone, because you are listening, you discover their goal for the year is to expand in the South of Italy, where there is strong competition both offline and online. You also discover more about the person: you are talking to a young marketing director, who is reporting directly to the CMO. Because you value the person in front of you, you understand his main goal is to bring the best marketing results to his manager.

At this point you check the following:

• any match between the product you are offering Vs the goals explained to you
• which language conveys the best message for him, being a Marketing Director. You decide to push more on conversion metrics rather than the overall impact on sales
• You understand that he will have to report everything to his CMO. While closing the deal, you make sure to explain to him carefully all the metrics that your product is impacting so he is well equipped to answer to his manager.

Bonus Tip: If the company is large, you can get even more values from the empathetic sales!

If you empathetically connected and did all of the previous, your prospect will like and respect you: you have been honest, you have been transparent and you have helped him on the way. There is a good chance that when you ask to involve more senior stakeholders (C-levels) he will open the connection for you. Why so?

• he is a nice person as well, and value what you have been doing for him
• he sees a good partner in you. You really took your time to audit the company and he, therefore, believes you can really change things
• he now perceives you as a trusted advisor. Exactly! You are not anymore the sales guy on the phone, nor the consultant: you are somebody that earned the trust of a business. You are positioned in his mind among his top 10%, his network of trusted advisors!

Troubleshooting empathetic sales

I added this section which might be of interest to you.

Troubleshooting Empathetic sales:

• "This empathetic sales thing is stupid, and you are the last of a long series of wow-wow motivators"

The objection is legit, and why should you believe me in fact? We do not know each other and, as you said, there are a lot of people who love to write about "good vibes" just to get attention. This is fine, and I would probably think the same.

However I ask you just one thing: Pivot! Try this strategy may be on the 10% of your prospects and before saying it is not working: use it consistently. Like at the gym or in any other training, without consistency you won't get anywhere.

• "Active listening, I am really doing that but it does not get me anywhere"

Are you? I don't sometimes and I really practice Active listening for a long time. If you think about active listening cross a lot the field of mindful meditation: it is about present when somebody speaks. In other words, if your client is speaking and you are already trying to figure out in your head what to answer next: then you are not actively listening. This is fine, and it is your choice. However you cannot do two things at the same time: if you listen to yourself on what to do next in the conversation, you won't concentrate on your clients speaking. You will be passively listening and so lose a piece of valuable information.

• "If I am asking too many questions the client will get bored and will suspect I am the usual pushy sales guy"

It is about the quality of your questions indeed. If you are asking about his business I would say you are safe to go. If you are trying to understand the deeper motivation of your client and then use this knowledge later in the call against him, this might backfire. Try to wear a researcher hat: imagine you are in a PhD and you really want to study a phenomenon occurring in the world. Being a "scientist" in sales will suspend your judgment for a second and let your analytical abilities work to the best solution.

• "Researching prospects takes too much time"

True. Absolutely true. This is part of the empathy exercise. You research as you want to give an action and specific insight to your client first. However:

a) you are doing the right thing, for yourself and for the client

b) you are learning in the process. Once you put yourself in the habit of researching a company before calling while finding an actionable insight, you are educating your mind to work faster and faster. As a result, you will become quite skilled at some point in recognizing the value of each business

c) learning is not lost. Partially connected to the previous point: even if you don't open and then close a deal, you are learning new content and a new method of doing things. This is a long term investment in you!

• "I always worked with pushy sales techniques, I do not see why should I change"

You shouldn't. Nobody should tell you what to do. However bear in mind that the old way of selling created adverse effects (see the beginning of this article) which are also impacting you.

• "I just want to do my target, at whatever cost"

It depends on "at whatever cost" means. If it is at the expense of your health I would not advise so, unless you are in a very special circumstance. Besides, one thing does not exclude the other: you can sell this way and reach your targets. Actually, once you become skilled, you will actually beat your targets.

• "My manager won't allow me to sell in a different way"

This is a tricky one. A good manager would be happy to see you reach your target and your potential. If not, then it is time for a change :)