Empathy in Sales: Real or Fake?

There is a magical moment in a sales call, whether it be in person or by phone, and while it is incredibly rewarding, most sales conversations don't contain it.

Why?

No empathy.

"Even when it's written into the script?", you ask. Yes, perhaps even more so.

Let me explain.

NOT Empathy:

Prospect: "Yeah, we've tried your solution twice. Both times the company didn't do what they promised and my employees hated it."

Salesperson: "I totally get it, John, that's why we...."

That's not empathy.

Even "Wow John, that sounds really tough. Seems like that would waste a lot of time and money" still isn't true empathy, although this is FAR better than the first answer.

The biggest mistake we make in sales is mentally moving to the next question or next answer too quickly. We'll ask a question or pose a situation like, "I feel like a lot of my customers experience ABC", then we move directly to the next part of our equation "...and that’s why at 1 2 3 remodeling/hvac company we created this process, can you see how that solves your problem?"

The problem?

We never got buy-in from the Prospect that they had this problem or that exactly this scenario was going on, so the Prospect feels talked at.?

Now, before I add in my definition, let's agree to this:

Empathy is not a formula; it's not something that can be scripted. You must actually care about your prospect. If you don't, the words you say won't matter, because they will eventually see through your words into what you actually feel. You just can't fake empathy for very long.

Let's get back to the answer, or at least, MY answer:

Take yourself back to that conversation. We've all had this moment.

"Wow John, so you're saying you've remodeled your home TWICE and didn't get what you wanted? You've already tried to solve this problem twice, and both times ended badly?"

Pause.

Let that idea breathe.

Instead of trying to rush to what you think your value proposition is, make this your first value proposition: that you GET it.

You're willing to hear where your prospect is coming from, and how painful it is to lay out money, or put their name behind a solution within their company, only to have it fail.

Next, don't try to say you understand something that you don't.

Far better to say "Wow, I have no idea what that must be like, bc I've never been in your position, but it seems like that would feel..." insert emotion here.

If you do this, and mean it, you should get a response something like "yeah, and that's not even half of it...". The prospect will then open up even more about what they experienced.

Remember that magical moment I promised at the beginning? It's about to show up.

After your prospect feels heard and understood, the law of reciprocity kicks in (Sun Tzu), and they want to give you something back. You gave to them, how can they return the favor?

To at least hear you out.

"So what's so different about your solution?" "OK, I'll give you 5 minutes" These are different versions of that same idea.

But even this isn't the magical moment.

To get there, you have to be a truly professional sales person. You have to understand your product, your competition, and your prospect well enough to know that they probably bought "The Other Guys", why they bought, and probably know why it failed. Bonus if you know a ballpark of what it cost them.

After they ask you to share, you give a quick pitch with value differentiators tailored to the answers in the paragraph above, then ask something like, "so let me ask you this.." (pause) "...if I was able to roll out this program, even though you've tried this before, if I could do it without that huge upfront fee you told me about, would that be a bad idea?" (stealing straight from Chris Voss here)

DO. NOT. SPEAK.

This is the first time you're asking them to consider coming over to your side of the fence and check out the greener grass.

You're not looking for a sale at this point, just the first step in trusting you.

I'll cover what to do if you get a "yes, bad idea" in another post.

Let's say this prospect said, "no, that's not a bad idea, I'd be willing to see what you've got". Now you rush to set the appointment, right?

No.

"Okay" you say, pause, "I definitely want to set up the demonstration where I'll be able to walk you through more detail, but I need to understand a little more about you and your process before taking that step". The simple idea that you want to learn more about them is basic in Empathy. That's why you can't fake it. You might be able to snow me and convince me you care for a few minutes, but once you rush me to a decision, I see through it.

This is not where you rush, this is where you ask your power questions. These are the deep questions. Here's an example:

"Sarah, why do you think your employees didn't adapt the last software solution you deployed? What I see is usually one of 2 things: either it's a lack of training or just far too complicated, but you know your business and your people far better than I do; is it one of those 2?"

Here's where the magical moment arrives.

When you've done your homework, and you know that these problems exist under the surface, and you've done the hard work to hone your question really well, you'll get an answer something like this:

Pause, "I should probably know the answer/have a better answer to that question"

pause, "That’s a really good question"

"You’re exactly right, that’s exactly what I’m experiencing"

Why is this magical?

They are now thinking about what you've helped them think about. This is no longer a question of "why is this woman calling me, and how much time is it going to take to get her off the phone?"; rather, it's a situation. You've helped them. Even if all you did was offer a better question, or a different approach, you helped them.

That's the magic of sales, and the power of empathy.

You heard them, then asked a question that made their process better. Like Pat Flynn says, "If you want to change someone's life, change their day".