Selling shouldn’t be all that hard… come on guys, is it really that complicated? The common answer is, “Hell yes” because most salespeople forget the fundamentals of human interaction.  

Sales is really nothing more than the art of meeting, listening, engaging, and leading the right people to a win-win outcome. Which isn’t too tough to achieve, yet many salespeople are obsessed with the pursuit of the so called ‘silver sales bullet’ that will magically cut-corners and transform their sales performance and life accordingly. I’m here to inform you there is no so such thing or external force to you that will determine your ultimate success ― it’s all up to you!

You already possess all the tools, traits, and abilities you need to succeed in sales, it’s just a matter of bringing the right ones into play and focus on the right (habits) to get the right results for your customers. I believe the most powerful ability (indeed habit) in life is to demonstrate ‘empathy’ towards others. I know there are many innate abilities and learned skills such as intellect, creativity, and resilience, the list goes on, but true ‘empathy’ transcends all other qualities and brings people to a place where personal transformation and win-win outcomes are born.

Empathy, by definition; is the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. I simply define ‘empathy’ as walking in another person’s shoes. Empathy in sales helps you to develop rapport, commonality, and mutual trust. When you can honestly say to a customer, ‘Hey, I know where you’re at, I  was once in the same position’ or ‘Most of my clients have been where you are now and I understand what you are going through ― and this is how I helped them overcome the same challenges.” You can see how ‘the sell’ becomes superfluous to the simple act of having an empathetic conversation.

Case Study: I was working with a large Health & Beauty franchise last year and their biggest sales challenge was up-selling from their traditional service of hair-waxing to their new laser hair removal technology. This company had invested significantly in their new technology nationally across all stores, but were getting minimal uptake from their new and existing clients. In my consultation with them, the first thing I identified was that a very small percentage of their consultants actually used the new technology themselves. They were, in essence, asking their clients to do something they were not capable or willing to do themselves and in the process invalidating their new procedure.  One of the key reasons was the staff had to pay for the procedure and this was met with resistance.

My immediate recommendation was to offer all staff discounted and free procedures and to design a new sales conversation which simply centred on the benefits of the consultants using the technology themselves. The result: sales of the new laser procedure sky rocketed within weeks; such is the power of empathy ― it’s that simple.

Tips to create an Empathy Sales Process: 

• Become a trusted advisor by adopting an 80/20 listening to speaking ratio
• Really listen to your customers and look for the emotions hidden in their words
• Empathise with each emotion and let the other person know you know how they feel
• Go there first! Dont expect others to do what you are not willing or capable of doing yourself
• Talk is cheap, demonstrate your competence with hard evidence and relevant cases
• Have a process that starts with the customer buying-in and ends with them buying
• Resist the urge to just talk to people, instead develop meaningful conversations by asking thought provoking questions
• Align your conversations with the clients higher goals and aspirations

Every opportunity to talk with a customer is an opportunity to learn and create a unique and memorable experience that starts with them ― aligns with your value and values ― and ends with their benefits. If you desire to be a truly masterful salesperson this should be your goal with every client conversation. Even if you fall short of your goal, I guaranteed you will still be miles ahead of the majority of self-focused salespeople.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 11:37 am and is filed under Sales Culture, Sales Training, sales process. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.