The Selling Power of Empathy

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The art of selling has changed dramatically in the last 50 years. Personal door-to-door and “press-the-flesh” selling made it easy to identify good salespeople. The metrics were quite simple: those who sold the most were the best. 

 

Today, the new yardsticks for success take into account one’s ability to fully exploit smartphones, social networks, and other emerging technologies of human contact. But these are merely tools. What companies look for are how these tools are used to drive the sale and make the customer truly embrace a product and the company behind it.  

 

One trait today’s companies look for in their salesforce is the ability to empathize with a customer. These salespeople drill down to a customer’s needs. They ask the question: why does this customer need our product or service? They go out of their way to match needs with benefits. Customers appreciate this so much so that they’re willing to do business with that salesperson on a continuing basis. For these customers, it’s more than one sale. It’s, “What else can I buy from this company via this salesperson?” 
 
In Apple’s Genius Training Student Workbook, "empathy" is repeated endlessly and prospective geniuses are encouraged to "walk a mile in someone else's shoes." Apple's two-week, strictly regimented, tightly scheduled training program includes a major section on the "Power of Empathy." A key part of a Genius’ job is to make the customer happy. This simple truth is underscored by the following Apple maxims: "We guide every interaction," "We strive to inspire," "We enrich their lives," "We take personal initiative to make it right." In fact, sales are actually less important than establishing a good vibe with the customer. The entire workbook is built around empathizing, consoling, cheering up, and addressing a variety of Genius Bar confrontations.
 
New research by Case Western Reserve University reveals the selling power of empathy (see also the abstract).

When the brain allows an individual to empathize, it suppresses the neural network used for analysis, reducing the ability to appreciate the cost of one’s actions. In a normal healthy adult, the brain alternates between the social and analytical neural networks, ultimately choosing the appropriate neural pathway. The study basically says that humans can’t be both empathetic and analytic at the same time.

 

"This is the cognitive structure we've evolved," said Anthony Jack, an assistant professor of cognitive science at Case Western Reserve who lead authored the new study. "Empathetic and analytic thinking are, at least to some extent, mutually exclusive in the brain."

Perhaps nothing so eloquently capsulizes the importance of empathy in the art of selling as novelist, educator, Maya Angelou, who said, "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Image courtesy of Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot/FreeDigitalPhotos.net


 

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  • ALIREZA M
    ALIREZA M
    I believe the best selling point is to make sure first you have the knowledge of the product that you are selling because the knowledge is the power. Second you should love the product you are selling (Means you should use it your self too)).Third you should believe on the product you sell means you are selling your self.Forth Sleep and Wake-up with the product you are selling.
  •  Tamar D
    Tamar D
    This is so good. Thank you Alex. I especially  like the way you end your article with the Maya Angelou quote.
  • David S
    David S
    I agree with your article wholeheartledly. I have over 20 years of Sales experience in different arenas. The greatest lesson I've learned is: Customers/people don't buy from Sales People because they know their product. They purchase because the Salesperson listened and understood their specific needs.
  • Alex Kecskes
    Alex Kecskes
    Thanks for all your kind comments. LaSonya: I can't say for sure but it would certainly seem so.  Zig Ziglar's most famous quote,Stop Selling – Start Helping' certainly dovetails with Apple's selling empathy.   
  • Cameron J
    Cameron J
    Great article!!!!
  • Holly C
    Holly C
    This was a very good article.  Good info in my competitive marketplace
  • Genevieve B
    Genevieve B
    Wow! I always sell and think that way. I always make peoples feel that there are the # 1 and I will give them what they want. Empathy is my natural personality. I consider myself as a genius. Thank you for the article. I like it very much for one simple reason is that I see myself that way.
  • Audrey S
    Audrey S
    great article very true
  • Severia D
    Severia D
    So true! As a former employee at a retail chain store we were coached on meeting the needs of the customer by establishing a rapport with the customer on any product whether it be a book, educational toy or multimedia device so that we could emphasize the correct benefit of the item to the end user. Very insightful article bringing in current research to help support and implement the concept.
  • Dean P
    Dean P
    I have always believed the customers needs is the key to any sale. If you listen and give the customer what they want it will end up in a sale.
  • LaSonya T
    LaSonya T
    Alex, thanks for posting.  Is Apple Empathy Selling a repackaging of what Zig Ziglar championed?
  • Eileen P
    Eileen P
    I enjoyed this article immensely AND it is true!  I have been in medical sales for 25 years and I consistently find that even cold hearted medical professionals are impacted when I show empathy to them, the current healthcare crisis and the patients' disease processes.  Thanks for a great article!  I am passing it on to my colleagues!
  • Jennifer M
    Jennifer M
    Its about time someone wrote about this important topic.  It is right on target.  I took a course on how to handle difficult and demanding customers.  Within the course a good amount of time was spent on this very subject.  Thanks for the article and I will be passing it along.
  • Peter D
    Peter D
    Nice

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