One of the most critical components of success for any
professional is the ability to concisely communicate a sales message, and break
through the clutter. WE ARE ALL SALESMAN; – don’t believe me? Try converting the
guest bedroom into a ‘man cave’
before getting a verbal confirmation from your wife, or explaining to the Chief
Financial Officer why SEO deserves to have $1 million allocated in next year’s
budget to drive organic site visitors.
We are always selling; however, some of us do it better than others – so
my mission has been to find simple tactics that can help anyone at all levels sell more efficiently.
This blog will continually reference a movement that I am
working to develop called empathic selling. A simple
definition is to deliver your message with empathy, and refine your ability to
truly present as if you were listening from the other side of the
conversation. In theory it seems
simplistic, and it is, that’s why it works.
However, there are elements to this process that I have learned and
compiled by reading mavens in their respective industries to build a model that
can work for anyone in any industry.
Topics such as emotional intelligence, active listening, neuromarketing, storytelling, and irrational exuberance intersect at a
crossroads that I define as empathic selling.
The first practical topic that I will focus on will be concise
message delivery. In a fantastic book
called Neuromarketing: Understanding the
"Buy Button" in Your Customer's Brain by Patrick Renvoise, the
author introduces a methodology of how to deliver a targeted message to the primitive
brain by focusing on simplistic messaging.
While I would certainly recommend the book to understand the evolution of
the brain and why this works; I want to share a tactic that I have successfully executed from the
book that has enhanced my message delivery and influence.
A simple methodology that can be utilized to organize your ‘sales
pitch’ in any environment is as follows:
- Identify the pain
- Differentiate your claim
- Demonstrate your gain
Regardless of your industry, there always exists a pain that
needs to be alleviated – the better you understand that pain, the more effective
your message. Where empathic selling aids
in this process is helping to identify more than just the pain of an industry
or macroeconomic situation, it is approaching your client as a consultant, and
understanding their personal success metrics.
For example, a pain for a major retailer may be to support a new store
opening; however, the individual marketing manager you are talking to may be evaluating
solutions to exceed a previously defined company benchmark or return on investment goal in order to look like a ‘Rock-star’ internally. While the two events
are not mutually exclusive, they do help tailor your message to assist in the
differentiation of your claim.
Utilizing this methodology over the past five years of
communicating to fortune 500 clients, I have consistently achieved a response
rate of over 71% in my e-mail marketing/sales prospecting by structuring my
message according to process above. In
future posts, I will share how other elements of empathic selling help to
define this process regardless of what you are selling.
In conclusion, successful selling begins when you stop
selling. Success is positioning a
message with empathy while demonstrating a unique gain relative to the pain the
customer is experiencing. This is one of
the first books that I read and it has dramatically helped me in my career of
communicating to C-level Executives internally as well as externally. As your wingman, I hope you find similar
success and fortune.
The next blog will take a deeper dive into tactics to help “identify
the pain” so that your first impression can be very impactful and immediately
captivate attention.
Book Recommendation of the week: http://www.amazon.com/Neuromarketing-Understanding-Button-Customers-Brain/dp/1595551352
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