Jim Connolly Marketing

The power of empathy

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marketing tip, the persuasion gap, sales

Photo: Shutterstock 

How interested are you, regarding the challenges facing your prospective clients or customers? That may seem like an odd question, but your answer is spectacularly important.

Why?

Because the most effective marketing, and strongest business relationships, are all built on a foundation of empathy, aka ‘the feels’: The ability to understand and share in the feelings of another person. 

Think about it for a moment.

  • The vendors you are most loyal to, are those you feel have a connection with you.
  • The vendors you tell your friends about, are those you feel confident recommending.
  • The vendors you feel closest to, are those who understand your wants and needs, because they took time to find out.
  • And the vendors you appreciate the most, are those you feel you actually ‘know’.

Conversely, the vendors you have no interest in are those who have a mostly transactional relationship with you. These are the vendors that don’t really give a rat’s ass about you or what matters to you. Their focus is cold and based on how to maximize their yield from you.

Show your empathy through your marketing

Despite the value of demonstrating empathy and the damage caused by a transactional focus, most marketing lacks feeling. Instead we’re hit with needy messages transparently designed to milk us like a cash cow; sales pitches, killer deals, special offers and marketing gimmicks. It’s stripped of empathy, yet that human connection is the most valuable part.

Here’s the thing

Business is all about people. And marketing is about how those people feel.

That’s because our feelings are what drive the decisions we make and the actions we take. Feelings are what cause people to hire you, buy from you, recommend you and remain a loyal customer. Without those feelings there’s no connection.

And without that connection, you and your business lose.

You know that you care about your customers and the community you serve. So, don’t keep it a secret. Instead, make empathy a visible part of the way you do business and the way you market your business.

Look for empathy opportunities

Proactively look for ways to demonstrate empathy.

Yes, demonstrate!

Words have amazing power. But when you show someone, it has massively greater impact, than when you merely tell them.

Here’s a suggestion. Do a review of the way you communicate with your customers and prospective customers. Are you creating empathy? Are you building them-focused relationships? If not, put it right.

Because when you do, it will radically improve the way they feel about you. And those feelings are what drive their decisions and actions.

The false assumptions that destroy your results

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wrong assumptions, marketing, assumptions danger

Photo: Pexels

Your sales numbers aren’t adding up. You know you should be attracting more clients. But something’s clearly not working. The culprit? A good place to look is false assumptions.

When marketing campaigns fall flat or client acquisition stalls, we naturally look for tactical fixes. But the real problem often runs deeper. It’s not that your execution is wrong. It’s that your entire approach is built on faulty premises.

I’ve seen this pattern countless times. A business owner pours energy into strategies that feel logical, but rely on assumptions that simply aren’t correct.The numbers can’t add up when the foundation is flawed.

Let me show you exactly what I mean, with a common example that might sound familiar.

Failing to check the source

Small business owners are often poorly advised. If they wrongly assume the advice is correct when it’s false, and then follow the advice, they’ll lose money, waste time and miss opportunities.

The golden rule here is to always check the source of advice, before you act on it.

For example, if a sincere friend or contact gives you marketing advice, make sure they have the marketing background required. As Jim Rohn used to tell us, ‘sincerity is not a test of truth. It’s possible to be sincerely wrong!’.

Equally, before you pay for advice from a marketing provider, check them out. As you may have already discovered, there are plenty of ineffective marketing providers out there.

The easiest way to check a marketing provider out is to look at how they market their own business.

  • Effective marketing providers attract clients via referral and reputation; so people already know us and our work long before they hire us.
  • Ineffective marketing providers are unable to attract enough clients or get enough referrals. You find them at networking events hunting for clients or on Linkedin pestering people for leads. That’s a huge red flag.

Here’s another cause of false assumptions.

You don’t need more leads

Imagine the following scenario.

A small business owner urgently needs more sales or more new clients. However, they make a false assumption. They wrongly assume they need more sales leads or client leads.

Their focus is now on lead acquisition tactics, when it should be on sales acquisition tactics or client acquisition tactics. As a result, they get leads, maybe lots of leads, but too few additional sales or new clients. In short, they got what they went for, leads, but they went for the wrong thing.

For those who don’t know, in almost every case, you will attract clients or customers massively faster without spending time or money on lead acquisition or advertising. Only after direct, faster, highly profitable options have been deployed would I ever consider lead generation.

What next?

When it comes to marketing your business, make it a habit to never assume anything. Check your sources. Ask relevant questions. If you do, you will dramatically increase your chances of finally getting the results you deserve.

It’s the most valuable question in sales!

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closing the sale, closing, feedback

If you want to get really good answers, you need to ask really good questions. What I’m going to show you today is maybe the best question in sales. It’s a fantastic question you should ask when presenting to a prospective client or customer. A question that will help you massively increase your conversion rate.

Here it is. Just before you finish speaking with a new prospect, ask them the following.

“Are there any questions you would like me to have asked you?”

Usually, small business owners would ask the prospect if there’s anything else they’d like to know or if they have any questions. If the prospect was not particularly motivated to hire them or buy from them, they’ll usually just say ‘no’, as a way to wind the meeting down.

At that point, the small business owner would have lost the sale.

However, when you ask, “Are there any questions you would like me to have asked you?”, their focus shifts. And you open a door.

Prospects who were not particularly motivated to hire you or buy from you, will now use your question as an invitation to tell you what their issue is. This is especially the case if they were unhappy with something important to them, which you missed. As long as you provide a good enough answer, (which starts with you thanking them for such a great question), you’ll win that prospect over.

Obviously, this idea will work better with some prospects, some situations and in some industries, than others. 

But I have seen enough examples over the years, both personally and from clients and associates, to confirm it is extremely effective at turning a lost contract or sale into a done deal. Give it a try and see just how many additional sales you make.

Attract. Don’t sell

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Creative marketing, attraction marketing, don't sell, attract

Photo by Eva Bronzini on Pexels.com

It turns out that everybody in your marketplace has at least 2 things in common.

  1. They hate being sold to.
  2. They hate having problems.

Think about it, your business exists in order to solve a problem or a number of problems. Every business does. Therefore, business owners should be approaching prospective clients as a problem solver.

Not as an accountant, courier, retailer, IFA, designer, trainer or whatever. But as someone who can make the prospect’s life easier, less stressful, or both, by solving at least one problem for them.

This means talking to them, instead of pitching to them. It means focusing on their needs, so we get a clear understanding of their problems. Then, explaining how we can help them.

When your marketplace sees you as a source of answers, they’ll regard you as a useful asset. And that changes the whole dynamic of how you do business. You become a vastly more attractive proposition.

Why? Because we’re drawn to those who can help us. Those who can make things better for us. Those who can reduce our stress.

In short, doors that were closed to you when you were trying to sell stuff, will fly open when you approach them as a problem solver. And you’ll find people start hiring you or buying from you, without you having to sell anything.

How to make more sales, in uncertain times

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As I promised recently, here are some more ideas to help you and your business through the uncertainty of the current economy.

As things change, we need to adjust our marketing to the new wants and needs of our customers or clients. That’s what I’m focusing on today.

Plan with flexibility

Typical marketing plans run for a year and make the mistake of assuming conditions will remain roughly the same. As a result, these plans fall to pieces when faced with a period of rapid change. That’s why your marketing plan needs to have flexibility built in.

I recommend creating 90-day marketing plans, to run alongside your overall business plan. These need to be regularly reviewed and adjusted, based on real-time feedback. What’s working better than before? What are your prospects suddenly asking for? What’s no longer working as well as it used to? You get the idea.

Pay extra close attention to your customers

One of the best pieces of business advice I’ve ever received is this.

‘Your customers will show you where your market is going’.

Customers do this through their actions and their words. Here are some questions to ask yourself, so you can see where your market is going.

  • Have your customer enquiries changed recently?
  • Have your customers’ buying habits or preferences changed recently?
  • Are customers mentioning any new concerns during the sales process?
  • Is there a meaningful increase or fall in customer spending?
  • Have you noticed customers becoming more price-sensitive?
  • Are customers engaging with you differently online, perhaps interacting more through social media, direct messages, or emails?
  • Have your customers started recommending (or requesting) new products, services, or features you previously hadn’t considered?
  • Is there a noticeable increase in customers asking you for personalised or customised offerings?
  • Are there specific fears or uncertainties customers are expressing more often?
  • Have customer priorities recently changed?

Now ask yourself, are there new opportunities emerging, or new concerns emerging, which I need to take action on?

Focus on your new opportunities. Think positive

Rapidly changing conditions often cause stress or anxiety for small business owners. We need to be aware of this, and turn it around. A positive, proactive mindset helps us adapt quickly, confidently, and effectively. That’s exactly what we need right now.

So, focus on opportunities rather than obstacles.

Also, encourage yourself, and your team if you have one, to innovate. Innovating puts you in control. It immediately gives you a lift and causes you to think far more positively.

And remind yourself regularly of the challenges you’ve overcome in the past. You’ll overcome future challenges too, if you use the right approach. In fact, you may well come out of this wiser and wealthier than you were before. I saw this with 100% of my clients during the pandemic.

I hope you found this useful. If you did, share it with your friends.