Empathy Is Key to Success

With the challenges of a slowly growing economy, salespeople in the printing industry are under increased pressure to sell more work - and at better margins. Increased sales performance pressures can. and often do, rush salespeople through the sales process, causing mistakes to be made. In haste, they fail to fully plan for the sales call and how best to approach their prospect or customer visit.

One area that is often overlooked by sales reps is considering how the purchaser will perceive or feel about die sales visit: feeling empathy. But is it even possible for salespeople to feel empathy for their customers when their own burden is so great? Yes. it is. and it's essential to sales success.

But what docs empathy mean? Webster's definition is "the capacity to understand or fed what another person is experiencing from within the other being's frame of reference, i.c., the capacity to place oneself in another's position."

Sales trainers touch on the idea ol empathy, but somewhat miss the mark. Their message for sales success is to be a good listener, to find client issues and to offer solutions ... in other words, consultative selling. 1 agree that these stills are very important, but they are not at the core of long-term sales success. Empathy is.

To achieve lasting success, sales professionals must understand and feel what their client is experiencing. They must adapt quickly to their customer's changing Iramé of reference. And. since no buyer or sales situation is ever the same, salespeople need to focus on the skill of feeling empathy.

Empathy comes naturally to some people, but for others it requires more attention and thought. This doesn't mean diat...