Empathy

Just over a month ago I attended the phenomenal 99% conference in New York. My good friend Chad, who is the Senior Vice President of Social Innovation at Weber Shandwick, one of the largest public relations and communication companies in the world (and he is just 34 years old), offered me his couch to crash on while I was there.  He's an awesome guy.  In addition to being a flat out cool cat he's very, very smart and loves talking about leading edge ideas, what's next, how to use these ideas to do good in the world, etc.  So I always, always love the opportunity to hang out and chat with him.

So on one of the nights, while hangin' at his downtown Brooklyn apartment, we were in one of our 'sessions' about where the world was going and why.  He mentioned that earlier in the week he was in a meeting with Bill Drayton (the founder of Ashoka - probably the most successful Social Entrepreneurship organizations in the world). In this meeting Chad tells me that Bill  states that the skill/expertise of the future  (across all industries) will be the ability to be empathic. Now in my head, seeing him in the world of social entrepreneurship, that makes sense.  Now my question was what does that have to do with the private sector world of profit margins, revenue streams, marketing strategies,  and sales?

Fast forward to May 31, 2009. 

Just this past Sunday morning I had the phenomenal opportunity to attend a team sales meeting of one of the most innovative companies in the world. They were discussing successes over the past quarter and where the team (and the company) were headed in the next year.  In order to grow and continue to administer the type of service that had positioned them as a leading company in the world they needed to re-focus on their sales strategy and really make it much more effective. Now with anyone who has done sales or has been in a position where they must "close a deal" you know how difficult it is to ask for people to 'hand over' their money to you. This was one of the key issues during the meeting. One of the seasoned team members then chimed in with a very insightful response.  He said when asking for the sale, it's not about selling at any cost, (that's the job of car salesmen - last century's marketing/sales approach) it's about empathy and stepping out of your world and stepping into your customer's. They are there because they want/need what you are offering.  It's up to you to see the world from their eye's and position your product or service as  something of value to them, from their perspective.

At this point you are not 'taking' your customer's/client's money - you are empathizing with them (because you feel and understand their pain) and saying "I will provide you with a solution to your problems."

Now Bill Drayton's comment on empathy makes complete sense to me now. I get it.