Underpinning all success in life, learning, or leadership is the importance to having genuine empathy. Empathy is one of the most important skills in selling.
When looking to build a relationship with a new person or prospect, a lot of sellers try to become their friend to build rapport. This can often come across as disingenuous.
Instead of a friending strategy, we need to provide value in the conversation. Through showing value we earn the right to build the relationship.
You need to walk a mile in another person’s shoes and approach a conversation in the mindset of making it all about them, their challenges, and the opportunity to improve their results. Ask yourself ‘How do I make the other person the hero of my story, rather than myself?’.
Sales conversations are not about you, your quota, your company, product, or solution. As you seek to drive success as a seller it’s really about the other person, and you need genuine empathy for them and their role to build a bond.
Empathy is quickly becoming the meta skill that enables us to focus on the truly human elements that make a difference in the ever-evolving world of technology and artificial intelligence. This will future proof your skills and make you stand out as a salesperson that’s dedicated to improving your customers results.
To gain further insight into how to improve your sales effectiveness, work through Tony’s 5 actions in the Sales Skills Accelerator.