“Empathy is trying on someone else’s shoes - Sympathy-wearing them” Unknown

Empathy is an emotional skill and is necessary to both understand and practice if you are going to be one of the great ones.

The best way to understand empathy is to recognize it. The following are a few example of empathy in motion.

1. “Would it be possible to get a new pair, because it’s a manufacturing fault and I need to go jogging this evening?” asked the rather unhappy customer. “I’m sorry sir, but our companies’ policy is to send off the shoes to the supplier and they will let us know what we should do with regards replacement, in about 7 to 10 days” replied the Assistant Store Manager with an apologetic tone “You know, that really doesn’t suit me” the customer replied with a mixture of frustration and anger, “ If I give you back these faulty shoes, what am I supposed to jog in?” The Assistant Store Manager answered as politely as he could, ““I’m sorry sir, but that’s our company policy, it says so at the back of your receipt. Sending off the shoes to the supplier is the best I can do I’m afraid!” “Well that just sucks” the customer said, unable to hide is irritation. “ I will be speaking to your managing Director!” he continued and stormed off in a huff Whilst there was probably not much the Assistant Store Manager could do to change the company policy, and lets also assume, for the purposes of the story that there was ABSOLUTELY no other alternative open to him. What could he have done to help diffuse the situation? He could have used empathy. The Assistant Store Manager could have acknowledged the customers feelings. Had he replied with a "I see we how frustrated you are. We have really let you down, haven’t we?" This reflecting back of the customer’s emotion, this empathy would have eased the customer’s disappointment and frustration, even if all else remained the same. Without empathy, all the Assistant Store Manager heard was the content of what the customer was saying. He never listened to his feelings of frustration and disappointment.

2. “I can tell you really want them. They really do look fabulous.” Rita fed back sincerely to the customer. “Yeh! They do look great and feel really good too; I’m just concerned about the price. Is there anything you can do for me to bring the price down a notch?” the customer replied. “I get that you’re frustrated, especially as they just fit so well” Rita put forward. “It’s hard enough trying to find something you like, and something that fit’s as well, and then to find that it’s out of your price range?” she continued, “Look I can’t promise you a discount, but what about if I go have a quick word with my manager and see what he says. If I can arrange something did you want to take them?” The customer smiled faintly and nodded appreciatively

3. “So that’s the story,” said my best friend as he finished his sad tale of woe, and trying to make light of his emotions. “But these things always happen for the best, don’t they?” “You sound quite sad about the whole thing?” I answered. “Actually you are right “he went on, “the truth is I am feeling sad, how could you tell?”

4. “It’s ridiculous to pay these prices when he would have out grown them by the end of the season” she complained. “I agree,” Eric replied, fastening the football boot on the youngsters left foot. “It does seem crazy to spend so much when as you say he will only get a season out of them. Would you rather I showed you something less expensive?” “What would the quality be like though?” asked the anxious mother. “I can appreciate your concern.” Eric answered “The quality is ok, my worry would be more around width” he continued “This young man has as you know a really wide foot and the less expensive boots will most likely be too narrow which could create blistering.” “Well I guess then we’ll just have to bite the bullet then won’t we,” the customer said patting her son’s shoulder

5. “Good morning John, how are you this morning?” I asked. “Yeh…ok …” John replied with a sigh. “You sound a bit out of sorts this morning, what’s up?” I questioned. “I’m ok” John answered, “ I just had a really rough night with the kids last night. They were all sick and Sammy is also down with the bug, so I was mom, dad, doctor, nurse and house maid till about 1 this morning” “Sounds rough, is there anything I can do to help?”

Did you find the empathy in the above scenarios? Read the quotes and explanations written below. Then re-read the above vignettes. You will then have a better understanding of empathy and it’s power as a communication and persuasion tool.

Empathy is:

“The ability to imagine oneself in anther's place and understand the other's feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. The most obvious example, perhaps, is that of the actor or singer who genuinely feels the part he is performing.” Sam Vaknin

“Empathy depends not only on one's ability to identify someone else's emotions but also on one's capacity to put oneself in the other person's place and to experience an appropriate emotional response” Charles G. Morris

“Empathy is like giving someone a Psychological Hug” Lawrence J.

Bookbinder, PhD Empathy differs from sympathy, see the table below:

Your challenge for today is to SPOT empathy in action. Learn to recognize empathy, either when you or when others are being empathetic. How is empathy done? That’s the subject for tomorrow’s session.

“To be interesting be interested” Dale Carnegie

It was Christmas Eve. It had been a long and busy day working in the store supporting the team in the final rush before closing for the holiday. I was driving home about 9 PM, tired but content with 3 weeks vacation ahead of me. In my car cassette player I had been listening to Dale Carnegie’s book on tape, “How to win friends and influence people.” The tape happened to be discussing “An easy way to become a good conversationalist.” In it the author was saying how people are 100 times more interested in themselves and their problems and wants than they are in you and your problems. In fact he even went as far as saying that “a person’s tooth-ache means more to that person than a famine which kills a million people in China!” Mr. Carnegie then went on to say that in order to be interesting we must be interested.

When I got home my wife told me that we had been invited to our next-door neighbors for “drinkies” and tree lighting. This as you may well imagine after a full-on day working on the shop floor was the last thing I felt like doing. Our neighbors were retiree’s and most of the guests that night were in the same age bracket. As I walked down the driveway heading for their house I decided to put Dale Carnegie’s principles of being a good conversationalist into effect. I decided that all I would do is just ask questions about the people I found myself with. Boy what a great evening that turned out to be. I remember speaking to one gentleman who before retiring had been an Orthopaedic surgeon. I asked him what it took to be a success in his field. Was that an eye opener? That night I spoke to a retired architect and a marine biologist amongst other interesting people. All I did once I had been introduced was ask questions. How did they come to know our neighbours? What did they do before retirement? What did it take to be successful in their field? What did they believe success was? One fascinating man told me that his greatest success had been getting his 3 daughters through their teenage years, through university and into good jobs without them falling prey to drug addiction or early pregnancy. I thoroughly enjoyed myself that night and learned a lot. The next day I was in the garden and my neighbour approached the fence and asked incredulously, “Ian, what did you say to all my friends last night?” “What do you mean?” I replied cautiously not knowing what to expect. “Well” she continued, “After you left last night every one was raving about you saying what an interesting man you were!”

Wow! What a ‘light bulb moment” what amazed me most was that other than me telling her guests my name and the name of the retail company I worked for all I did was ask them about them and their most favourite subject… themselves! So the lesson for today is - find ways to “be interested rather than interesting!”

“Since everything is but an apparition, perfect in being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may as well burst out into laughter” long Chen Pa

“I hate being pushy and I hate pushy sales people!” Oscar blurted, during one of my training sessions. “I know that when I go shopping I just want to be left alone and not bothered by sales people. My attitude is that if I want help I will ask for it “ he continued as he struggled with the whole concept of proactively approaching customers.

There are many ideas and concepts that are illustrated in this blog, tools and tactics used by the best people in retail that you too might find too “pushy” to use. Lets try to understand what is really going on here rather than simply saying, “Well I couldn’t do that!”

Over the many years that I have trained sales people I have heard this and other objections to using particular techniques many times before. The resistant feelings that Oscar and many others, myself included, have are quite normal. When confronted with anything that will take one out of one’s comfort zone, there is resistance. An internal pull back, a closing of the mind and a weakening of the heart.

It is important to understand that the “Well I couldn’t do that! “response is a natural “shut down” to extending your current comfort zone. Leaving the comfort zone, and trying something new for some people is perceived as extremely challenging and can be stressful, whereas for others leaving their comfort zone is interpreted as “adventure!” How do you perceive it?

There as no easy answers for those of you readers who struggle with this issue. Stepping out of the “Comfort zone” and into the “Learning zone” means coming to terms and having the courage to a) overcome the fear of rejection and b) being able to persist long enough until you have learned what works for you and what doesn’t. Until you have developed the skill and stretched the old Comfort zone boundary into a new comfort zone. By the way stretch your wings gently at first until you’ve increased in confidence

A) Overcoming the fear of rejection

Selling means that you have to be able to take rejection on the chin and still maintain a positive attitude, this is a lot easier said than done. If handling rejection was simply an intellectual exercise, you could be rallied with a simple pep talk.

Even though intellectually you know that it is not you that is being rejected, but the product, you still take the “No” personally. You still take the no to heart. Dealing with rejection is both a matter of understanding how to deal with it mentally, as well as conquering the fear emotionally.

“No!” was one of the first words we ever learned. For many of us the word “No!” was followed by pain, either physical or emotional or both, and over the years we have linked up that no means pain.

There is another strong negative association that many of us have been taught during our formative years growing up around the N word. The majority of you reading this blog were most likely not bought up in a home where everything you asked for you received. This means that, like most kids, you asked Mum and Dad for many things and were told “No!” you can’t have them. Over time we learned that asking for what we wanted meant “No!” so we stopped asking, thereby avoiding hearing the N word and reinforcing the connection between no and rejection.

The key to understanding intellectually how to overcome the fear of rejection in the selling is to begin to remove the connection between “No” and our feeling rejected. In speaking with many successful sales professionals over the years, what is apparent is that they have developed a number of mental strategies to the “N” word. One of the most powerful is that, they have disconnected their expectation of how things should be, from the result.

A Zen proverb puts it this way, “Without treasured expectations there can be no burglary”. Author Iyanla Van Zandt has this to say about expectation,” Doubt is bred in the mental state of attachment to an emotional investment in the outcome” Think about it. Why do we get upset when we don’t hear what we want to hear (and in selling we want to hear “Yes!”)? Why do we get disappointed when we get turned down? It’s because we have built an attachment to the outcome or expected result. In selling this means that we want to make a sale to make our sales quota, or win a competition or, in some cases, even hold onto our job. It is this very same attachment to outcome that creates the emotional stress when our offer is rejected. Over time the negative emotion builds and pretty soon it is the fear that is in control. So the first strategy to conquering the fear of rejection is to let go of any expectations that you have about the customer and the potential sale you may or may not make. Focus on that which you can control, not that which you can’t. You can only control the asking not the response!

Here are 7 golden nuggets to guide you when the going gets tough

1. Don't Quit When things go wrong, as they sometimes will; When the road you're trudging seems all-uphill; When the funds are low, and the debts are high And you want to smile, but have to sigh; When care is pressing you down a bit- Rest if you must, but do not quit. Success is failure turned inside out; The silver tint of the clouds of doubt; And you can never tell how close you are It may be near when it seems so far; So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit- It's when things go wrong that you must not quit. Author Unknown

2. If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time. -Chinese Proverb

3. Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And, years later tell how they stood for hours in the cold rain just to catch a glimpse of the one who taught them to hold on a second longer. I believe there's a hero in all of us who keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams. http://www.quoteland.com/author.asp?AUTHOR_ID=1092   Spider-Man 2  

4. If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them: 'Hold on!'" -Rudyard Kipling http://www.quoteland.com/tellafriend/index.asp?QUOTE_ID=1095

5. "Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit." http://www.quoteland.com/tellafriend/index.asp?QUOTE_ID=2206 Napoleon Hill

6. “Life is like riding a bicycle. You don't fall off unless you stop pedalling” -Claude Pepper

7. The only time one runs out of chances is when one quits taking them - Chicago Hope

“Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory” Richard Whately

Would you like to know why?

Would you like to know why we are so confident that the techniques in this book will work for your business, that we offer an unconditional money back guarantee? That got your attention didn’t it? You just had your curiosity stirred... You have just been exposed to another one of the many selling strategies and techniques that fill this blog.

The question “Would you like to know why…” is one of the most versatile and powerful sales methodologies that you as retail sales professional can use to increase yours sales. “Would you like to know why…”, employs curiosity as leverage to gain the customers attention, generate interest in what you have to say and it is also a very effective technique to deal with objections.

The dictionary describes “curiosity” as a desire or inquisitiveness to know more. Don’t we wish our customers would have the desire or inquisitiveness to know more about what we sell, instead of just looking at the price label and using that as their basis for judging value?

“Dad” my youngest son excitedly asked me a few weeks ago on picking him up from school, “I bet you I know what you are going to say next?” Like a million other parents who had heard this age-old quip, I responded “What?” “See I told you I’d know” he said with glee. The fact is that my son was using a very powerful selling technique when he asked me that age-old gag. He was applying the power of curiosity.

Let me show you how this works. What is the very next line that comes out your mouth when faced with the question “Do you know what?” “What?” is your most likely response? By responding with “What?” you have given me the right to tell you all about ‘the what” and “the why”. This is the power of generating curiosity. Now think of this powerful question being used to sell on the shop floor.

Consider the following examples of powerful interest building questions.

• “Would you like to know why those jeans are the price they are?”
• “Would you like to know why that particular matress has been endorsed by both the Chiropractic and Osteopathic community as their first choice?” 
• “Would you like to know why XYZ Magazine has rated that…xyz as the fastest abcd…made to-date?” 
• “Would you like to know how you can afford the complete package?”
• “Would you like to know how using that …….you could save yourself over $5000 
• “Would you like to know why those XYZ have a lifetime guarantee?” 
• Would you like to know why we at XYZ Company offer a 6-month unconditional money back guarantee on those ABC’s?

Advertising agencies have been using this powerful engaging strategy for years to hook us into finding out more.

Look at some of these attention-grabbing headlines below: 

• "If the unexpected happened to your computer data today... Would it still be "business as usual" tomorrow? 
• "Do you qualify for an all expenses paid week-long ski vacation with 5 of your best friends?” 
• "Would you like to know why doctors are astounded by the possibility of flaxseed to fight cancer?" 
• Would you like to know at least 3 reasons why you should purchase Osbam 5885 before May? 
• Would you like to know why we will guarantee to help you complete projects on time, on budget and on target?" 
• Would you like $5000 dollars worth of diamond jewellery for less than $300? 
• Would you like to know why customers are buying the Alpha brand, even though it’s a little more expensive?

Would you like to avoid hearing the dreaded words “I want to think it over!” ever again? You see I did it again, I hooked your attention. From now on use a powerful “Would you like to know why?” question to grab your customers attention. Try it and you’ll be amazed, only promise not to laugh when the respond the way you want them to.