586: Empathy: The Missing Piece in Your Sales Puzzle

Brian Nichols  0:00  
Instead of focusing on winning arguments, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Well, happy Friday their phones, Brian Nichols, here on The Brian Nichols Show. And thank you for joining us on of course, another fun filled episode. I am as always, your humble host. And today, it's you and me a one on one for a Friday episode, why not? I thought it would be actually a great time to talk about, frankly, some real life examples of in this case, where I had been doing some sales stuff, and have had some some success stories. And I want to share that with you. Because I think there's something to learn in this one success story I had. And that is the understanding. And this is something we've talked about in the past, with our friend, Jeremy Todd, who by the way, sale celebrity is starting up here in a couple of weeks. So for those of you folks who were interested, yes, it is coming back, I promise. I promised you what season two is right around the corner. So make sure you hit subscribe there. But no, we talked about empathy in the past the importance of that. So yeah, I'm going to talk about empathy. In one specific example I've had for a sales, a sales cycle I've been working on for a deal. And it's quite wild of a story. So yeah, before we get there, though, I'll go ahead and give a shout out to today's sponsor, and that sponsor is going to give you an opportunity to jump headfirst into the liberty movement and make a real impact as Young Americans for Liberty and they are currently recruiting campaign field staff to help elect pro Liberty candidates across the country. As part of Operation win at the door. These principal candidates are dedicated to fighting for gun rights, keeping our troops home, parental rights and education, criminal justice reform, ending our central spending and many other winning Liberty policies. And when I say winning, I mean it. Their work speaks for itself. These are the guys and gals that pass constitutional carry in Indiana, Texas, and Alabama, fought the lock downs every step of the way, all while helping make Liberty win. So you want to help make a difference and get Liberty kids elected across the country. If you want to be a part of the fight and actually make an impact in our insane political climate here in 2022, you can join one of these campaigns now through November 8, gas covered housing fully provided and you'll be compensated a total of 20 $100 a month for your work on the campaign trail. Interested in head the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash y al to apply and make a real change in this country today. That's Brian Nichols. show.com, forward slash y al one more time, the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash y al let's make Liberty win. Alright, let's talk about this. This crazy story. So I was working on this one opportunity. And this this bank deal I've been working on now for oh my goodness, let's see, May, June, July, August, September, so five months. And it has been a actually it's probably longer than that. And so the first actual like booking the appointment was a nine months actually, at this point in total. I actually booked the appointment back in January. And long story short, but this opportunity was was a deal where the bank was moving their legacy phone solution to a newer solution. And they were looking for one that was going to be a good fit.

Long story short, was able to help them not only find a different phone provider that was gonna be a good fit for what they were looking to grow to. But it also helped solve a lot of the problems and pain points that they had been experiencing as a bank, especially with customer service issues and also integrating with their CRM. So everything looked great. And back in I think it was June. We basically got a verbal, yes. Hey, this looks great. We're ready to move forward. And you know, we were ready to pop the champagne. And then all sudden, when the time came that we thought, you know, hey, we can get this over the finish line, you know, no, it didn't quite get there. No worries, get to the end of July, things were looking great actually got the verbal, and then the paperwork never got submitted. And we didn't know why and then couldn't get the prospect on the phone. And then you know, long story short, all of a sudden, a couple of weeks later, we get the guy on the phone and doesn't really seem to be himself and long, long and short of it. And this is something that ended up kind of coming to a head over the past few weeks was that found out not only does this guy that we've been working with who his role, he's the head of the entire IT department is the CIO. This guy, his his mom, for the past seven years, has been battling cancer. And he and his siblings have been helping help, you know, deal with her declining health. And he's multiple states away from where his his family resides. So for him to go out and to be of help for his family. It takes him Going out and you know, several trips a month to go to help his mom. So. So over the past few months, I noticed that Bob who is the CIO here, the Bob, like, not only was he not responding to my emails, but I was getting really nervous cuz I hadn't heard anything. So finally, I shoot an email. Hey, Tony, you're on the same page, Bob, you know, I don't I don't want to be, you know, that sales guy. Nobody wants to be that sales guy. And ends up no response until I get a phone call from him out of the blue about a week later. And, you know, if you know how, when you in your your heart of hearts is know, something's wrong. Like something's off. He called me and I heard his voice. I could tell. Yeah, he wasn't his normal chipper self, I say, Hey, Bob, you know, how's it going, trying to just start the conversation again. And he goes, Hey, I just want to start off by apologizing. So what ended up happening was, his mom, who again is the lady who has had cancer now for the past seven years, also has issues with her heart, and she ended up having a stroke. And not only did she have a stroke, but she had that stroke, while she was driving. So while she was pulling out of the pharmacy, she ended up slamming into the side of an 18 Wheeler. Now, thank God when she did so hit the side of the truck, not her in front of the truck. But still an 80, some odd year old lady hitting the site of an 18 Wheeler, while having a stroke, definitely not the best of situations, and it didn't look good. And it and his mom, you know, he went out to visit his mom was out there for a number of weeks. And you know, all sudden, it just kind of hit me like, yeah, this. This is why empathy is so important because, and I will also tell another side story to this. But empathy is important, because it's important for you to understand that there is a human on the other side of every engagement interaction that you're having. Whether it's in politics, in business, in sales, when you're speaking to your prospect, or in this case, the decision maker, it's a person, right, and then we forget this, we're not selling to the bank, we're not selling to the manufacturing company, we're not selling to the voting bloc, we're selling to a person, we're talking to a person, we're building a real authentic relationship, and it requires you to treat them like they're real people. And, and to be able to enter into that more human relationship with Bob was was so it was so important for us, because then moving forward, I knew okay, this is a thing that's going to be happening, probably more consistently. So as we got towards the end of the finish line. We were supposed to have this paperwork back about a week or so ago, two weeks ago at this point speaking today, right. And we so the way my company works is we work with some some providers who will come in as the vendors to help provide these services. So in this case, the the provider we brought in for the phone solution, the original sales guy I've been working with, actually is now working for my, my actual company, he left them to join us because we're awesome. But the guy who took over Well, that didn't take over, he took over as a replacement for the replacement in the intermodal replacement I think is getting married. So this guy I've been working with he calls me and he's like, I gotta pick this guy. And I say no, no, no, no, no, don't do not ping him and under any circumstances he actually let us know that his mom was not doing well and then you know he was out there working on this you know with his family we cannot ping him okay, no worries so then we fast forward and a couple couple weeks later, I guess a week later at this point then we get a phone call. Hey, I'm ready to go let's go actually wasn't a phone call isn't an email. This is actually on Wednesday. I'm ready to go I'm actually if we could meet tomorrow, you know, can we do that? Sure thing in the world of wine there are so many choices and that's why blood of tyrants wine has tyrants losing their heads whether you're looking for a new go to that home or watching the press your friends at a party blood of tyrants wine has you covered and if you're trying to get rid of some pesky parents in your life, well, we've got that covered too and the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash wine and get $5 off your order one more time Brian Nichols show.com forward slash wine freemen don't ask permission so take a sip you'll be glad you did. Hop in Macomb

coming to find out you know his mom, you know, she was in declining health. It seemed to had stabilized but you know, still was just a thing that was constant as a issue that he was dealing with with his family. And in that call, we had great call, said, Hey, you know, everything looks good. We're ready to move forward, we're actually going to have things launch here as we get towards December. So, you know, we're ready to move forward. And in that, you know, we're saying, okay, great. I just want to you know, timeline for paperwork actually know what we're getting assigned today. Oh, all right, rock'n'roll. We're getting assigned today's like, Yep, we're gonna go ahead and bring us over to the finance, we're gonna get this signed off so we can get things moving, guys, great. We're ready to roll and and then get an email. And in that email, one other guy who's on the team, the bank, he says, hey, just wanna give you a heads up, Baba, Bob's Mom took a turn for the worst. And he had to go, he had to go be with her and be at the family. And he'll be checking his email and stuff. You know, throughout the time that we're, you know, he's he's out there, but just want to make sure you guys know like, he's not ignoring you. I was like, Oh, my gosh, that's terrible. Yeah, of course, from a human element. That's, that's awful. It's a guy, who's, you know, his mom, it's mom. And I had my my other guy there. The the other rep. He, he messaged me, and he's like, Hey, how should I email him tonight? I was like, Absolutely not. Absolutely not. We do not email him tonight. He will. He'll he will respond to us, I promise. And well, this morning, and what do we have in our inbox, we had the completed paperwork for for the moving forward. So yes, folks, empathy is, is super important in sales, because you never know what the person that you're speaking with is experiencing what they're facing. And there's real people that we're working with. And at the end of the day, real people just like us are looking for people to understand them to empathize with them to feel the pain that they're feeling. And in this case, it's quite literally a pain beyond even business. In his case, it's a personal pain. And it's something that, you know, I think we have as sales professionals, and I'm speaking now, to sales professionals, we have to get better at there is a very negative perception of the idea of a person being a sales professional. Reason being isn't necessarily just because of the old used car salesman, stereotype. But also with that the idea of pushing things that the person you're speaking to, doesn't need. And with that, not understanding the person that you're speaking to, and where they're at, meet them where they're at some may say, because if you're not entering into the conversation that your prospect is already having, then you're speaking white noise. You have to be the one who's addressing the common concerns, the questions that they're asking the things that they're raising up as their main issues. What can you do to enter into those conversations, they're having to meet them, where they're at on those issues that they care about? And with that be able to effectively move them from one position to a better future state? That's the challenge. Is it easy? Absolutely not. But it's a lot easier when you do so through the lens of empathy, by understanding not just the buyer persona, who the person is, who your ideal customer persona is, and what makes up them, but truly understand your customer. From an empathetic standpoint of what moves them what's driving them, the person, not just the CIO, not just the technology leader, Bob, the person whose mom has had cancer for seven years, and who has has gotten into a terrible car accident, who had a stroke, and now is in declining health. What does that person need? Anytime they need space, they need to be able to deal with the things that at the end of the day, truly matter family first, always. So in being able to effectively address empathy, in the way that we approach sales, we will instantly find and inherently see that not only will our sales be more easy, but they will be more effective and long lasting.

If you're joining the show, and you're traditionally listening as a political listener, how does this apply to you? Because you don't want to make the sale to somebody multiple times over as a non recurring buyer. You want that person to instantly know that yes, this organization, let's say you're a libertarian, right? You want them to associate positive feelings with you in understanding who they are. That requires you meeting them where they're at. Now, yes, once we do that, then we can bring them to different areas, but it requires us to meet them first. So I say all that, folks, it's a Friday. And I just want us to, you know, at the very least take away from this episode, but also, I'd say across the board, you know, this is something I think has been lacking in our civil discourse today is the understanding of empathy. We have to treat others the way we want to be treated. The don't hurt people don't take people's stuff mentality only works, when we in turn are treating others the way that we also would want to be treated the to go hand in hand. So let's be the example. Let's lead by example. And with that lead with empathy. So folks, if you enjoyed today's episode number one, I'm going to ask you to go ahead and do me a favor, give it a share. When you do, please go ahead and tag yours truly at B nickels liberty. Also, if you enjoyed today's episode will do me a favor and head over to the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash reviews, give us a five star rating and review. I absolutely appreciate it as do the 10s of 1000s of other listeners who have gone through and joined us here in The Brian Nichols Show audience over the past four and a half years now. And we've been able to reach quite literally hundreds of 1000s of people as we've been able to grow not just our audience, but also to go on other audiences like Matt Kibby, over at free the people over on Tim Poole, in his network, just amazing opportunities that we've had here to reach more people to effectively help sell liberty. And by the way, that is a labor of love. So if you want to help support the cause, I would greatly appreciate it had the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash support, you can either become one of our super fans where over on Patreon $5 a month, you will get monthly q&a with yours truly any questions you have, whether it's sales, marketing, business, politics, come on over room for all $5 a month, that will get you access to our superfan level. 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