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Dennis Collins: Hello again and welcome back to Connect & Convert, your sales accelerator podcast where small business owners pick up insider tips on how to grow their business faster than ever.

And one of the fastest-growing people in our podcast is my partner, Leah. Say hello, Leah.

Leah Bumphrey: Hey, how are you doing, Dennis? It’s good to see you again.

Dennis Collins: It’s good to see you as always. You keep coming back. I guess I haven’t chased you away.

Leah Bumphrey: Hi. I love our conversations. I always learn so much and it just gets me pumped for the rest of my day.

Dennis Collins: Thanks. I enjoy having you. You always present a great perspective. So today will be no different. Today I want to talk about something that if anyone has ever been in sales, it’s been beat into your head, right? I mean, with a hammer and a nail. Empathy. Empathy. Empathy. Empathy is the key.

Let’s take a look at that. Let me tell you a story first of all.

I’ve been privileged. I’ve been honored to train a lot of salespeople over the years. And hopefully I’ve done a pretty good job. One thing I noticed is there are different levels of empathy. Today I want to talk about those who are highly empathic, okay?

On the high empathy scale. There’s a lot of those people. They’re really nice people. They’re easy to talk to. They’re easy to know. And in sales, they make rapport look like nothing, okay? So rapport is second nature to them. But let me tell you something that I found.

There’s one problem. A lot of the people that they made contact with and had sales conversations with never bought anything. But they have testimonials, emails, cards, “Oh, I love Joe Blow. He’s the best salesperson I’ve ever had. I really like him.” And they have all these written testimonials, but they never buy.

Isn’t that odd, Leah?

Leah Bumphrey: It’s interesting. But you know what? As soon as you say empathetic, I’m a nerd in my own right, Dennis. And I go with, okay, in books, in movies, in TV shows, the empathetic character, that person, you know, that’s often taken to the extreme. And my mind goes to science fiction.

Think on Star Trek, they have the empath where they can sense things that’s helping the person who is in charge. It’s helping the captain. But the empath is the one who has all those connections that are made. They’re not closing the deal. They’re not making those decisions.

But it’s a powerful place of energy to come from. And man, as a salesperson, we all want to have that. I want to have those connections with my customers. I want them to like me. I want to be able to know what they’re feeling. Where are we going with this and phrase the conversations.

So it’s an interesting character trait.

Dennis Collins: It is, but I propose empathy is a double edged sword. Let me tell you how I feel about that and see what you think. So when does empathy work well on a sales conversation? I think we all agree. If you have a total non-empathetic person, they’re not going to make too many sales because that would say they’re totally concerned only about themselves.

So when does empathy work? How about the opening of the sale? The building of rapport and the listening. You can’t do too much listening. Those are the marks of a very empathic person. Making the customer feel important. Creating custom personalized solutions.

Empathy serves us well there. Understanding their feelings. Making a connection. But as I often do in these podcasts, get ready for a nerd alert.

There is a scale to measure empathy. In 1980, a guy named Mark Davis came up with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. The IRI.

Leah Bumphrey: IRI. oh, that sounds very serious.

Dennis Collins: Oh, he thought it was very serious, I’ll tell you that. Very serious researcher. He says empathy exists on a spectrum. I guess that’s kind of good news. Too much empathy, hyper-empathy. Too little empathy, empathy deficit disorder. They actually have a name for that.

So how many connections are we going to make with low empathy?

Leah Bumphrey: Not too many.

Dennis Collins: No, you’re not. But here’s the question. How many sales will you make with hyper-empathy? Have you ever thought about that, Leah? If you’re too empathetic, what happens?

Leah Bumphrey: You forget your purpose, right? You forget why you’re there, what it is that you’re bringing, because you’re just ultra-focused on what’s in front of you, the person you’re talking to, their business. It’s from their perspective.

You lose sight of what you’re bringing to the table.

Dennis Collins: Yeah. You forget why you’re there. Most of all, what I have found is most prospective customers, prospects, whatever you want to call them, they don’t need another friend. They’re not looking to make another best friend.

They have plenty of friends. They have family. And the hyper-empathic salespeople are trying to make them a friend. In fact, recently, I got to tell you, I had one gentleman who I’m coaching. He said that. He said, “I’m trying to make friends with that customer.”

And I had to stop and say, let’s talk about that, because unfortunately, when a customer sees that you are that hyper-empathic person, I hate to say this, Leah, but some customers take advantage of that. Did you know that?

Leah Bumphrey: Absolutely. You can see it. I can think of somebody that I worked with over the years, highly connected to his clients. Go out for a beer together, just really working within the business. The problem is, because we all are, unless we’re working for ourselves, we’re working for a company.

When it came down to it, there are things that he couldn’t do as their salesperson that they expected because they were putting the friendship above the business relationship. And sometimes the two don’t connect.

And it caused nothing but problems, because then you’re losing not just a friend or a buddy, but you’re also losing the opportunity to help their business.

Dennis Collins: Totally. So the question that comes to my mind, can you be assertive? Can you stay on point, on focus, without being pushy, salesy, or rude?

What do you think?

Leah Bumphrey: Well, you have to be able to.

Dennis Collins: Either that, or you can’t continue in the profession of selling, because you might be better served, and I don’t mean to be rude, but you might be a counselor, somebody who counsels with people with high empathy for their problems.

But at some point, we in the sales business have to be assertive. And we cannot let empathy fall into what I call sympathy. I think there’s a big difference. My definition of empathy is, I understand what you’re going through. I get it. Sympathy is, I believe the same thing you believe.

I believe our price is too high. I believe our equipment, our product is substandard. That’s sympathy.

Leah Bumphrey: And I also think when you go too far down that road of being empathetic, I mean, when I’m calling on a new prospect or someone that I’ve called on for years, they’re expecting me to try and sell them something. They know that my ultimate purpose is, hey, I have this. I think it’ll be good for you.

But if you go too far down that road, how do you get back from it? How do you get back to all of a sudden trying to sell when they’re just expecting you to give them a hug?

Paul Boomer: Hey, Dennis. Hey, Leah.

Leah Bumphrey: Producer Paul. It’s a magic year. Hey, Paul.

Paul Boomer: Yeah, I decided to jump in on this conversation, because here’s the thing, and I think you both know, I’m a highly empathetic person.

Dennis Collins: You are.

Paul Boomer: So I want to share my point of view, because it provides some understanding from a sales manager’s point of view, I think, so they can better understand how an empathetic person works.

And I think a lot of it comes down to, and this is what I find myself doing and working on — is somebody who’s highly empathetic kind of goes beyond the point where they’re more of a people-pleaser. It’s not about getting the job done in terms of selling.

It’s about liking. I want you to like me. I want you to like me first. Therefore I am then given permission to sell. But if I don’t feel like you like me, I’m going to keep trying and going down that road of being empathetic and trying to understand more and more.

So much so that I lose, as you said, Leah, and I love that you said that, they don’t realize that they’re losing their purpose. Why are they there? They become unconsciously more about, “I want you to like me.” So as a sales manager, recognize if you have somebody who is a highly empathic person, is it a subconscious desire for them to be liked?

Or are they really understanding that, no, they are empathetic. They understand when Dennis, you say to be more assertive, it’s not about assertiveness. It’s about confidence.

Leah Bumphrey: I like that. That’s exactly right.

Paul Boomer: If I, as an empath who doesn’t understand the fact that I just want to be liked, my confidence level goes down. Therefore in sales, it’s a transfer of confidence. I don’t have the confidence to sell. And therefore I don’t get the job done.

Leah Bumphrey: What a great frame.

Dennis Collins: Well said, Producer Paul. In from the back. Home run. Grand slam, buddy. The key word, confidence. You framed it in a way that I think of assertiveness of standing up for your purpose, for what it is that you’re there for. But you can’t do that if you don’t have the confidence to do that, can you?

You can’t be assertive. The fear overcomes you. And you don’t have the courage or the confidence to do it. What a great insight into this whole topic. I hope our sales managers, general managers, any leaders who are listening to this will hear what we’re talking about here.

Empathy is in and of itself, is not a bad thing. But hyper empathy in a sales situation can be a killer of sales. I kind of look at it this way. I think the middle solves the riddle. Like in so many other cases, use high empathy when it’s appropriate, but learn how to be confident.

Learn to build your confidence when presenting your solutions. You know, I listened to a lot of recorded sales calls. I can tell the level of confidence that salesperson has by the language they’re using, the words they use, the way they phrase their offerings, the way they pause or don’t pause.

It comes across and it doesn’t work. If you are not confident in your solution, why should the customer?

Paul Boomer: I’m going to jump in one more time here.

Dennis Collins: Of course.

Paul Boomer: I’ll have to just come out of nowhere. You’re talking about sales managers and hoping that they understand.

And something that they may want to consider is with somebody who is highly empathetic, they may not be the world’s best salesperson. But they may, depending on a bunch of other things, they may make a wonderful manager.

Dennis Collins: Interesting.

Paul Boomer: Because they can understand, at least empathize with the salespeople and what they’re going through and give them the tools to become better salespeople.

However, here’s the caveat. That manager, that empathetic manager must also still have that confidence level and understanding of what they do and how they do it and why they do it.

Leah Bumphrey: And I find that really interesting because organizations often will look at empathy as opposed to a strength in a managerial role. They look at more of an admin strength. They’re looking more about  that confidence to be able to push your people out to get things done.

But the empathy can be seen as a weakness.

Dennis Collins: Yes, often is.

Leah Bumphrey: And in every role, you think training, you think sales organization, even admin, that empathetic role or aspect of a personality can be a huge strength.

Dennis Collins: Absolutely.

Leah Bumphrey: It’s not looked at like that.

Paul Boomer: Yeah. And it is amazing what an empathetic manager can do for the culture of the entire organization. I think, you know, in the future, in the past, we’ve talked about onboarding and about employees and such. An empathetic manager who understands how they manage and might manage as well, they can alter, one person can alter the entire organization and keep people from leaving much better than anybody else.

Because it’s a human connection. I think you said in the episode about the Bono, people first. That’s an impact.

Leah Bumphrey: This brings me to one of the questions that we had, Dennis, and maybe I’m jumping ahead. We had a question from, and it came from a couple of different sources, and I had to really think about it. You don’t have that opportunity because I like throwing these questions at you.

But what is the number one trait, if you’re looking to build your sales force, what’s the number one trait you should be looking for in an individual?

Dennis Collins: Wow. Our fans are coming up with some hard questions.

Leah Bumphrey: They’re hard. And I thought I had an answer, but I think even just based on our discussion here, some of Paul’s insights, I might’ve changed mine. I’m going to tell you what I was thinking. I was thinking the ability to sell your team or to be working with someone that you’re going to be able to have that connection connection with, because when you’re worried… We’ve all worked for managers that you didn’t feel that connection with, so it’s got that one trait, it depends who’s on your team already was initially what I was thinking. But sales is kind of a lone wolf kind of thing when you’re out there just with the client.

So if you’re looking at just that individual, I don’t know that there is one particular trait, but it’s the combination and it’s the layering because I want someone empathetic, but I also want someone with confidence. I also want someone with the ability to be taught.

Dennis Collins: Yeah.

Leah Bumphrey: So I’m taking all the good ones, Dennis. I’m going to let you go.

Dennis Collins: You’re really making this even more difficult for me, Leah.

Leah Bumphrey: You can just agree with me.

Dennis Collins: I’m used to that. I have a young lady in this family that I agree with. It makes my life easier.

I have an answer. You may or may not agree or like the answer, but I’m going to blurt it right out. I think the most important inward trait that I don’t even know if this can be taught, it might be able to be taught, but it’s better if you have it in you.

Here it is. Curiosity. Curiosity, where you like to solve the puzzle. You like to gather the information that pieces the puzzle together. Curiosity, finding out what this customer is all about, what they really need, what’s bothering them, what’s their pain.

Curiosity, ask questions. You know, people who are curious, ask great questions. Ask smart questions. Does that make sense?

Leah Bumphrey: I absolutely love that. Because you’re right. Curiosity is not something you can be taught. You can explain the merits of curiosity, but you can sniff out fake curiosity in a second. Just the fake connections. It’s always possible to see that. I love that because if someone is sincerely curious about the people they’re going to be talking to, then they’re going to be able to pull information and someone can help you. A manager, a mentor can help you.

Dennis Collins: Absolutely. Where does what I have to sell come into helping you with this issue, this problem? And to me, curiosity is not about me. It’s not about my company or me as the salesperson. It’s about you. I want to know more about you. Tell me about you. Tell me about what your problem is.

Tell me about what you’ve tried to do to solve it. And curiosity to me is, you know, we talk about asking questions. We’ve done episodes and we will do more episodes about questions. It’s not about just asking one question and one and done, or it’s not about going through a list of questions.

Like you said, fake curiosity written on a piece of paper, a list of questions. Hey, tell me more about what you just said. That’s really interesting. I never thought of it that way. Tell me more. That’s curiosity to me. That’s curiosity.

So we have only a minute left, but our breakout challenge, we always do a challenge. I’m thinking maybe the challenge for this week is take a look at your own empathy.

Where are you on the interpersonal reactivity index? Are you high hyper-empathy or empathy deficit disorder? Or are you the middle? The middle solves the riddle. That’s what I look for is the middle. And it seems to me that works a lot of times in life.

Dennis Collins: We do not. Again, thank you, Leah. Great insights. Particular thanks to producer Paul for coming out of the ether and sharing with our audience, very helpful and insightful. That’s going to do it for this edition of Connect and Convert. We’ll see you next time.

Leah Bumphrey: See you Dennis.