Empathy Marketing: What You'Ve Got To Use If You Really Want To Sell More To Your Customers And Retain Their Business

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

When I started my Sales & Marketing Success Card Deck a few years ago I labored under the blissful delusion that all I had to do to make my business a success was to:

get quality response lists; print superior looking cards, and get the deck out on time.

Given the additional fact that I was (and still am) charging the lowest rates in the entire industry, I thought that would be sufficient.

Oh, baby, how wrong I was!

I've since learned that what I really had to do was all the above and...

tell my customers how to create cards that would draw higher responses;

give them guidelines on how to produce response packages that would enable them to close more of their leads;

screen their leads on the phone so that they'd only be dealing with better quality prospects, not flatworms, and

become telephone closing whizzes.

In short, I discovered that my job wasn't about producing a superior card deck (important though that it): it was about helping my advertisers close more of the leads I was able to generate for them.

On the basis of this insight, my card deck prospered. As you know, the last few years haven't exactly been boom times in American business; the advertising sector has been particularly badly hit. As an advertising sub-section, card decks have taken a real walloping. The industry is about 50% smaller now than when I entered it. How have I fared? Well, my deck now publishes about 94 cards per issue... and is one of the two largest in the entire country. Why? Because I took the time to learn my lesson about the business I was really in. Empathetic marketing, by forcing me to learn what would really make my business grow, saved my b ---. Unfortunately, LOTS of other business people just haven't figured that out yet, with predictable results.

I'm thinking, for instance, of the president of a network marketing company I know. The guy thinks he's a world-class marketer and has no hesitation bragging about his prowess in this department. What's his job? Recruiting people into his MLM, keeping them there, and selling product. From all three activities he derives his income.

Every month our marketing guru puts out a 20-30 page publication that goes to all his members. Sadly, because the guy doesn't have a clue about empathetic marketing, it's virtually a complete bust with the bulk of the pages going for the same advertisements he runs every month for his own products.

Now consider for a moment where he draws he income: from recruiting new members, from retaining old members, and from these members selling his products. Common sense, if nothing else, suggests that departments of the magazine should be devoted to providing crucial details on how these three objectives could be obtained. What about the following, for instance:

specific lead generation advice... how to use direct mail, space ads, card decks, and more to get leads;

lead closing advice... including specific suggestions on how to close by mail, in person, on the telephone;

guidelines on how to produce and use effective client- centered marketing communications... what needs to happen so that all letters, flyers, brochures, deck cards, space ads, etc. work?

Get the picture?

By the same token, detailed information needs to be included about how to keep people in your MLM organization.

how do you work with them;

what kind of specific advice do you give;

how can you structure inexpensive sales contests and what kinds of prizes can you provide to stimulate enhanced recruitment?

And what about this?

specific guidelines on how to more effectively and quickly sell each product produced by the company?

how to sell products via direct mail, by telephone, in person, etc.

In other words, the network marketing president (who constantly preens himself on just how smart he is about his subject) should be running a company that's focused on helping his members make money. But what do you get instead?

monthly pictures of the MLM president -- the president walking his dog, the president walking along a beach with his wife; the president with his children. God help me, is the man an ego-maniac, or what?

page after page of basic descriptions of the products he offers... the same pages he printed last month, the same pages he'll print the month after;

sappy little columns about how to handle the investments that'll be necessary with all the new money he's helping you make!

BUT NOT A SPECIFIC WORD DESIGNED TO HELP MAKE THAT MONEY.

This man, of course, knows nothing about marketing except the word itself. He knows nothing about the needs and wants of the members of his organization, despite his protestations. And he certainly knows nothing about running a company in the fiercely competitive period in which we'll be for the remainder of our lives.

What's sad, however, is that this benighted creature is in no way exceptional. His blinkered selfishness and self- defeating behavior is the rule for those who haven't yet discovered empathy marketing and rigorously implemented it in their business lives.

You don't want to be like this, though, do you? That's why you're going to follow these sensible suggestions...

#1 Understand Your Real Business

As I confessed to you, when I started in the card-deck business, I wrongly thought that putting out a good deck was all there was to my business; I came to this conclusion easily, not least because all the other publishers in my industry firmly held to the same (stupid) idea. But then I wised up... when I started thinking about my real business... the fact that I had to help my advertisers achieve their true objectives (which wasn't just getting leads but making sales) or else I could never achieve mine. Now it's time for you to do the same...

Say you're a copywriter. Your business isn't just supplying marketing communications. It's helping your clients make sales by using the improved marketing communications you create. Do you think your job is finished when you hand over the paperwork? Or do you go that extra step further than will help ensure your clients' enhanced success?

Or say you're a marmalade manufacturer like the R W Scott company. Your job isn't just to deliver a tasty marmalade... but to tell all your buyers how to use it. Yet the jar I'm holding in my hand right now leaves all the idea making to the consumer, who presumably knows a whole lot less about marmalade than the company that produces the product every single day.

Or take our poor network marketing executive. His business is helping make his members (and therefore himself) richer. His business is not just turning out a magazine... or producing products... or running an expensive lead- generating service. It's showing his members how to use these things -- really use them -- and so benefit.

#2 Get Over Yourself: Get Into Your Prospects/Customers

Empathy means shifting the center of your operations from your own selfish carcass to the all-important "other guy," your prospect, your customer. It means dropping the pictures of yourself and your dog, dropping the focus on your features, amputating everything that's about you... unless and until you have done everything you can for the benefit of the customer.

My competitors in the card-deck business, for instance, all think they're swell guys. Without missing a beat, they'll tell you just how wonderful they are... how many years they've been in business, how many sales reps they've got... even how many telephones they use in their boiler rooms. Gentle reader, WHO CARES!

This kind of focus is wrong, not just because it's selfish (which is bad enough), but because it stifles business. Your business is now and will always be about your prospects and customers. It is not and will never be about you. Thus, the minute that you adopt empathy marketing as your standard, you'll notice a salutary transformation of your business; you'll notice that your business picks up and that people are more interested in what you've got and how you can help them. OF COURSE! The reason is obvious: you're no longer about you... you're about them.

#3 Brainstorm What Your Prospects/Customers Need From You To Achieve Their Wants

Around here I spent a lot of time brainstorming what my prospects need to become customers... what my customers need to stay customers. I prod myself continually to come up with ideas that will assist them... and them push myself to implement them. I'm going to tell you: this pushing, this implementation which means extra work, are by no means a total joy. When you do this, you're going to add to your responsibilities, increase the amount of work you do. Let me give you just one illustration.

As all the world knows, I'm now top sales person for a network marketing company, Personal Wealth Systems, Inc. While working this opportunity it became obvious to me that lots of the people I recruited needed telemarketing assistance because they either hated making prospect calls or were lousy when they made them. I didn't particularly want to get in the telemarketing business but to achieve my objectives (easier prospect recruitment; more success after recruitment) it became necessary to add this service.

Equally, it became obvious to me that it was necessary to provide my recruits at regular intervals thoughtful commentary on key issues they were facing in developing their organizations, issues like:

how to generate more qualified leads; where to place space ads and card-deck ads; how to use the telephone more effectively to close more prospects, etc.

I could, of course, have let all these people figure all this out for themselves: every MLM company in the country seems to feel that that's the way to run a business. But I know (and now you know) that this isn't the way to run a SUCCESSFUL business. Hence, I became a newsletter proprietor, putting out a 6-8 page newsletter every 30 days for the members of my organization. In short, I realized that if I was going to get what I wanted (enhanced income from these sales people), I was going to have to extend myself, brainstorm new ways of meeting their wants and needs... and implementing them.

#4 Don't Wait For Others To Do What You Know Needs To Be Done

To my intense chagrin and disappointment, the more I deal with American business people the more I realize we have become a nation of slugs. Even where people know what needs to be done to assist their prospects and customers (the first great insight), they don't bother to take the initiative to do it. Oh, they give lots of "reasons" why they can't act, including:

I'm too busy; I don't have the authority; I don't have the money; I don't know what to do, etc., etc., etc.

Let me tell you something: only the weak, sniveling, uninspired, downright lazy, and pathologically self- destructive use these excuses. Sadly, that constitutes the substantial majority of American executives. But not, I trust, you.

You and I both know that if the deed's to be done, we're the one.

Instead of complaining about how busy we are, we assess our schedule and see what we can lop off. Truly, I'm the busiest person I know, but I pride myself (as you must pride yourself) on never uttering the vapid sentiment that we're busy. To be in business in late 20th century America means we're busy... but it also means we must become expert in jettisoning unessential tasks, in pruning, delegating, and just plain letting them pile up undone... in favor of everything that's going to turn more prospects into customers and keep more customers buying longer.

Instead of taking pride in how powerless we are (which is, after all, the true human condition for virtually everyone), assume responsibility. No one is going to flog you if you bring in more business; no one's going to berate you for keeping more customers and getting them to buy more. And, if they do, it's time you were out of that cave anyway. Go ahead people like you will always find your way.

Instead of bemoaning your lack of money, assess all your assets. Businesses, for instance, have lots of assets besides money, including: stock, equipment, data bases of names, personnel. How can you reshuffle your deck to produce the desired results? Note: my network marketing exec constantly complains about how busy he is, yet I know for a certain fact he's off on vacation over four weeks a year and leaves his office at 5 p.m. on the dot, often earlier. Thus, he makes it perfectly plain that his own wants are far superior to those of his customers and dealers. Do the exact opposite from what he does and you're well on your to more success!

Instead of complaining that you don't know what to do, learn. I don't know about you, but I didn't come into this universe as an expert in marketing; I wasn't born knowing how to close people on the telephone, or publish a card deck, or produce a newsletter. I learned. People are constantly saying to me, "Of course, it's easy for you to do these things..." That's rubbish. It's easy because I took my brains and my time and sat myself down and learned. I bugged experts to gather details. I burned the midnight oil. While the grasshoppers cavorted, this ant sweated the all- important details. If it's easy for me now, I put in almost a half century of hard work to get to this point.

#5 Implement Your New Client-Centered Procedures ASAP

The difference between people who are going to succeed with empathy marketing and those who aren't lies in a single phrase: DO IT NOW!

Once you discover that something you're doing is not client- centered, the appropriate moment to end it is NOW. Not tomorrow, six weeks from now or at the vernal equinox. NOW!

Is your telephone answering machine message about you instead of about your prospects/clients? Redo it NOW!

Is your basic brochure about you, your products, your services... instead of about all the benefits you can deliver to prospects? Change it NOW!

Do you go home every night leaving a ton of phone messages unanswered, a lot of people hanging because they needed to hear from you today, but you were just too damned arrogant or disorganized to get to them? Call them NOW!

See what I mean? One major reason I'm a millionaire is because my client-centered focus is absolute, total.

Now take a guy like reputed network marketing authority Kent Ponder. He called me recently about doing a joint-deal. He asked for materials by overnight delivery and told me he'd have a decision by a precise date. I did what he wanted. He didn't. Thus, when he didn't get back to me as scheduled, I contacted him. Instead of coming up with an answer, he went through the all-too-familiar American business litany: he was busy, had people to see, places to go, etc. In short, flatulence. What's more, instead of offering either 1) a precise time when he'd be ready to talk turkey, he 2) lambasted me for following up in a professional way. It's a typical flatworm tactic the disorganized habitually use to cover themselves: blame the organized one!

Folks, I don't know about you, but I don't take this nonsense... and neither should you. I made it clear to the creep that I'm a client-centered guy and as such I like to deal with other client-centered people. I don't offer excuses... and I don't want to hear any either. Net result: Ponder sent me one ponderous fax after another each one telling me in ever more ludicrous ways that he was a person of consequence (why, to impress me, he even provided a list of the square footage of all the office spaces he'd occupied in his life... as well as the coveted list of the people he'd had dinner with in the last 20 years: I kid you not)! However, he never did get around to providing the details he said he'd have to me within two weeks. Obviously, proving to me just how important he was was far more important than behaving in a client-centered fashion, that either doing what was necessary to meet my objectives... and, I must stress, get himself the business.

Sadly, that is not only the bloated Ponder's problem, it epitomizes much of American business. But not you. You know now that when you discover that your business is not living by empathy marketing, you're going to change things -- fast. Unlike Ponder, you're not going to defend the futile status quo; you're going to move like lightning in the direction of total empathy marketing. If someone takes the time to make a suggestion about how to improve things, you're going to listen. Not, like my network marketing exec, defend the indefensible. In short, you're going to do the most important thing any adult human can do: you're going to grow... and you're going to improve by learning.

Conclusion

Empathy marketing isn't just a series of procedures you can learn by rote and implement like a robot. Far more important, it's a state of mind. It starts from the proposition that your success is predicated on the success of others; that your business will prosper to the extent that you empathetically enter into the lives of your prospects and clients, understand what they want and need, and extend yourself to provide it. It advances the proposition that your importance is a reflection of how others see you, not how you see yourself. And that you will grow in stature as you grow both in understanding the wants and needs of your prospects and customers and doing what is necessary to cater to them. Is this what you do now? Or do you, like Kent Ponder and so many other so-called business "authorities", feel you're done your bit merely by telling everyone what a grand expert you are... instead of extending yourself each day to your prospects and customers to prove it?

Ponder defended his ego... and lost the contract.

What are you going to do?