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While we inherently know this, we need to better understand our customers if we want to inspire and persuade them.
This requires us to speak their language.
Too often, my clients come to me to revamp their brand story and messaging and my initial diagnosis is usually the same: They are talking in a way that doesn’t resonate or connect with their customers.
The messaging is full of jargon. They use terms only analysts like, but that a real customer never expresses. It’s complicated. It’s robotic. It’s not something anyone can emotionally connect to. Because of fear, they use the words everyone else in their industry is using and they wonder why no one stands out.
SEO is important – but it’s not everything.
To speak your customers’ language, you must take the time to LISTEN TO THEM with empathy.
Ask them about the challenges they face, how your solution solves their problems, what they love most about working with your company or product. Develop empathy for your customers, instead of viewing them like “they don’t know any better” (Yes, I have seen this disdain for customers from marketing leadership before!)
And then – this is the hard part: Don’t ignore it.
I conduct qualitative customer interviews for my corporate clients. And some clients love getting all this rich insight – only to ignore peppering their story with the very words their customers use. They say “The analysts don’t like that term” or “It sounds too folksy.”
You will never connect with a customer, prospect, audience, or human if you don’t speak a language they can understand. If you don’t tell a story they can relate to./strong>(TWEET THIS!)
It’s time to set aside ego. It’s time to take a chance. It’s time to listen to your customers and tweak your story.
Are you ready to revamp your story for more connection, engagement, and loyalty? Let’s talk about my brand strategy packages and how we can help your brand shine!
Why do your employees come to work every day? What are you here to provide to your customers? What impact do you want your business or brand to have on the world?
The Dalai Lama talks about starting to work on the change you seek, even if you don’t live to see it come to fruition.
To have real impact, we should all operate our companies like this.
For too long, vision statements, mission statements, and purpose have all been used interchangeably. But the important thing is that they BE USED.
Too many executives treat these like pretty sayings to put on posters or on the website and fail to really live by them. But without a clear purpose, you can’t engage your employees and get the best work from them. You can’t delight your customers to the point that they stick by you because of what doing so says about them.
Think long and hard about why your company does what it does.
Do you imagine a different way of working, a different future, a different system than exists today? Tell us! Employees, customers, and partners want you to articulate this – but more importantly, make decisions based on it.
I invite my clients to create a vision statement that may ultimately put them out of business. If they are truly working to solve a problem that exists, then their purpose should be that that problem may not exist anymore in the future – if they do their jobs well.
Crafting a clear purpose lights a fire under us. We know we can’t rest on our laurels. We are seeking to do something important in the world, in a big or small way. And that is how we get the best from our people and loyalty from our customers.
And purpose-driven companies have been found to increase financial performance, because of its impact on innovation, workforce performance and employee health.
If you don’t leverage your purpose, or vision, or mission to make daily business decisions, you are missing out on how it drives success and impact.(TWEET THIS!)
When defining your overarching purpose, gather input from your employees and then get the right people in the room to hammer this out. Here are some prompts for you:
What is the future state of the world we imagine? This is what we’re all working toward, every day, when the going gets tough. Eyes on the prize.
Why are we all individually here? What lights us up about this work? Ask your people why they are here! You’ll get gold.
What shifts do we create for our customers? What is he before and after? This can help us better articulate the future state we seek.
With our specific strengths and talents, what can our company contribute to alleviating the problem or fulfilling the vision? This will keep you in scope for what you can realistically achieve toward this grander vision.
Are we looking to change systems, processes, hearts, or minds – or all of the above? Let’s be clear!
If we do our job right, if we achieve this purpose, where do we go from there? This will help you expand into related areas or offerings so you can sustain the business into the long term.
For more about purpose and how it leads to profit – and how to craft a useful purpose statement, tune into my podcast interview with Phil Preston on The Empathy Edge.
At a book signing, the panel moderator told me that she recommended my book, The Empathy Edge, to her friend – let’s call her Jennifer. Jennifer was in a really bad work situation with what she deemed an out of touch manager. Her boss treated her badly, didn’t listen to her ideas and generally acted like he was too busy to be there for his team. Jennifer was pretty fed up by this point, and knowing her worth and value in the market, was about to walk away. But she did like her job so she was eager to read my book.
Jennifer read my book and loved every word (the moderator’s words, not mine!). She promptly marched into her boss’ office the next day and before he could say a word, shoved the book in his hands and said, “I’m not happy with how you manage me or the team. It’s so hard to come to work everyday, but I love this job. I’m asking you to read this book and in a week, we can sit down and discuss it. If you don’t, I’m leaving.”
Her boss was stunned. To his credit, he did as he was asked.
They ended up having a great conversation. He had no idea how his actions were being perceived or the emotional toll it was taking on Jennifer. They made a plan to change how he treated the team, how he communicated, and also how the team responded and worked together to address his concerns as well.
Jennifer stayed in her job,
I have no idea if Jennifer is still there, but I love this story so much. It shows how much we can gain by communicating and being vulnerable when we have nothing left to lose. Her boss recognized many actions and intentions in himself from the book and, wanting to be a better leader and build a high-performing team, was willing to have the conversation.
Showing empathy at work is not as complicated as you think. (Tweet This!)
Here are 3 ways you can practice empathy at work:
Ask questions and actively listen: Whether you are the manager or just on a team of colleagues, start defaulting to “I’m right and you’re wrong” and instead ask questions first. “Tell me more about your idea. What makes you believe it’s the way to go? How do you see this meeting our goals?”
Find common ground: In high-stakes situations, establish the common goal you both have, however basic, so you get on the same side of the table, rather than acting like two opposing forces. “We can both agree we want this campaign to succeed and drive more leads, right?” Even if it seems obvious, it’s a great way to diffuse tension and remind yourselves you are both on the same team.
Check in with people: Before diving into the business end of the meeting, take a moment for everyone to ground themselves and share what’s going on for them. One CEO does this with his exec team every Monday, and they share how their weekends went, if they had fun, if they’re having a difficult time with their kids, etc. This gives others context to know where people are coming from and what they might need. It avoids assuming someone is being rude or testy because they don’t like your idea when the truth is that they stayed up all night potty training the new puppy.
Have you ever gotten an email from customer service or an answer from a sales rep that left you feeling hopelessly misunderstood?
This seems to happen to me more as I get older, and while I completely admit that the common denominator is me, nine times out of ten, it is a result of a brand representative not truly listening to me or “getting” the real issue.
When an eCommerce site screwed up the card on an order I had sent a client, they simply threw a gift card at me, without truly understanding the impact to my business reputation. As a result, their attempt to make amends was seen as performative and like I was a nuisance.
But…when a cable company representative told me how she completely understood my surprise at an increase in my bill and admitted, “I would feel the exact same way if that had happened to me!” in an unscripted and authentic manner, that changed the tenor of our phone call to one of constructive problem solving.
A world of painful and unnecessarily contentious communication awaits you if you don’t intimately understand your customers. If you don’t appreciate what they are thinking and most importantly, feeling. If you can’t see miles down the road to anticipate what would most delight them or make their lives/work easier.
Without empathetic customer insights, you can never offer a standout experience that gets customers talking and keeps them for life. (Tweet This!)
Here are three customer communication pitfalls that can be avoided with more effective – and empathetic – customer insights:
Make it right! When a customer has a bad experience, it’s not about blame in that moment. It’s about taking responsibility and working to solve the problem. If indeed your company’s products or services are responsible, you may not be able to undo the damage you caused by blowing their big client presentation, not delivering that dream outfit for their big date in time, or putting them on the wrong technology platform. But you can acknowledge the issues, sit side by side with them in empathy, and attempt to make it right, make amends, or improve for next time – whatever is most suitable.. The hard part: The action you take needs to be tailored to the situation they have faced. You can’t go back in time, but what can you provide for them going forward? Top tip: Free gift cards or future discounts can work sometimes, but not all the time!
Don’t confuse responsibility with accountability and humanity: You may legally not want to “admit” anything was your fault- and perhaps it wasn’t. But you can take on accountability for them as your customers. As someone who’s success you care about. As a human being. You can say you’re sorry for them experiencing this, you can empathize with how much it sucks. You can problem solve together on a path forward. But the minute you find yourself wanting to utter, “You didn’t fill out______” as an excuse, check yourself because that is not what’s required at that pivotal moment. When you understand your customer’s world, you can better find connection with what they are feeling and take effective action.
Address the emotion behind the scenes: It doesn’t matter if you sell clothing or consulting or software. Customers buy because of both logic and emotion. They want to belong, they want the choices they make to say something about them. Yes, even if the sale is B2B! So when communicating with customers, remember the emotions that may be guiding their decisions. This is why ideal client personas are so important. If you know your audience tends to be risk averse, you need to instill confidence, gain trust, and showcase how your offering helps them gradually make change. If you know your customers are edgy and love taking risks, talk to them about how they can transform their organization/life or which other disruptive leaders have blazed a trail with you and found success.
Know your customer. As a human with complex motivations and emotions. And serve them by speaking to their logic and emotions when things go wrong and you need to make them right. Empathy will truly make your business stand out from the crowd.
Tune in to The Empathy Edge podcast to learn from other great leaders and marketers on how empathy helps them create better customer experiences.
These false environments place target customers in a room where they are asked a series of questions about what they think of products, services, or ad campaigns.
We pay them to be there, get them in a room where they feel under pressure to offer an opinion or make one up, and to consider products or services in an artificial context that doesn’t at all mimic how they truly make decisions. We’ve all heard the stories of focus groupthink, where people collectively feed off of each other even, or they don’t tell the truth about how they feel because they know they are being judged, or the loudest person in the room steers the conversation in one direction.
It’s not that focus groups in and of themselves are horrible. In the past, I oversaw focus groups with HR Managers and did get useful nuggets form focus groups where we asked them about their everyday jobs, challenges, and wins, rather than about a specific product, feature or ad campaign. The intent was to understand their industry, not test a product or message idea. So it worked well.
Data is great and can validate assumptions or strategies. But you have to understand how the data is collected and where it can be biased – and what stories you may be missing behind the data. You also have to know when it’s time to stop collecting data and start gathering insights.
Yes, data and insights are two different things.
If you want to know how your customers think or what challenges they face, you don’t have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on fake environments that won’t give you real answers.
Go beyond data collection. Have real, messy, organic conversation so you can get to know your customers as people. (TWEET THIS!)
One on one. In a non-biased environment. In a way that fosters active listening.
Meeting up with customers in their own environment, in the place where they use your products or make buying decisions.
Qualitative interviews can be time-consuming, But honestly, they yield better insights. Yes, you might not have a pretty chart full of data points that cannot be disputed. You won’t be able to impress the board with reams of graphs and pie charts.
But you can uncover motives, aspirations, goals, challenges. You can discover the right words to use, the emotions behind their decisions. You may stumble on an unexpected motivating angle or use case that you never even thought to ask about in a multiple choice survey.
Take the time to get to know your customers as people. This is the best way to appeal to both their intellect and emotion when building solutions that resonate with them.
More great insights on going beyond the data, on The Empathy Edge podcast:
Have you had to deliver this yet? That once-in-a-lifetime speech.
You know the kind of speech I’m referring to: the pivotal presentation that defines a person, cause or culture — that crucial communications moment your audience members will remember for weeks afterward.
This could be a TEDx talk, like one I recently did for TEDx CWRU, or your first all-hands meeting as CEO, or your plea to the United Nations for funding, or your crucial VC meeting where the entire future of your dream and company are riding on a YES.
The best speeches are those where the stakes are high to inspire and convince (TWEET THIS!)
“First words matter. Make them better,” communications catalyst Dia Bondi reminds us. Bondi helps women ask for more in their careers and lives and has helped executives, humanitarians and government officials prepare compelling speeches. She knows the deal.
Dia understands how to bring crucial communications moments into stark relief: “Your time on stage will be defined by the first words you utter into the mic,” she says. “Starting strong tells us what the rest of your time will be like, who you are and what you’ll be expecting of us as you move through your content.”
Dia advises: “You’ll know how best to start if you write your first words last. Get your story out on paper, speak it through once or twice and then ask yourself, What is the most compelling verbal entry point for your time on stage? A metaphor? A personal story? An image on the screen that provokes?”
2. Use emotion and logic to motivate.
We are humans. And even the most tech-driven B2B companies re now learnding that you hav to appeal to emotion as much, if not more than, you appeal to logic if you want to persuade people.
When you’re delivering a high-stakes speech, your No. 1 goal is always to get someone, somewhere to act differently. Never lose sight of this goal.
Ghostwriter and editor (and my fabulous writing partner!) Sally McGraw warns you to not mistake persuasion purely as presenting data and facts.
McGraw has helped authors around the world craft compelling proposals and pitch letters to successfully secure deals. “In my experience,” she says, “persuasion is more about the heart than the mind. If you want to sway someone to your side, you need to convince them emotionally as well as logically.”
Authors of Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, Chip and Dan Heath heavily researched the best ways to convince people to make a change. They use the metaphor of the Elephant and the Rider. Every human in your audience has an emotional Elephant side and a rational Rider side. To move them to act differently, you’ve got to address both sides.
3. Succeed at being you.
When I was prepping my TEDx talk, I asked successful speaker, activist and entrepreneur Taylor Conroy, “How can I avoid delivering a cliche ‘TEDX TALK’, to avoid being a parody of them all??” He smiled and replied, “Be yourself. That’s how you avoid being a ‘typical’ TEDx cliche. No one else presents like you.” Wise words! Get your head in the game, prepare, leave yourself time, practie presence and then just go in there and BE YOU.
Structure your talk like a story and remember that the audience is there specifically to be inspired, to be persuaded. They want you to succeed just as much as you do. They don’t want to waste their time listening to a failed speech, either. You are both after the same goal.
Giving the speech of a lifetime is an amazing opportunity. While it might feel like intense pressure, know that if you are well prepared, the odds are good you’ll hit it out of the park. Take these tips with you. The next time you step up to speak, you’ll deliver a speech that gets things moving.
Do you need a dynamic speaker that can knock it out of the park for your next workshop, conference, or corporate event? Let’s inspire and ignite your audience! Discover what I can offer you as an empathy speaker, brand speaker or motivational speaker. Would love to chat!
50 EPISODES! I’ve now recorded 50 episodes of The Empathy Edge Podcast and have learned so much from these inspiring leaders, changemakers, and rockstars.
This podcast was a way for me to continue my research and my own learnings about empathy in action after I was done writing the book. And man, I’m so glad I am doing this! If you’ve been listening, you’ve heard from CEO’s, CMO’s, communications experts, and even social entrepreneurs about how they are puytting empathy to work in their business models and reaping the rewards.
Here are 3 inspiring lessons that my guests have shared with us about empathy’s role in our work and society (Tweet This!)
Innovation can’t happen without optimism: The need for optimism is vital to social change but also innovation and advancement. I’ve spoken with leaders toiling away at redefining success in our workplaces and broader culture – and taking a long term view. It would be so easy to say they are dreaming or “It will never happen” but they are committed to seeing it through. They are hacking away at it and succeeding – and that is what it takes to ignite change.
People-First leadership is not a passing fad: So many inspiring stories with real ROI and business success. We are no longer lacking models – we just have to elevate the people doing this and having success so this can quickly become the norm. Most management models are outdated and actually hinder success in the modern era.
We can all do more: If anything, the guests I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing inspire me and my listeners to find their niche and DO MORE. Whether they are launching social enterprises, mdoeling empathy in their own organizations, or tackling systemic racism, they are taking steps. There’s enough work to be done to close the empathy gap. Find your passion and attack it from there.
If you haven’t yet, you’re invited to check out The Empathy Edge podcast!
Soak up the insights and inspiration while you work out, fold laundry, or take a daily walk. Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google. (And kindly leave an honest review if you’re able!)
It’s a Tuesday afternoon. I have to leave, like, NOW to pick up my toddler from preschool. My old black lab has just laid his face in my lap and given me the “Shouldn’t we be walking right now?” eyes.
But I’m stalling because for the last hour, I’ve been staring at Twitter, trying to come up with clever tweets. I pull up Facebook and immediately feel less-than. I click over to LinkedIn and then close it again.
Sound familiar? Social media overwhelm is an absolute epidemic with my clients. And I used to struggle with it, too! So much of our social media overwhelm comes from a) not really understanding where we should put our energy and marketing dollars b) “spraying and praying” across every social media platform Of course we’re overwhelmed. We’re spreading ourselves thin, spending hours and dollars on things that don’t work, and getting demoralized by fewer likes and shares. I get it because I’ve been there. After lots of trial and error, I’ve kicked my social media overwhelm to the curb and I’m going to show you how to do the same!
How to beat social media overwhelm in 5 relatively easy steps
Figure out where your people are If your people aren’t on Instagram – what luck! – you don’t need an Instagram account. If your ideal customer spends hours pinning recipes and inspirational quotes, then you can direct your time and energy towards crafting the perfect Pinterest strategy.
Of course, there are overlaps between platforms. Moms who care about fitness use Pinterest and Instagram. Creative entrepreneurs use Facebook and Twitter. But if you can narrow down your focus to two social media platforms you’re more likely to reach your people and see results. As my friend Sarah says, “It’s better to be good at two things than bad at seven.”
Figure out where your traffic is coming from If you’re reading this, I imagine you already have a few social media profiles. And maybe when you started using Twitter four years ago it was sending you a lot of traffic! Is that still true today?
Social media changes a lot from year to year. Remember Periscope?! What was working in 2015 might not be working now. I’d hate for you to pour time and energy into a platform that isn’t bringing you traffic or clients.
Here’s how to figure out where your social media traffic is coming from:
After it has gathered data for a few weeks, go in and see which social media platform sends you the most traffic
You find that info under Acquisition > Social > Overview
It is worth noting that social media traffic can be a bit chicken-and-the-egg-y. If you put a lot of effort into Facebook, it’ll probably send you traffic. If you don’t have a Pinterest account, it’s unlikely you’re getting much Pinterest traffic. But if you use two or more social media platforms, it’s good to know which one is most effective so you can direct your efforts accordingly.
3. Figure out what type of social media you actually enjoy using Let’s say you’ve discovered that your ideal client uses Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest in equal measure. Now, let’s say you hate using Instagram. You’re constantly disappointed by your photos and you have no idea what’s going on with hashtags. Meanwhile, you genuinely enjoy using Pinterest and you’re all over Facebook. You understand retargeting ads and clone audiences. You can do that stuff in your sleep! You don’t need my permission, but here it is: you are absolutely allowed to put your time and effort into social media platforms you actually enjoy using. It’s going to be hard to connect with clients on a platform you hate using.
4. Figure out which types of posts are the most effective There are different ways to connect with your people on any given platform. On Facebook, I can
And when I look at the analytics within Facebook, it’s pretty easy to see which of these is the most popular! Not sure how to mix things up on your social media platform of choice?
After you’ve experimented a bit, you’ll have a better idea of what works for your platforms and your readers. You can do less of what doesn’t work and more of what does. Overwhelm? What overwhelm?
5. Now that you know what works, schedule updates for the next 2-3 weeks! So you’ve figured out where your people are, where your traffic comes from, and how you feel about each social media platforms. You know which types of posts perform the best.
Pour yourself a glass of something delicious and after you finish it, do something with that information! Schedule a bunch of social media posts to your platform of choice so you can “set it and forget it.” I like Buffer for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Tailwind is great for Pinterest and Later or Planoly is good for Instagram.
Social media is not only a great marketing platform – it plays a crucial part in the sales process, especially when it comes to social selling. See the social media platforms throughout the years and how social selling has evolved, in this post by Zopto.
I want to know what’s working for you! Are you overwhelmed by social media? If you’re one of the few business owners who isn’t overwhelmed by social media – share your tips with us over on Instagram or Tweet me!
Setting boundaries is key to getting more done. When you know who you are, and what needs doing, you can focus. And that means saying no to the wrong opportunities, clients, relationships that don’t serve your purpose.
Setting boundaries enables you to go after the life you want.
But….we also can’t let boundaries box us in!
Setting a boundary that cars can’t cross the double yellow lines in traffic saves lives.
But, setting a boundary that you can’t go talk to that VP you really admire because that’s just not the way we do things around here helps no one.
To make change, invent, or ignite, we have to question certain boundaries. We have to cross them and see what’s on the other side. It could be better. If boundaries exist around people, or your work, or heck, your dreams – you owe it to yourself to step through.
How do we reconcile setting boundaries with smashing them?
We must ask: Is it a healthy boundary? If I set my schedule to get offline at 4 pm so I can pick up my son from school and spend time with him, that serves me. That is something that energizes me, gives me quality family time, and enables me to come back stronger and recharhed for my clients the next day.
But if I put up a boundary around becoming friends with my clients, who does that serve? I want to work with people I enjoy, and people I enjoy often become friends. You can dance the line between work and personal if you’re just open and honest. This also is true for corporate types. Some say, “Keep your personal life out of your work.” Which is true, to some extent, but it doesn’t mean we have to keep your humanity out of your work! You don’t park it at the door.
Get to know your work colleagues. Understand their lives. Check in. Then, when it comes time to collaborate, innovate, or invent, there is trust there. There is mutual understanding of each other’s lives outside of work. You can understand where someone is coming from, and build from there. It doesn’t serve you to set this boundary because it stops you from collaborating and effectively with and trusting each other.
When I was in corporate, I did my best work with a team of people I was close to. People I would work with all day and then go out for drinks with at night. We trusted each other. We could brainstorm crazy ideas without fear and create amazing marketing campaigns. We could adapt quickly when things went wrong during a global roadshow and trust each other to get someone to the airport on a moment’s notice. We had each other’s backs. We got each other through and delivered amazing work.
When you are pulled into creating a boundary, be sure it’s one that serves you. (Tweet This!)
As a business owner, or even just a busy executive or changemaker, the best skill you can master is prioritization. Since you can’t clone yourself and you do need to sleep (and perhaps see your spouse every once in a while), the art of saying no is a powerful tool in your arsenal.
Work and life are all about choices. You can say yes to more of the right things–the right projects, clients, people–ONLY IF you say no to others.
As an organization, your brand strategy can be a great compass to keep you on the right path and not get distracted by inefficient investments, bad advertising opportunities, new social media platforms, or other shiny objects.
Further, your organization’s (or personal) mission, vision and values can keep you focused and moving forward.
Learning to say no is just as important as saying yes. But be sure you’re saying NO in a positive way.(TWEET THIS!)
I’ve seen many entrepreneurs in recent years swing so far the other way down the “learn to say no” track, that they make it impossible (and frankly, unpleasant) to do business with them.
You can say no with respect. Offer them a path forward if possible.“Wow, that sounds like an amazing project and opportunity. Unfortunately, I’m unable to help with it right now. Here are some other folks who might be able to work and I’m happy to make an introduction.”
You can say no with empathy: Some rules can be broken because…life. It’s not “making exceptions” – it’s being understanding. “My usual policy is that meetings cancelled with less than 24 hours notice require payment in full. But that is terrible about your daughter being ill. I hope she’s doing okay. You’ve definitely got a lot on your plate. Why don’t we go ahead and reschedule this for free this time- but I won’t be able to squeeze this in for another month. Does that work for you?”
You can say no with kindness and collaboration, rather than assuming ill intent or that someone is trying to take advantage of you. Not everyone is your mortal enemy so take it down a notch. Instead of:
(Huffing) “Well, it’s my policy and you did sign the contract so you knew this was an issue!”
Don’t confuse being unreasonable and aggressive with being professional.
How about: “What can we do together to remedy the situation while still staying true to the contract terms in Section 1B?” (and then go make sure that section of the contract is bolded and requires initials in the future!)
And if you decide to say no with this phrase “Nothing personal.” there are kind tones and aggressive tones. Remember, only 7% of your communication comes from the words you say. Non-verbal communication is everything, and that includes your tone of voice. As my mother used to scold, “It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it.” Usually before sending me to my room.
It’s super important to have boundaries, clarity, and conviction. You definitely don’t want to say yes if something is not the right fit, you don’t have time to do your best work, or you run yourself ragged. That’s not fair to the other person who needs you to be all-in. But…show some grace when you say no and you’ll not only still be able to prioritize or stick to your values, but you will also create a positive personal brand for yourself.
Try not to take “setting boundaries” so dangerously far that you build a wall around yourself that no one can–or wants to– scale.(TWEET THIS!)
