Welcome to August Hot Takes! To celebrate the podcast’s 2nd anniversary, we’re shaking things up with some solo episodes from yours truly. I’m answering common questions attendees ask during my keynotes and trainings.
How can I run my business with empathy?
Whether you are part of a billion dollar organization or you are a solopreneur, there are valid business reasons to embrace empathy as part of your business model. And it warms my heart to get this question, as it means that people are finally putting a spotlight on empathy as a way to run a more sustainable, successful business. We want to embrace empathy in how we lead our teams and run our businesses. But we’re not always sure how. Let’s talk about the ways in which you can infuse empathy into your business and reap the rewards.
Thanks for being here and enjoying the podcast. Would love to know what you think of this Hot Takes format.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- Easy ways you can practice empathy at work start with asking questions and being an active listener.
- State your common goals out loud – it reminds everyone involved that you’re actually on the same team and want the same things.
- Your community is made of real people with needs, desires, goals and aspirations, not numbers, subscribers, or dollar signs.
“It’s very easy to show empathy at work. It’s not as complicated as people think. It just requires self awareness and emotional intelligence.” — Maria Ross
Resources Mentioned:
Client Love: Maria’s digital course on how to nurture the customers you already have so you can attract even more.
3 Ways to Show More Empathy to Your Customers
5 Ways Empathy Benefits Your Business
Let’s Redefine “Kind” in Business
3 Ways to Practice Empathy at Work
5 Ways to Use Your Business to Make the World
Don’t forget to download your free guide! Discover The 5 Business Benefits of Empathy: http://red-slice.com/business-benefits-empathy
Connect with Maria:
Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com
Learn more about Maria’s brand strategy work and books: Red-Slice.com
Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy
LinkedIn: Maria Ross
Instagram: @redslicemaria
Twitter: @redslice
Facebook: Red Slice
FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Welcome, everyone to the empathy edge podcast. As many of you know, we’re doing something a little bit different this August, and that I’m offering you some solo episodes, called August hot takes on answering the most common questions and comments I get during my keynotes, my trainings, and even over email from people that have really connected with and engaged with the book. This is also an honor of the podcasts second anniversary this month.
So we’re shaking things up a little bit here with the format. And the question I want to tackle today is how can I run my business with empathy? I get this question whether people are part of a billion-dollar organization or they’re just solopreneurs, maybe accountants or designers or consultants who are running their business on their own. And they understand that there are valid business reasons to embracing empathy as part of your business model. For many of you that have read the book and are frequent listeners of this podcast, you know, there’s so many business benefits of empathy, including increased customer loyalty, higher revenues, higher retention, lower attrition, more employee and customer loyalty and engagement. The list goes on and on. But it really warms my heart when I get this question. Because people want to make this real for themselves. They want to run their business or operate within a business in a new way. They want to operate in a more human way, and understand the connections between people, no matter what they’re trying to sell that it all comes down to relationships between people. We want to embrace empathy and how we lead our teams and run our businesses. But we’re not always sure how. So today, let’s talk about a few ways in which you can infuse empathy into your team into your business and reap the rewards. And I’m going to be putting a ton of resources and links in the show notes for you. Because I’ve tackled this topic in various forums and articles. So first, let’s talk about three ways that you can show empathy at work. So, this one applies whether you are working with a larger organization, or you’re like I mentioned a solopreneur. And you’re just collaborating with a lot of partners. And it’s very easy to show empathy at work. It’s not as complicated as people think it really just requires self-awareness, and emotional intelligence. So, three ways that you can practice empathy at work. One is to ask questions and actively listen. So, whether you’re the manager, or you’re just on a team of colleagues, start defaulting from I’m right, and you’re wrong. And instead, ask questions. First, hear the person out, even if you vehemently disagree with them at 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? What are your goals? If you become a client of ours? What are you trying to achieve with this project? Ask those questions first. Before you start defending your stance, and see where it leads, you allow the other person to feel heard, to feel seen to feel understood. Secondly, find common ground. So, in those high stakes situations, you want to establish a common goal that you both have, however basic so that you can get on the same side of the table, rather than acting like your two opposing forces. So again, once you ask that those questions to find out what their goals are and their intentions, and what they’re looking to achieve, you can now share Oh, it sounds like we both agree that we want this campaign to succeed, or it sounds like we both want you to increase your sales this month by X percent. It’s really great to actually say this out loud, however obvious, it seems because it’s a great way to defuse the tension of a conversation and remind yourselves that you’re both on the same team and this works with colleagues as well as clients. And the third way that you can practice empathy at work is to check in with people. So, before you dive into the business portion of a meeting, take a moment for everyone to ground themselves and share what’s going on for them. For those of you who read my book, you may remember I had a conversation with a CEO, who talked about doing this in their exec team meetings every Monday, they would share how their weekends went, if they had fun if they had a difficult time with their kids, it gave each other context to understand where people were coming from and what they were bringing into that meeting. Remember, we’ve always talked about the fact that you don’t park your humanity at the door, when you walk into the office or the you know, virtual office these days. So, get a little bit of context, maybe someone had a fantastic weekend, maybe somebody got engaged, right, or maybe somebody had a crappy weekend, literally, and was dealing with potty training their kid, the frame of mind that someone is in is what they bring into a meeting or into a group conversation. So, check in with people and stop avoiding assumptions about their mood, about how they’re reacting to ideas, about their tone. And it helps that you understand where people are coming from, from their sense of humanity, because then people that you need to give a little grace to you can, and people who you might have a little bit of trouble helping to focus and concentrate, you can understand that as well. We have to stop making assumptions in the workplace and really get to know each other as people, because that’s how we can perform better and move forward.
Now, those are three ways that you can operate and practice empathy at work, regardless of who you work with. How can we show empathy and our business model? Right? This is a common question I get from entrepreneurs. Number one is that you really want to treat everyone in your community, like a person, not a number, not a dollar sign, not a newsletter subscriber. A lot of people try to collect email addresses like baseball cards. And we really need to remember there is a person with real needs, desires, goals and aspirations behind every list of people that we deal with. So remember that you’re building a community, whether it’s like a user, a user community, whether it’s an online community, or whether it’s just the community of your your customers. People want to share their thoughts and feelings, they it’s it, it helps you to take the time to treat them like a person. Now, that’s not always possible. But can you change, for example, your email auto responder when someone signs up for your email list, and post some questions back to them? And when they reply, reply back, not everyone will reply back. So don’t worry about getting inundated. Can you make a short video to welcome that person, as a new customer or into the community, treat them like people not names to be collected. And I have a link from an article I’m going to link to that has some ideas for you and how you can love on on your people better. Number two is to carve out time to proactively check in with current clients with past clients, surprise some of your email subscribers and welcome them reach out to call a partner you haven’t heard from in a while. You know, it doesn’t take a lot of time or effort if you just carve this into your schedule every week. But it reaps huge rewards. People remember how you treat them, they talk about it to others, they appreciate you. And even if you know you know your customers, or your clients well enough that you know what’s going on in their lives. It’s not just sending them like an automated email on their birthday. But let’s say it’s June and you know your client has a child graduating from high school, send them a quick note, send them a text, that’s all it takes. It’s just carved out that time to proactively check in. And even just if you can spend 15 minutes of your weekly time, you will reap huge rewards from this. And finally, be thoughtful and customize experiences. So, make sure you’re not doing everything so efficiently that it feels like a cold impersonal cookie cutter experience. When can you send a handwritten thank you card? When can you send someone a very thoughtful client appreciation gift that is custom tailored to who they are and what they enjoy? What personal touches can you do with your own clients to show them that you know them and that you care? So, I again will put a link in the show notes to an article about this. And some other ideas. I also offer a course called Client love which helps you love on your exam. stint clients and email subscribers even more than you already do, and offers them a very empathetic personalized experience.
Now, we also want to talk about ways that you can use your business to do good in the world. Now, this is what people often think about when when I talk about empathy as part of your business model. And if you read the book, you know that that is just one of many ways that you can build an empathetic brand. But this is the one people really, really gravitate towards, because I think more and more people are starting businesses that make a difference in the world and make the world a better place. Or more and more people, if you look at all the studies about what Millennials and Gen Z want, from their careers, and from their jobs, is they want a job that makes a difference. So how can you oblige and be a company be a business that is doing good in the world. I have a personal mantra that with great success comes great responsibility. I am not the person that invented that mantra, you’ve probably heard it before. So, these are ways that I have come up with on how to run your business in a way that makes the world a better place. One, you can donate a percentage of profits to a good cause that’s a pretty easy one. When you have a great year, you can use your good fortune to help worthy causes. When you have a so-so year again, it’s just a percentage, so it’s all relative. And this type of social entrepreneurship is getting more and more popular. So, make yourself successful. So, you can then in turn support really great causes. You can do this consistently, by just making a declaration that every dollar you get a certain percentage of it goes to a good cause, you can do a one-to-one model like TOMS Shoes does, or embrace baby warmers, in which when you sell a product, you also give a version of that product to an organization that provides it to people in need, I think Bombus the sock company does this as well. And if you can’t, you know, be in the trenches to donate your time, or you know, join the Peace Corps, you can build a profitable sustainable business and use those profits to support the people who are on the frontlines. Number two, and your business model is to give the gift of giving back. So, I do this every year at the holidays, I don’t send my clients a thank you gift of you know, a mug or a pen or you know, a bottle of wine, what I do is I thank them by allowing them to choose from a selection of what some of my favorite charities and social impact organizations, and I give a gift in their name. So, they remember my brand with respect, they feel good about not cluttering their desk, and the organization that goes to gets the resources to continue it’s good work. So, you can give the gift of giving back to your clients, your partners, your colleagues, or your team members as a reward. Third, as part of your business model, especially if you run your own business, you can take on a pro bono project every year, I used to have a friend that ran a design agency and every quarter, they committed to take on one pro bono community project for a local organization. So they had very deep values in promoting social good, and they walked their talk. And you know, the side bonus was these paid gigs enabled them that you know, the paid gigs, they had enabled them to generously donate their time and talent. And they got great press and PR from very influential people on the boards of these organizations who could then hire them for paid projects. Number four, and how to help your business make the world a better place is to choose your clients wisely. So, no one says you have to serve people or organizations who pollute the environment or people who scam the elderly, or people for whom your values don’t align. Especially if you run your own business, it’s your business, you absolutely have the right and responsibility to define your values, and work only with people or brands who do no harm. And this includes partners, the more that you support, those kinds of organizations, those kinds of clients, those kinds of customers, the more everyone wins, so you have a choice to build that in your business model of I’m not going to take on this specific industry, or I’m not going to take on these types of clients. And you can do that without saying no, by making a very clear statement on your website or in your materials about this is what I stand for. And these are my values. So, if they don’t align for you, we probably shouldn’t work together. It’s perfectly acceptable to sort of put up a here’s why you shouldn’t work with me just as much as saying here’s who should work with me. And number five, which I love mentioning about how to use your business to make the world a better place. It all comes down to you. As an individual. You can act with kindness, empathy and authenticity. You can either choose to do horrible things in your work or do you know, disingenuous marketing, or you can stay truthful and stay true to your own personal values, you can be a model of empathy and how you operate. You can be good to your customers and clients, you can show empathy, you can keep your word, you can be an honest, supportive colleague, you can only control yourself so you can be the example. And by you operating in that way, that is part of your business model that is part of your personal brand. And that’s how you can infuse empathy into everything you do. So, I’d love to hear from you on other questions or ideas you have related to how to infuse more empathy and your business model and how to run your business with empathy, how to lead your team with empathy, please DM me on Instagram, red slice Maria, or you can find me on LinkedIn as always. And if you’re not already a part of my email tribe, I hope you will subscribe at the empathy edge.com Where you won’t miss a podcast episode. So, until next time, remember that cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Thanks, have a great day and be kind.