Empathy is the key to effective marketing. You’ve heard that here before. But what is really going on in the brains of savvy buyers, and how can we tap into that – not to manipulate, but to connect and engage with what they need and who they want to be?
Today, Rai Cornell shares her unique journey, including being a psychologist in the prison system. We discuss how to appeal to today’s savvy buyers and why everyone is a skeptical buyer. We talk about the mistakes companies make when they “pitch” and why 70% of the sales process is actually done before the salesperson does that pitch. And some examples of effective tactics and campaigns we’ve both seen. And a real treat today: you know the old marketing adage of helping prospects know, like, and trust you? Rai breaks down HOW to achieve each of those steps by taking about the brain’s neurotransmitters and the chemicals activated at each stage, so you can best engage your audience at each step. And we discuss the ethics of empathetic marketing and how to avoid manipulation or coercion at all costs, as well as the importance of internal feedback loops to consistently practice empathy with your customers.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- Prioritize understanding the gatekeeper, not just the final buyer, especially in B2B sales situations.
- Everyone you are selling to is a human. They will have both logic drivers and emotional drivers.
- If you want to be efficient with your marketing dollars – spending less, doing more, and getting more ROI – empathy is the way to do it because you have to slow down and understand who the other person is.
- Utilize the power of neurotransmitters – dopamine and oxytocin – to maximize know, like, and trust.
“Be altruistic. Understand the situation. This is where empathy comes in. You have to understand the situation that they’re in before they want to buy your solution.” — Rai Cornell
Episode References:
- Nike, If You Let Me Play Ad Campaign
- Subaru crashed car ad, They Lived
About Rai Cornell, CEO, Cornell Content Marketing:
Rai Cornell is the CEO and Strategic Marketing Consultant of Cornell Content Marketing. Rai helps B2B businesses become thought leaders by creating long-term demand-generation strategies and eliminating costly and unnecessary short-term, manipulative tactics like ads. Rai’s marketing approach is psychology-driven to ensure businesses attract pre-qualified, emotionally engaged buyers.
Connect with Rai:
Email: rairose@cornellcontentmarketing.com
Cornell Content Marketing: cornellcontentmarketing.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/raicornell
Connect with Maria:
Get Maria’s books on empathy: Red-Slice.com/books
Learn more about Maria’s work: Red-Slice.com
Hire Maria to speak: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy
LinkedIn: Maria Ross
Instagram: @redslicemaria
Facebook: Red Slice
Threads: @redslicemaria
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. Empathy is the key to effective marketing. You’ve heard me say that before, but what is really going on in the brains of savvy buyers, and how can we tap into that, not to manipulate, but to connect and engage with what they need and who they want to be. You are in for a treat today. Rai Cornell, CEO of Cornell content marketing, is here to break down what is going on in the minds of savvy buyers. Rai, a psychologist and expert in behavioral change by background now helps B to B businesses become thought leaders by creating long term demand generation strategies and eliminating costly and unnecessary short term manipulative tactics like ads, Rai’s marketing approach is psychology driven to ensure businesses attract pre qualified, emotionally engaged buyers. Today, she shares her unique journey, including being a psychologist in the prison system. We discuss how to appeal to today’s savvy buyers and why everyone is a skeptical buyer. We talk about the mistakes companies make when they pitch and why 70% of the sales process is actually done before the salesperson does that pitch, and some examples of effective tactics and campaigns we’ve both seen also a real treat today. You know the old marketing adage of helping prospects know, like and trust you. Rai breaks down how to achieve each of these steps by talking about the brain’s neurotransmitters and the chemicals activated at each stage so you can best engage your audience at each step. I’ve never heard someone break this down so succinctly before, and we discuss the ethics of empathetic marketing and how to avoid manipulation or coercion at all costs, as well as the importance of internal feedback loops to consistently practice empathy with your customers. There are so many gems in today’s episode, if you’re a marketer or if you’re just trying to motivate and persuade a group of people, take a listen. Welcome Rai Cornell to the empathy edge Podcast. I’m so excited to talk to a very like minded marketer and Brander. So welcome to the show to talk to us a little bit about the psychology of buying and the psychology of a savvy buyer. Because you and I, as we were just discussing before we started rolling tape here rolling tape that’s really dating myself before we started recording is that, you know, empathy is such a key ingredient to that success. So welcome to the
Rai Cornell 03:23
show. Thanks. Thanks so much for having me, Maria. So tell us
Maria Ross 03:27
a little bit about how you even got into this work. And you know how you got into this work of helping brands and companies really connect and engage with their ideal clients and customers?
Rai Cornell 03:38
Yeah, I mean, now we’re talking about infusing empathy into marketing, but I actually come from a world where empathy is ground one, that’s job. Day 1101, lesson one, first thing you have to do. I come from the world of psychology, so I was on track to be a counselor in the prison system, and I worked as a substance abuse and corrections counselor in a mental hospital, a substance abuse rehab facility, a community counseling center. And I won’t go into the whole long story of how I burned out on the mental health board, but I can imagine, yeah, and I, I loved working with people. I loved the people I was working with. My specialty was behavior change for really deeply ingrained behaviors, but it was the bureaucracy and the red tape of the industry that I couldn’t get my head around. So all the while I was working on my three degrees and this career and everything, I was working as a freelance writer on the side. So when I decided to leave the mental health world, I threw myself full on into freelance writing, and now I’ve been working in the marketing industry for 18 years, and I’ve built a full service content marketing agency based on the psychology of behavior change, so we layer those psychological models into everything that we do.
Maria Ross 04:53
I love it. This is so so juicy. We’re going to have such a great conversation. So thank you for sharing. Sharing that, and to just give us some grounding, what’s the psychology of a savvy buyer? But also, are there different types of psychologies of different buyers we need to be aware of, like, we’re not always talking to the savvy buyer, right? So I guess that’s the ideal state. Is we’re talking to someone who is like, on board with what we do and what we sell and they get it. What is that psychology like?
Rai Cornell 05:24
Yeah, so you exactly to your point. You have to first know who am I talking to. And the funny thing is, whether you’re in B to B or B to C, you often have different audiences. So for example, in the world of B to B, particularly things like tech and these large purchases that companies are making because they think it’s going to advance their revenue or allow them to scale quickly, or whatever the case may be, you’re not always talking to the decision maker, and a lot of marketers don’t understand that. They think they have to go right for the decision maker. But really, that person doesn’t get involved until very late in the buying process. And so what’s lacking in the marketing world is this understanding of what I call the gatekeeper. And there’s a zillion different terms out there for this person, but essentially, it’s the person who has been tasked with finding a solution to the company’s problem and presenting a short list to the decision maker, and it’s that person who you have to prioritize, understanding their psychology, their level of education and what you have to offer, their level of readiness and savviness as well. So when we talk about the savvy buyer, typically, we’re referring to either one of two things. One is they’re savvy to what you’re selling. So they’re very educated. They’ve already, you know, been in the industry for 10 plus years. They have an pre set short list in their mind that they want to go to, and you either have to break into that or hold your spot in that another version of the savvy buyer is this person who’s hip to the Jive of sales tactics. So yeah, yeah. When you’re on a sales team and you’re doing cold outreach, you’re using Zoom info, you’re using all these tools to try and automate your lead gen, you are really disappointing people. If you’re doing what everyone has already experienced and they already sense, is a sales tactic.
Maria Ross 07:29
Oh my gosh, I love what you’re saying. Because when I’ve worked with my branding clients, that especially in tech, that’s the point you have to get them to, right? All of them say, Oh, our ideal client is the CFO or the CIO, and it’s like, great, that’s not going to be the first person that comes in contact with your sales team or your brand, or is going to the trade show or is attending the webinars, right? It’s the people like you said, I it’s also the influencers, like who’s influencing that decision, and I love what you said about the gatekeepers, because those are the people that are being tasked by those C suite leaders or VPS to do the research, so you need to be speaking to them. And if you’re speaking to them in a way that says they’re unimportant, they’re going to know, right? They need their needs met before they can sort of run you up the chain to actually get to the decision maker that signs the check and signs the contract exactly. I love what you said there. The other thing I often hear a lot, which I’d be interested from you, is, because I do work with tech companies, when I do brand projects, is the whole, well, you know, you can’t market to it. You can’t market to developers or programmers, because they’re onto the BS, like, you can’t BS them. And I’m like, It’s not about BS ing them. It’s about communicating with them, but also, like we were talking about as well. They’re human beings as well, and they have logic drivers and emotion drivers. And just because they’re very logical thinkers doesn’t mean just presenting features and functions to them is going to be enough to convince so can you talk a little bit about that? You know that psychology of the I guess, the skeptical buyer, and how you work with your clients, to connect with those people, to engage them.
Rai Cornell 09:08
I love that you are using this term, the skeptical buyer, because I feel like that’s what everyone is nowadays, and yet nobody’s talking about that. Everyone is doing their marketing and their cold pitching and their advertising as if the person on the other end is not skeptical, is not smart, is not savvy. So this is a great example. So the skeptical buyer, you know, you mentioned that some people will say, Oh, you can’t market to IT people. You can’t market to the skeptical buyer. No, you just can’t pitch the skeptical buyer. But you can win them over. And here’s the thing you have to first set aside the fact that, okay, if they’re skeptical, the one thing you can’t do is try to sell them right? Everyone who is skeptical, everyone nowadays, and research even shows this, that 70% of the B to B buying process is done before anyone is ready to. To talk to a sales rep. They’ve already done their research. They’ve educated themselves. They’ve learned the lingo. They’ve learned the scope of what’s available out there. They’re looking at what is within their budget and what competitors are pricing their services and their options at. So if 70% of the buying process is done before someone’s willing to speak to a sales rep. How are you supposed to connect with them? They want to come to you. They want to feel like it’s their decision to choose you. And so the only thing you can do to win them over is be helpful. That is the only thing you can do. You can offer content. You can offer updates. You can offer insights. You can offer examples of, hey, we just went through the ringer of helping this client, because Google decided to turn the world on its head, and now we’re implementing this solution. You guys can use it too. Be altruistic. Understand the situation. This is where empathy comes in. You have to understand the situation that they’re in before they want to buy your solution. You have to understand every pain point that they experience up until that point of readiness and create solutions, create helpful content or tools or connections or communities for them, understanding that you’re not going to get them as a buyer for months, possibly even years, but when they are ready, you’re going to be at the top of their shortlist. This is the way the world’s evolving.
Maria Ross 11:36
Yeah, it really is. And it’s not about giving it all away. You know, that’s always the objection I hear about that. And what I like to tell my clients is, if you can give all your knowledge and value away in a one hour webinar, maybe you need to be doing something else. Because if, if that’s the extent of everything that you can offer them, then we have a problem. But really it’s and it’s also about, I think empathy for this is what I’ve learned in lead gen. There’s people who will take the content and never do anything else, and you just have to account for that. They’re the people that are going to take the free resources, they’re going to watch the webinars, they’re going to read the the solution briefs. They’re going to, you know, consume all the content and try to do it on their own. Then there are the people who are going to consume all the content and realize this is harder than I thought, or I’m not going to have time for this, or I’m going to need some advice and support as I go through this. And those are the people you’re going to attract with all that quote, unquote, free content you’re putting out into the world. So it’s getting those it’s getting marketing folks over that hump of understanding that you have to have empathy for the different type of buyer, whether they’re a DIY or do they want it done for them,
Rai Cornell 12:53
right? And I’m glad that you said that, because it reminds me of this company. So I attended SaaS stock earlier this year, and imperative was there, and they did a few talks, and I was blown away by Daniel the speaker. He is so knowledgeable in the funny thing is, so many clients that I work with, they say, Well, how are we supposed to attribute demand, generation, early brand awareness, or branding at all, to closed one deal dollars. Yeah. Well, that is something that C suite leaders often think, oh, that should be easy. You should just be able to tag people or cookies or whatever the case may be. Daniel imperative did this amazing talk where he showed all of the stages that you have to go through when using their tool, which is designed to do exactly this. He walked you through the entire process in a two hour workshop where he was showing okay, this is how you go from data tracking to identifying leads to then conglomerating those into accounts to then funneling them into opportunities in pipeline, and so on. And by doing that, not only did he validate the C suite idea that this should be possible. But also he showed empathy for the marketers in the room who were tasked with doing this by revealing just how complicated this is. And then he convinced, without having to tell us to buy or be persuasive in any way, shape or form, convince the entire room that imperative is the best at this because they understand the complexity of this process. So it was like this three fold amazing demonstration carrying empathy all the way through to satisfy all different perspectives who have a stake in marketing attribution, I
Maria Ross 14:42
love that, and I mean, and that’s, you know, because all of my empathy work came initially from doing marketing and brand strategy work. That was where I really saw the power of empathy, and not just fake empathy, but really, like you said, understanding where someone is and being able to provide a solution to alleviate a pain point. Help them achieve a benefit of some sort, right, take away a pain or increase a pleasure. And I love that story because it goes to the fact that it’s not necessarily just a numbers game. It’s not necessarily just, you know, well, let’s just use the same pitch on everybody and see who it sticks with. It’s being able to discern who everyone is as an individual and who everyone is within their organization. And that requires empathy, that requires asking questions and listening to the answers. And this is why it’s such a superpower of marketers who are successful versus the ones that are like, we’re just gonna play the numbers. And this is gonna this is gonna hit. You know, what’s the old saying, like, even a broken clock is right twice a day or whatever? Yeah, yeah. So it’s if you want to be efficient with your marketing dollars, and this is where you get the CFOs attention, right? If you want to spend less and do more and get more margin, get more ROI empathy is the way to do it, because you’ve got to slow down for a second and understand who these people are. So I love what you’re saying. Of course, we’re like preaching the choir here. So tell us about neurotransmitters. And because I love your mix of your psychology background with the marketing that you’re doing now. And how does that what is that? And how does that unlock loyalty? Yes.
Rai Cornell 16:21
So every marketer has heard that in order to be successful in marketing, you need to have the know, like and trust factor, right? But even though we all know that, we know that, oh, you have to get people to know about your brand, then you have to get them to like your brand, then you have to get them to trust your brand, we all know that, and everyone still goes, Okay, but how do I do that? With my background in psychology, I always look at everything through that lens of, how do we build relationships, and what’s actually going on in the mind? And you know, when we feel feelings, those are actually chemical reactions going on in our brains and in our bodies. And so if we look at the know, like and trust factor from the perspective of neurotransmitters, it actually gives you this connection point to know exactly what to do to create that thing, whether it’s know, like or trust. So for example, if we’re talking about first getting someone to know your brand in order for someone to know you and feel like they have an understanding of who you are, what you do, what you offer. You want to activate dopamine. When you activate dopamine, you are going to be more memorable. You are going to have a positive association in their brain, because dopamine makes us feel good. It makes us feel accomplished. It makes us feel like the gaps and the worry and the wondering in our heads, all those gaps are now filled in with the satisfaction of knowledge. So now that we know, okay, in order to get something to know about us, we have to activate dopamine. Then we ask, how do we activate dopamine? You give them the answers to the questions they’re asking. So if you look at the sales journey and you look very, very far to the left, very early on in the process. This is where someone is either not aware that they have the problem, or maybe they are where they have the problem, but they’re not sure if there’s even a solution. This is where they’re going to be typing in questions like, How do I get my team members to stay with us longer? How do we increase retention? How do we increase employee satisfaction and morale? They are going to Google, they are going to Reddit, they are going to LinkedIn, typing in those questions. If you create the content that answers those in a way that is, and we talked about, you know, companies being afraid of giving away the farm, so to speak, but if you give them all the information they need to solve that one particular problem, you are activating dopamine in their brains. You are giving them all these pleasurable responses, and suddenly they have this subliminal positive connotation with your brand that makes them feel good and wants to see you again, right? It brings them closer to you. So then you can then move on to the next stage, which is like,
Maria Ross 19:05
oh, and then what happens there? World is neuro I’m, like, fascinated with this. What role do neurotransmitters play in that phase?
Rai Cornell 19:12
When you want someone to like your brand, you need to activate oxytocin. Oxytocin is the bond building neurotransmitter. Oftentimes, though, when we think of oxytocin, we think of romantic relationships or oxytocin or maternal Exactly, yes, oxytocin’s claim to fame is mom and baby bonding and that skin to skin contact. And yet, studies have shown that you can still activate oxytocin in someone’s brain by forming social relationships with them, so that the and this is where empathy really comes into play. So if you want to activate oxytocin, which is the key to getting someone to like your brand, you need to make sure they understand that you see them, you hear them, you understand them, you empathize with them. You get it they. Not alone when you do that, this is where you build that unbreakable bond between that buyer and your brand, because you are making them feel a sense of closeness that they have previously probably only neurochemically felt with their best friends, their spouse, their children, and this is where you can really start to create those lifelong advocates for your brand, because you’ve shown, yeah, you’re not just trying to push features and benefits.
Maria Ross 20:34
So is this where a lot of the emotional advertising and marketing comes in. Because when you were describing this, I instantly thought of different campaigns I’ve seen from years ago, like years ago. I in my first branding book, I spoke about the impact of Nike’s, if you let me play campaign which was in the 90s, or maybe early 2000s that showed young girls, and it showed statistics around young girls who play sports, and how they’re less likely to be in an abusive relationship, they’re less likely to, you know, drop out of college. They’re less all these things that were not about sports apparel, right? Yeah, and I felt such a connection with Nike because of that campaign. And then you think of like dove, real beauty, or you think about even, you know, cleaning products. I use method cleaning products because I feel like they get me, and they get my sassy, sarcastic sense of humor in their packaging or their So is that what you’re talking about is those decisions that create that emotional connection
Rai Cornell 21:37
exactly, and as marketers, you can reverse engineer this because marketers are amazingly good at seeing marketing tactics in other marketing and so exactly to your point, you know, let’s use the Nike example. If you feel this sense of, I just like Nike. I just like them. Like, man, they get it. Suddenly they are going to stand out in your mind above Adidas and Lululemon and all the other apparel companies. And why? Exactly to your point, they didn’t talk about apparel. They didn’t talk about its durability or its stretchiness or its easy wash ability, all those features and benefits. No, they talked about the experience that you want to have. And in this case, if someone is a mother buying clothing for their daughter, and the mother wants their daughter to go on to be successful and independent and self reliant, then this is the brand for her. This brand can give her that positive self image. It has nothing to do with apparel, but you’re understanding the mental angst going on in a mother’s mind, or even in that daughter’s mind, and you’re empathizing with it, you’re saying, we get it. We’ve had the same thoughts.
Maria Ross 22:47
Yeah. And then let’s get into the trust factor, because then I want to talk about the dark side of this, because I know people are thinking it if they’re listening. So let’s talk about the neurotransmitters when it comes to trust.
Rai Cornell 22:59
Yes, so trust is all about endorphins. So typically, when we think of endorphins, we think about, oh, I just ran the mile and it feels so good, or I just did some hard gardening work and it feels great. Endorphins, even though those are examples of things that we do physically with our bodies that yield endorphins. Endorphins can also be generated when someone has this almost like ego boost of accomplishment, and this is where you start to trust a brand. So for example, I worked with a company that was great at doing this. They are a CPR training platform, and their whole goal was to get companies that need to train large groups of people to sign on with them by many units and have a streamlined system for training all their staff in CPR and First Aid. Well, they also wanted to do a campaign to target individual employees whose employer had not yet signed on with any particular provider. The employer was just telling all employees go get your CPR certification card, and just give me the card. Yeah. Well, oftentimes those employers say, employee, it’s your responsibility to pay for this. So what my client did was they put together this basically letter, this template letter that the employee could give to their employer, saying, hey, look, this is why you should cover you should reimburse me for the cost of my CPR certification. And when employees used that resource, gave it to their employer, not only did they get reimbursed for their CPR certification card, but then the employer thought, Wow, this employee savvy. This is very smart. This is very well written. This is great. They made that person look good, and you have to think about and again, empathy. You have to put yourself in their shoes, and you have to think about, what does this person really want, not just in their job, their role, their job title, but in life? Do they want to look good? Do they want to seem as though or be recognized for contributing to the organization? Do they want to leave some kind of legacy behind? What are they really wanting on that deep impact level? If you can contribute to that ego, yeah, activate endorphins, and they are going to trust you.
Maria Ross 25:09
I love that, because that’s such a big part, especially like again, going back to when I’ve had tech clients, it’s like, it’s not about the platform you’re putting in, and it’s also not about the fact that they’re paying for your product from not their own wallet, but from their company’s budget. It’s how will this decision make them look within the organization? Will it help advance their career? Will it help them get a promotion? Will it help them leave a legacy within the company that they’ve actually transformed with the way the company does something, and we’re seeing a lot of that, actually right now, in the age of AI, yes, with innovators within the company not just wanting to implement AI solutions and transform the way the company does work, but they want to leave a legacy of I am part of this revolution, and I am leading my company through this change, right? You know that makes the difference between, well, we’re comparing three different solutions, and this one might not tick all the boxes, but if it can help me leave my legacy, then I might go with them, right? If it has the know like and trust factor
Rai Cornell 26:14
exactly, and in this, the trust building aspect is best activated when somebody’s putting themselves out there. They’re putting they’re taking a risk, whether it’s the gatekeeper who’s saying, hey, these top three companies are the ones I think you should consider. But this third one right here, this is the one I’m really leaning towards, and here’s why. And you enabled them to look really great to the CEO, CFO CRO, whoever’s making the decision, yeah. And then likewise, if that CRO signs off on making that purchase, they need to look good to the board, and so they’re putting themselves out there. They’re saying, I’m making this recommendation, I’m making this choice now, as the company who was lucky enough to be chosen by these decision makers and gatekeepers, it’s your job to deliver on what you promised and make sure that you take care of the people who have your back. And when you do that, you can start seeding it with these little tools, like the example of the client I gave, but you also need to do that in your service delivery and your client reputation, which is why marketing goes all the way through the retention process,
Maria Ross 27:19
right, right? Okay, so let’s talk about the dark side of this a lot. A little bit. Yes, because you know, often what you hear is leveraging empathy in marketing can be manipulative and deceptive. So how do you help your clients avoid that? Yeah,
Rai Cornell 27:33
okay, so it’s easy. Honestly, frankly, it’s easy. Because what someone’s talking about when they say the dark side, and they’re saying, Oh, if we use empathy and we put all this emotional language in there, we’re playing on people’s emotions. We’re trying to manipulate them. The way to figure out if what you’re doing is ethical or not is put yourself on the receiving end of it. If I received this advertisement, if I received this email, is it going to make me feel bad, like, FOMO, scarcity, peer pressure, anything like that? Then, yes, that is the dark side. If it’s making you feel something good, which good things can only activate oxytocin and dopamine and endorphins, if it’s making you feel good, like, oh, they get it. I under like, I feel understood, I feel seen. Okay, that’s positive. So it’s all about the outcome of how you’re making people feel. And this is so important to talk about, because companies have the power, with a single push of the publish button, to affect 1000s, millions of lives. Yeah. And so you have to make sure that before you do that, you are using empathy to see how is this going to make people feel right? And there’s been research that shows that if you make people feel bad, you actually burn that bridge. They don’t trust you, and your advertisement is actually less memorable than advertisements that make you feel good. Well,
Maria Ross 29:01
let’s square that, though, because we do hear a lot about and we do see a lot of advertising and marketing that speaks to pain points, that speaks to FOMO, yes, and it has been effective, right? I’m recalling, like, way back several years ago, Volkswagen. Think it was Volkswagen. Maybe it was Subaru. Can’t remember. It was a car company that basically showed cars crashing, and the fact that they’re the drivers of those cars survived, yes, but it was sort of a negative like this happens when you go and drive right or if you look at the famous example, is the, you know, the ASPCA, with their ads I can’t even watch. I have to turn the chair because I’m a huge dog lover, but it’s obviously been effective for them in raising money. So where do you what’s your take on that? So? So
Rai Cornell 29:47
here’s the thing, when you use those negative tactics, like, let’s take the ASPCA one, because my heart is cracking just thinking, I hate those things. It. Works in the short term. So someone might see that commercial and go, Oh my God, I feel so guilty. I have to help. Let me go pledge $15 and then the next time that ASPCA commercial comes on, what do they do? They know what’s coming, so they change the channel. Yeah, they don’t want to feel bad, right? Yes, you got their money once, but you’re not going to win their loyalty. You might win the sale. And this is why things like flash sales and influencer marketing and things like that are effective short term. Yeah, you constantly have to be coming up with new ways of pressuring people into buying from you. Now, on the flip side, I would say Subaru did the opposite. Yeah, I would say that the Subaru commercial
Maria Ross 30:39
that because it showed a good outcome, right?
Rai Cornell 30:43
Exactly. And it makes you feel like, oh, not only did this company educate me about how dangerous car crashes actually could be, but also they provided a solution. They didn’t just flash the problem in front of my face. They showed me that this is a problem. It’s something every for example, parent who has a teenager who’s learning to drive worries about and they’re giving me the solution, and they’re saying, We care about you. We want you to be safe. Yeah, we are building machines that are designed to keep your loved ones inside safe. Yeah, to me, that is a very good use of empathy. And they really are providing, if they were providing, you know, flimsy little chunk of cars, that’s another story, but they’re delivering on the promise, right? That’s an effective, positive, ethical use of empathy. In my opinion, I
Maria Ross 31:35
agree. I mean, I think it’s just, it comes down to, do you, can you deliver on that promise, right? And if you’re leveraging emotion to help a prospective ideal client or customer understand that you get them, but then you get their money and you don’t deliver, that’s where it becomes unethical. The other thing for me is also you’re speaking to whom you’re speaking to, and it’s not about manipulating someone who has no need for your product or service to spend money on it. It’s about targeting the people that do have the need. Yes, they just don’t realize that you have the right solution for them, exactly. And so it’s different than convincing someone to buy something they don’t need or want,
Rai Cornell 32:17
right? And I think that’s the thing with in the difference here is, if the person who bought the Subaru next sees the commercial, they’re gonna go, hey, hey, honey, this is that commercial that made me want to get that car for our teenager who’s now learning to drive. Yeah? Like, look, this is amazing, yeah. Whereas somebody sees the ASPCA commercial or the ads on Facebook and they go, oh gosh, Get that away from me, right now. It makes me feel awful, right? That’s
Maria Ross 32:44
the difference, right? I love it. Oh my gosh, so so great. Okay, last thing I want to talk about with you before we wrap up, is the importance of feedback loops. And talk about what that is and what that looks like within an organization, and the role that that they fulfill in ensuring that we stay connected and empathetic with our ideal customers and clients.
Rai Cornell 33:06
So you hit the nail on the head right there when you said the word stay. So this is the thing, as marketers, and especially you and me, we could talk about empathy and marketing and language and branding all day long, all day long. And the thing is, it’s not something that you just do once, though, because the people that we’re trying to connect with are living, breathing human beings who are evolving every single day. The companies that we work with or represent are living entities with people, changing goals, changing they’re driven by humans, so they’re changing every single day, the world that we live in, the society we live in, the words that we use are evolving every single day, and so how are you supposed to stay on top of that? You need to create these feedback loops with the people who are front and center, with the primary source. So as marketers, oftentimes we’re observers, or we’re out there trying to collect information, collect insights from the primary sources. Whenever I go into a new company and start working with them, I always set up these feedback loops between sales and marketing and between customer service or service delivery and marketing, because those teams are the primary source. So for example, between sales and marketing, the sales reps are the ones hearing all the objections saying, Oh, well, I really want to do this, but my boss is hesitant. Suddenly right there. When someone says that, you know what the gatekeeper wants versus what the decision maker wants, right? You have to tap into that language, pull it into marketing, place it in your buyer journey at the right point to preemptively address those objections. And when you do that, you actually end up building these marketing funnels, which I would always argue marketing’s job is not to sell. Marketing’s job is to pre sell. And when you create these feedback loops, you get those prospects 80 to 90% pre sold, so that having a sales call with a. Rep is just a formality. It’s just ironing out and hammering out the details. Sales should be selling, not convincing. Marketing should be doing all of that resistance breakdown.
Maria Ross 35:11
I love that so much, because I talk a lot about when you’re trying to build an empathetic brand in a digital world, it’s about getting out there and talking to your ideal customers and clients, so not sitting in an ivory tower making decisions in a boardroom that impact who they are and their lives. And so when you’re able to ask and then echo back how they describe the problem, how they describe the benefits they seek, even when I’ve worked with brand story clients on how did they describe you, what do they describe? I know what you want to say, and I know you want to use all this jargon to like, please the analysts or please the press, but how do your clients actually talk about you to their peers? Right? What kind of solution do they say you provide? And let’s use that to our advantage, to say, if we can ask and echo back the empathetic impact you get is that someone sees your marketing and goes, oh my gosh, that’s the voice in my head. Yes. That’s exactly how I talk about the problem, right? Yes. Or talk about the solution. I know, you know, even things I’ve bought or courses I’ve signed up for, it’s because they’ve actually articulated the problem in the exact way that I have articulated it in my own head. And I’m like, okay, they get me
Rai Cornell 36:20
exactly, and I would add that this layers in an element of humanization to industries that are often overly clinical, overly articulated. You know, I work in B to B Tech and SAS primarily in e learning, and it’s so easy for leaders within these companies to over complicate the explanation of what they do. But when you create these feedback loops and you tap into the language that either your ideal potential customers or clients, or your existing customers or clients on the service delivery and customer service side are already using, you get this very colloquial, relaxed, casual way of phrasing, approachable, exactly, it’s approachable, and it makes people feel like you’re on an even playing field, which again, makes them trust you. It makes them feel like they are
Maria Ross 37:09
home, for sure, I mean, and you can probably relate to this If I hear one more time about like we provide best in breed technology, I always say to my clients, do you think they’re at the bar, drowning in their drink, complaining about how hard things are, saying what I really need is a Best In Breed technology solution. They’re not saying that. I mean, maybe you use less of the colorful language they might be using, but explain what you do instead of throwing in and then, you know, save the keywords for SEO. Save the keywords for the web page or whatever. But when you’re actually giving a pitch, or you’re doing an ad, or you are creating an email talk how your customer talks, and sometimes that is, you know, it might be, you might be in a very scientific academic field where they are using a lot of jargon or shorthand, and that’s okay, but when you’re using it in a way that people can’t understand what you’re talking about, it’s not super helpful for connection. So exactly, oh my gosh, Rai, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for talking us today about the psychology behind all this and actually providing us some solutions on I’ve never, ever, ever had a guest or a course where someone is broken down. Know, like and trust that way. So even that is gold. So thank you for these insights today. Thanks for you for coming on the show. We’re gonna have all your links in the show notes. But for anyone that’s exercising while they’re listening right now, where’s the one place they can find out
Rai Cornell 38:35
more about you? Yeah, I am on LinkedIn all the time. Reach me there. My first name is spelled kind of weird. It’s R A i Cornell, like the university. Cornell on LinkedIn, you’ll find me, hit me up, reach out to me. I’d love to talk about this stuff. I mean, I could go for another five hours, if you want. So I could talk about this all day long. I
Maria Ross 38:53
know we could. If I had it, I would, and I will give my LinkedIn PSA that I always do, which is, don’t just send her a connection request. Tell her where you heard her so she knows you’re not trying to sell her something. Thank you so much for your time
Rai Cornell 39:06
today. Likewise, thanks so much for having me. This is a lot of fun, and thank you
Maria Ross 39:10
everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate, review and share it with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice. Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
