How To: Employ Empathy Marketing for Biz Dev

We’ve explained empathy selling as a method of communicating with clients, prospects, others whereby the seller pre-loads his conversation with the ‘wins’ his buyer needs to hear, not merely relying on his (seller’s) own self-interests to carry the presentation.

We’ve broken down transactions into their component chunks; taking care to list buyers, influencers, coaches, ultimate decisionmakers and their ‘strength’ or ‘weakness’ to getting the big YES. We’ve analyzed the entire organization with a SWOT analysis, determining our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the sale.

We’ve examined tailoring presentations, interactions to the various buyers in the value chain individually, to ensure, when possible, a specific ‘win’ for each. These wins will many times be different for each player.

So, how do we employ empathy in business development or building our pipeline of potential/future business? Good question.

Spell empathy starting with a ‘YOU’! Buy one from Vanna if you have to, but no marketing presentation, brochure, headline or slogan is worth the paper it’s printed on if it doesn’t take the customer’s ‘win’ into consideration.

Picture your prospect listening to/reading your proposal. Does the proposal take him into primary consideration for the win? Do your main points all point to potential wins for your prospects? Are there statements, exposition, etc., that could be reworded to better state the potential win for your prospect? In marketing terms, you make constant adjustments BEFORE the prospect sees, reads, hears, experiences your spiel. That’s a major difference in empathy marketing as opposed to empathy selling.

Another use of empathy in marketing and business development is in how you compare and contrast your offering with your competitors’. Often, the competition is held up to ridicule, even if it’s meant in fun. Not empathetic. Not good. Many times, companies select one benefit and push that over their competition’s. That tactic may compel some buyers to say ‘yes’, but it certainly isn’t empathy marketing.

As you survey your market, use empathy to select compelling reasons your customers will WIN with your solution. This is empathy marketing to the max! I’m not saying ‘Tell your customer what he/she wants to hear’, instead, tell them ‘what they want to hear your solution will do for them’, if you want to win their business.





1. Introduction, Empathy Selling
2. Adjustments
3. Break down the transaction
4. Focus Power, Daniel-san!
5. Sell an Asteroid to Captain Kirk
6. Can’t build a bridge? Build a pipeline--Can’t tear down a wall? Build a ramp.
7. Employ Empathy Marketing for Biz Dev
8. Empathy Selling, Mastery is Transparency
9. Empathy Selling, Stir of Echoes
10. Empathy Selling – Why Empathy Works
11. Empathy Selling: How Do The Other Guy’s Shoes Fit?