How To: Empathy Selling , Mastery is Transparency

Sales, like any other discipline/skill sport, is at a Master level when it’s transparent to the buyer or observer. The most successful sell is the one where the Buyer takes total pride in having made his/her own decision, unhampered by a commission-driven salesman.

Resin up your bow. To reach Sales Mastery, you must practice onstage, not in the rehearsal hall. Your wrong notes will resonate loudly, but the lessons learned will lead to artistic excellence—virtuosity.

The most difficult aspect of Mastery is patience. The perfectly timed rests, the clean silences between perfectly struck notes separate the virtuoso from the recital student.

Beyond simple mastery of the process (prospect qualification through close), handling nuance, adjustments, new information and change, true Mastery is only achieved through clear-eyed focus, consummate control and the innate ability to lead transparently.

Any large-scale sales transaction is fraught with opportunity to fall apart. So many variables combined with multiple decision makers, many/all with different agendas, drive our odds of success down. But, a Master of the Game increases his/her odds in every transaction. They’re over-prepared for any contingency; they’re wearing a game face; prepared to mask any negative reaction by preparing for possible new information, a change in direction or a new Buyer in the mix.

The Master’s response to the events through closure lead the process and define the vibe of the entire transaction. Calm, measured response to new information keeps the sale on-track, raising the odds of successful closure. The more the tempo and cadence of the Master’s responses mirror the cacophony of the information itself, the more they unravel the process. The more smoothly the Master absorbs and recaps the info in more positive terms, the less impact new info and change have on the eventual sale.

Our next installments will deal specifically with how to respond to new info, re-purpose it, feed it back, set positive outcomes as expectations and to lead buyers to desired, predictable results. So, Grasshopper—The Master loses himself in the sale.


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?