Kitchen & Bath Business January/February 2023 - 20

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BUSINE S S
Selling with Empathy
Understanding your client and presenting with their emotional interests in mind
THE LAST TIME YOU WENT shopping for something
that required consultation, did you feel like
the sales rep either wasn't listening to you or had
their own agenda? Have you felt like your wants
and needs were being ignored? Your potential
client does not want to feel this way, and if you
ever give them these signals, they will seek out
the fi rst possible moment to escape and look for
someone else with whom to work.
Consumers are more educated these days than
they were 25 years ago, thanks to this wonderful
thing we call the internet. So many people in retail
sales think this is a frustrating thing because
clients will come to them believing they know
more about their products and services than they
do. Th is can frustrate some designers because it
can be diffi cult to show their clients that there
may be a better choice for them.
Some clients I have spoken with have said
that during an initial meeting with a designer,
they were told, " Oh, you don't want that. " Th ey
were made to feel that what they wanted was
not only unimportant but that they were making
the " wrong choices. " Th eir consultant was
insisting they knew better because they were the
professional.
TAKING THE CORRECT APPROACH
Remember that with every interaction with
your prospect, you are doing one of two things:
gaining trust or eroding it. If you want to retain
your prospect, the best way is to be empathetic
toward their situation, their wants and their
needs. Empathy is the ability to put yourself in
the other person's shoes and understand their
feelings and motivations. You may think there
are better choices available to your prospect, but
guess what? Th ey don't know this, and sometimes
they may not even care. Th ey want what
they want.
The difficult part many designers miss is
expressing how they " get " where their clients
are coming from. You may naturally want to
present them with better alternatives to what
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they have in mind. Even if you see this problem frequently, your prospect
believes their situation is special and will not be open to exploring
options with you until they know you understand them and feel what
they say is important.
An example of how to demonstrate empathy toward a client would be
to phrase your responses carefully and go through the steps. Th is can be
tiresome because you must go through the same steps every time, but I
promise you, the result will be well worth it.
" If you want to retain your prospect, the best
way is to be empathetic toward their situation,
their wants and their needs. "
NAVIGATING THE DISCUSSION
To open the dialogue about other options or choices, a great response could
be: " I fully understand that you want this look or this product. If I could
show you some other choices that might be better for you because they
(insert advantage here), would you consider them? " Acknowledge that
they have done some helpful research, but let them know there are some
other options of which they may not be aware, and ask if they are open to
discussing those because of their added benefi ts.
By taking this approach, you are showing your prospect their ideas have
value, and you are also asking permission to explore other options. You are
demonstrating that this will be a collaborative process where you will work
together as a team to give your client their preferred result.
It takes a lot of patience to show this kind of empathy toward your
prospect, especially in a busy atmosphere where you may have many
projects in the works with looming deadlines. Th is is the time to slow
down and not rush through the process. Something that will help is
to practice scripts (yes, I said scripts), so that what you want to say is
eff ortless and you can focus on the needs of your customer rather than
how to not off end them.
It was Zig Ziglar who said, " You can have everything in life you want, if
you just help enough other people get what they want. " A good salesperson
is a guide to help their customers get what they want. If you can accomplish
this by truly and genuinely expressing your empathy toward your prospect,
they will not only choose to buy from you, but they will also refer you to all
their friends and acquaintances.
By Duane Becker, founder of SaPré Training, which provides sales and
presentation training for kitchen and bath professionals, sapretraining.com 
Kitchen & Bath Business January/February 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Kitchen & Bath Business January/February 2023
