It’s been shown time and again that positive emotions create positive brand associations. By genuinely inspiring the right emotions in your customers, you can earn more loyal customers than if you simply give them information. Honing the soft skill of empathy will allow you to tap into your customer’s deepest feelings about their lives as they relate to the product or service you offer.
Empathy can boost your rapport with your audience during a presentation or webinar by creating a sense of understanding between you and your audience. However, it needs to be genuine or it can create the opposite effect. These four strategies for giving presentations with empathy will strengthen your relationship with your audience and show that your company is made of real, genuine human beings who care about their customers.
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Create content based on customer interactions
Surveys, focus groups, and other means of getting feedback from customers are good starting places when writing your presentation materials. Look at the wealth of information that your organization’s communications with customers have brought in, and take the time to review it thoroughly. You’re guaranteed to learn a lot about them, which will help you understand and build empathy with them as you develop your presentation.
Speak directly about what you’ll do for them
This may seem like it’s simply selling – and it could be – but there’s an opportunity to reach your audience at a deeper level. In order to know what your consumers want from your type of product or service, you have to be able to empathize with their needs and desires based on their unique situation. When you have a heightened sense of your customers’ place in life, you’ll be able to speak more specifically to how you can help them.
Tell stories about other customers
Sometimes, just hearing that someone like us has been in a similar situation is just what we need to feel more self-assured. This sense of confidence we get from others’ stories can work when connecting with customers to get them interested in buying. Discussing true stories from your current customers’ experiences may be the tipping point for many potential clients (even better if they can tell the story themselves).
Anticipate what they need from you
Your relationship with your audience shouldn’t consist of merely you talking and them listening. It should be interactive and, ideally, persist beyond the scheduled hour of your presentation. A highly effective yet subtle way of expressing empathy is by intuitively knowing what your audience might want to know during and after you give your talk. You gain trust and credibility by being able to give them what they need when they ask for it – or better yet, before they have to ask for it.
It takes years of conscious attention to develop a strong sense of empathy, but it’s worth the effort. And yes, it does require study, practice, and awareness – even for those who are naturally more in tune with others’ feelings. Empathy is harder to nail down than most other soft skills in the business world. Even if you’re just beginning to understand your audience, leading your presentations by showing empathy is a strong start, as it immediately makes that emotional connection with the audience. Keep those emotional connections authentic and true for the best success.
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