Empathy – the ability to feel someone else’s pain – is a skill that is critical to your bottom line. Many people think of it as a sign of weakness, and therefore it can be of no use to them in the tough day-to-day business world, but in actuality, those people couldn’t be more wrong.
Successful and progressive companies, such as NVIDIA and Hubspot, are experts at understanding a customer’s needs or discomfort and acting on it. Their successes are the envy of the business world – that kind of success really can’t be argued with.
Many times, people are not sure of what they want. They just know what they DON’T want. It’s up to the smart business owner to address their concerns and dislikes before they can even verbalize them. This is empathy in its purest form.
True empathy goes beyond a quick fix to invest in a cure. It’s not an easy process, for sure, and can be costly and full of mistakes. However, this is where innovation begins. Your business can reap huge rewards if you take the leap.
The empathetic business model is also a way to adapt when the market changes. Otherwise, you are doomed to just keep going ahead with business as usual, while losing clientele and profits. This is a recipe for disaster – the market is changing because the customer attitudes are changing. Being in tune with the needs and concerns of your customers through understanding will help you to stay ahead of the business curve.
We know you take great care in being mannerly and kind in your interactions with your clientele, and being kind is certainly an important virtue in business, but true empathy is something much different. Acknowledging and addressing someone else’s pains and frustrations requires more of you; it requires serious investment. It is deeper than kindness and will create far more powerful results for your business. I’m Anna-Vija, and I take great joy in helping business owners build their businesses. I would love to chat with you about how I can help you build an empathetic business model!