Could a lack of empathy be the reason… that you’re secretly destroying your sales funnel conversions?

Empathy is simply the act of “putting yourself in their shoes”, as the phrasing goes. To feel the pain—and perspective—of the other person.

Sounds simple enough, but here’s the thing…

The role of empathy in online conversions, came like a total surprise to me.

And if you run any form of digital marketing, small missteps can completely obliterate your sales. Here’s a great case to illustrate that…

The Bali Story
A year ago I helped a big yoga studio in Bali with their online funnels. I won’t get into details, but they were selling a month-long “Yoga Teacher Training” at a price of $3900.

What’s more, participants would incur additional costs for accommodation, the airfare to get there… not to mention you need to get 30-40 days free from work. => A pretty big decision, for most people.

But here’s where things went wrong…
On the website, they listed the training, with a big “buy now” button, that would send you straight to PayPal to make your payment.

Empathy question for you…

“Would YOU ever buy a $3900 product… without ever meeting the people that would train you…. when you’re a first-time visitor on their website?!”

No!

Of course not!!

Nobody does that.
Nobody shells out $4k to book a 1-month training without first thinking about it, comparing options, and consulting with their spouse or tantric spiritual teacher… (still yogis after all ).

Even though they had a recognizable physical brand, online conversions were few and far between.

So what did I change?

We left the training on the website, but instead of putting a “buy now” button, we said “hey, let us know if you’re interested”, and asked for their email address promising to send them more details about the course.

And that’s exactly what we did: over the course of the next 10 days, we prepared them for their decision: we helped them weigh the benefits of Bali vs. other locations, we introduced them to the trainers, and we shared our philosophy on yoga.

And only then… when people were ready for it, and felt comfortable (!!)… did we ask them to pay $3,900 to book the course.

The results?
That strategy alone — building a sales funnel, instead of doing sales the high-pressure way — quadrupled (400%) the total revenue of their business.

Of course I charged a rather hefty fee to create that funnel for them… but within 2 months they had a process that consistently fills up 30 spots every time they run the training —(that’s $117,000 gross revenue per training, if you’re good with math).

That funnel will keep performing into the future—that’s the beauty of automated funnels.

But wait, there’s more here…

1. The mind-state
Empathy applies within your acquisition efforts, too. One thing in particular: you want to be extremely mindful of the “mind-state” (for lack of a better word) of the people you talk to. For instance:
+ Facebook: Someone scrolling his Facebook feed is probably… bored. They either want some light entertainment (cat videos), or check up with their friends. Keep that in mind when you write your Facebook ads!
+ Google: Someone on Google is ‘looking for an answer’. They have a problem, and they hope Google can give suggestions on how to solve that. So if you want your blog posts to rank well in SEO…. better give those readers the damn best answer possible!
+ Emails. Nobody dies if you don’t check this email, right now. So my guess: you’re probably having a moment of “down time” from more important matters. You need a break —and a double espresso, please!

And so on… Different formats for different situations. Considering the mind-state helps you tailor the experience to something that fits their life, right at that moment.

That’s empathy.

Here’s another big one…

 

2. Start with the problem
As entrepreneurs, we care about our product. That’s what we have spent so much time on, and what we care so deeply about.

But customer’s don’t care about that.

From the customer’s perspective, the story starts with a problem. The problem could be something like “I’m hungry” or “we need to make more sales”. That’s what they care about… so the easiest way to start your communication, is to articulate exactly what problem you are solving.

It creates context.
It puts you and the customer on the same page.

They know you understand them… and that you care about them. So they’ll be eager to listen to the solution you’re suggesting.

EXAMPLE:
Instead of saying:

“We sell the best pizzas…”

Start by saying:

“If you’re hungry and you’d like to get something to eat…” […then we happen to have great pizzas for you!]

…

See?

That’s a (really simple) problem statement. It reframes the context.
It flips it around to their perspective.

That’s what empathy is about.

Does that make sense?

Could it be that fixing those “empathy problems” could result in a 400% lift in conversions for your business, too? Can you spot places where your girlfriend would say “that doesn’t make any sense…”?