I used to get a lot of pushback from my cold outreach attempts until I took a good hard look at what I was doing wrong.
The problem can be found in ‘The Empathy Gap’.
When selling, it’s easy to overestimate the positive response we will get. We might think we are conveying a valuable message, but scientists have found that recipients often see this type of self-promotional behaviour as ‘bragging’.
Consequently, when anyone persists in self-promotional activity to try and elicit a positive reaction (as sellers as marketers may occasionally do 🙄), it actually has the opposite effect. We push people away instead of drawing them to us.
It’s this disconnect that social psychologists refer to as ‘The Empathy Gap’. What does this mean for outbound marketers?
A few things:
- We must be very careful in the words we choose to employ
- Keep follow-ups to a *minimum*
- Choose tactics that engage your target on a personal level
- Make every effort to see your approach from the recipient’s point of view.
The more you bridge the empathy gap, the closer you get to building meaningful connections.
That’s when the magic really happens!
