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It’s official – summer is here! Things are opening up, we’re seeing B2B events and concerts again, and it’s tough not to feel optimistic. Do you feel like I do?

To celebrate, let’s listen to this track from Peter Frampton – one of the best live albums ever (listen to the crowd!) – and see what the experts are saying this week…

Do You Feel Like Your Buyers Do?

We’ve discussed connecting and building trust with buyers many times this past year. It seems to be harder than ever – so how can you connect and convert more customers? The answer might be empathy – and focusing on an emotional connection before conversion.

Empathy-based marketing is about stepping into your customer’s shoes to understand their experience and how you can better help them get what they want. You don’t want to think like the customer. You want to BE the customer.

According to Brian Carroll and markempa, there are 7 ways to apply empathy today:

1. Put your customers first
2. Listen and observe to map buyer motivation
3. Develop (digital) conversations, not campaigns
4. The best marketing (and selling) is helping
5. Give potential customers useful content they want
6. Proximity is influence
7. Practice empathy personally to set an example

You need to move away from marketing-centric thinking to customer-centric thinking and speak to your customer’s motivations from their perspective. Do you feel like your buyers do?

Live Show Formats Likely to Come Back First…

After a year of livestream-only events, it’s interesting to see how things are opening up again. Although live music is slowly returning, packed arenas and clubs may still be a ways off. According to Patrick McGuire (ReverbNation), the live music industry will most likely go through a period of transition, with the following three show formats most likely to return first after the pandemic:

• Distanced outdoor concerts – We’re already seeing festivals and tour dates kicking off!
• Small venue shows – Smaller venues have more flexibility to allow for distancing and other health requirements.
• DIY events – We’ll see artists continue to do interesting events like home-based concerts, etc. as they figure out the ‘new normal’ for live music.

Whatever happens, I think we’re all excited to see the live music scene come alive again!

Boring Work

I saw a great post the other day that I just had to share. I always cringe when I hear people say things like, “I hate doing it,” or “It’s soooo boring.” I think to myself – “Who cares? We ALL have things we don’t enjoy doing!” Here is what JustSell has to say:

“I understand those thoughts and have them too at times. But I also understand, like so many people that have gone before me, that maybe we’re not entitled to everything being perfectly wonderful all the time. Maybe we need to cuddle up with the fact that just because we don’t enjoy every minute of our work doesn’t mean we can’t be more enjoyable (and valuable) to the people around us.

“Maybe we should more often delight in the fact that the opportunity to work (to be of service to others) is a good thing. Maybe that’s our path to a better day.“

Boring work? Come on – let’s do it again!

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello.

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post Step Into Your Buyer’s Shoes appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

Here is what the experts are saying, and some takeaways from the past week:

• 87% prefer sessions under 45 minutes
• Of that 87%, 30% want sessions no more than 20 minutes
• 61% want to network digitally around topic-oriented meetings

• Diversify digital selling tools & channels
• Rethink sales enablement
• Prioritize the seller experience & coaching

Eddie wasn’t content to simply play guitar like everyone else – he had a vision for taking things somewhere new. Eddie took the best parts of guitar chords and scales while combining them with new technique and tone for incredible results… all while having a great and bluesy ‘human’ touch and feel to all of his riffs and solos. And he always focused on making the song better!

In the B2B space, we see the same – innovation leads to better results and new ways of doing things. We can look back and leverage past techniques and tactics, but the way we use them and how we innovate and continue to drive to new levels of excellence… that’s the trick.

His music still blows me away. Rest in peace, Eddie.

The post B2B Innovations appeared first on Virtual Causeway.