This isn’t a post about wine 😁it’s only Monday! Though the wine label is the catalyst for what this post is about:
Empathy
Which is where the wine does come in. 🍷Empathy Wines is a new to market example of how to take empathy (something many brands have neglected in their businesses for years) and make it the epitome of what their brand is and does. The brand understands and meets the needs of their customers AND the growers of their wine, with empathy...hence the name.
So this is about why we (much like Empathy Wines) need to bottle our understanding of our customer's needs and metaphorically uncork it when we communicate.
If you’ve found yourself thinking “they just don’t get what we do” or “they don’t see the value we offer?”we've not properly communicated our understanding of our customer and their needs…not to mention we need to steer clear of this ‘us vs. them’ mentality altogether.
Rather, we want to reposition ourselves alongside our customer instead of sitting opposite them. The idea here is that we aren’t Luke Skywalker, the hero here to save the day - our customer is. We are Yoda, guiding our customers through their journey. Don’t believe me? Look up Donald Miller from Story Brand who dives deeper into explain this idea of being the guide, not the hero. Empathy helps us create the human connections we are all seeking. But it requires putting the other person first. To do this, we’ve gotta put aside how great we think we are. To instead, genuinely show that we simply understand what our customers are going through and how we’ve created a solution to solve their specific problems. Making this tiny course correction in how we communicate, is an exact reflection of what we do with those we hold near and dear to us. Why should there be any difference in business? So why bottle empathy?
If done right, empathy over time matures into greater long term success as we now offer notes of personality and insight. This builds a complex nose of trust and hopefully a more memorable experience for our customers, so that they want to share a bottle of your brand with their friends and come back time and time again for another glass.
...ok that's enough wine metaphors, is it 5pm already? I'm thirsty 😁