Stop building your product and start talking to people. When I first read that article title, I felt validated, but also called out. It had been a long while since I did that for Digital Entrepreneur, so I set out to fix that.
I’d been having trouble articulating what made a content pitch or a draft article bad. “What are the key takeaways?” I’d say, when interesting ideas hit our desk with nothing more than a summary of what would be done to produce the piece.
“What action should our community take after reading this?” I’d ask, after reading a first draft that was vague on value-add. “Does the contributor have experience in that?” I’d probe, before we asked the contributor to add advice or examples as an easy fix to a vague argument.
I had a strong suspicion of what the problem was, but I took our issue theme, “Conversations with customers”, as a sign to gather a new perspective.
My first stop was Jocelyn Light, founder of Easy Vegan, a locally owned plant-based meal kit subscription (and a very best friend of mine).
We scheduled coffee, and I asked her to read one of our recently submitted articles and answer one question: Did you find it helpful?
What I got back was a 19 minute audio note (Jocelyn is thorough!) sharing how the topic was interesting, and they wanted to find something helpful about it, but actually felt more confused with every sentence.
As you can imagine, I didn’t stop with Jocelyn. On a business trip to Los Angeles, I had several chance conversations, as well as planned ones, about what business owners are facing.
What I concluded was that my suspicion about the problem was wrong. I thought our pitches were lacking information, point of view and first-hand experience.
But, what made the content bad–what was truly missing–was empathy.
In our feature piece, Be them, with them, about them, Amena Schlaikjer talks about uncovering and interpreting “empathy pangs,” through conversations with customers and their support system.
The poetry of business: how empathy transforms client relationships takes us on a journey of learning and practicing empathy in real-life customer interactions.
We can all think back to a time where we searched for answers and walked away more confused. Where we wanted to feel inspired, but all of the visible models of success were well beyond our means, or misaligned with our values.
All of the data points, action steps and expert opinions in the world couldn't make up for having and sharing a lived experience of entrepreneurship.
Empathy is what sets Digital E, our contributors and our content apart.
The "Conversations with Customers" issue includes five different experiences of empathy that we hope will inspire your own.