Using empathy as a social skill can help you in all areas of your life. But it can help significantly in the area of sales prospecting and we talk about how to do that in this Article.

How to define empathy?

The standard definition of empathy is: “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another”

When we try to modify that for sales, or specially sports sales, we can define as: “the ability to understand and share the feelings of the sales prospect

Just to look at that by itself, it should be pretty clear that this would be a powerful thing to incorporate into our sales and personal training efforts.

Why Empathy is helpful in Personal Training?

High empathy means having a high ability to know and understand the emotions of others and to imagine the world from their personal perspective. Understanding their emotions does not necessarily mean showing compassion, but understanding the needs, which enables you to move towards your goal directly, and also means greater listening (a desire to understand the motives of the other party) listening not only to the spoken words but to body language, tone of voice and facial features. Understanding and respecting viewpoints despite disagreeing with them, the

Personal Training

have a greater ability to express the feelings of others than their own ability to express them... This means that others are attracted to talk to him because it helps them describe their feelings more accurately, these features are very important in the world of customer experience Because it gives those who have it the ability to form emotional bonds with those around him, and this makes him gain confidence faster than others and thus penetrate the institutional silos with his relationships and make the desired change in the shortest time.

The reason that empathy is helpful for Personal Trainer is that whenever you are dealing with someone, you are always making quick decisions on what to say and do. If you make these decisions without using empathy, you are making decisions without valuable information. It is similar to driving without a speedometer. You might have pretty good gut instincts when driving but if you don’t have the information that the speedometer provides, you will likely go too fast and too slow in certain situations. This can lead to accidents, fines, and bad relationships with other drivers.

Applying that to Personal Training, empathy provides valuable information for what is going on with the prospect or the present client (trainee). Without that, you may move too quick, move to slow, say or do something wrong, etc. When you add the information that empathy provides, you can make better decisions regarding what to say and do and this should have a positive impact on your sales results.

Is it possible to develop the skill of empathy?

The answer will be yes, of course. The empathy skill, like any skill acquired by a person, can be developed, but the chance of developing it for those who partially enjoy it is much higher than the chance of developing it for those who lack it. Also, the chance of developing it in children is much greater than developing it in adults.

“Walking in the customer's shoes”

The above saying is popular in the world of sales, and of course it can be applied in the field of personal training, but how is it?

Think of the trainee’s problem as yours, share this feeling with him and try to live his problem on your own, as no one will be able to reach solutions unless the problem crystallizes in his head. Walking exercises in the client’s shoes of all kinds are very useful to help stakeholders crystallize problems in their minds and thus access to effective solutions. 

Is there a difference between "Empathy" and what is known as "Emotional Intelligence"?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, use, understand and manage emotions and deal with them in a positive way. People with high emotional intelligence can recognize their own feelings and those of others, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, distinguish between different feelings and appropriately characterize them, and modify emotions to adapt to environments. The term first appeared in 1964 but gained fame through the 1995 bestselling book "Emotional Intelligence", written by American journalist Daniel Goleman, in which Goleman defined emotional intelligence as "the set of skills and characteristics that drive leadership performance".

While "Empathy" as we knew it before, is the skill through which we can understand and perceive the feelings of others and the ability to share these feelings with them while transferring this awareness and feeling to the other party again, and all this is only done through a certain talent that is naturally present in some people, while it can be developed in others.

Based on the previous definition, we can say that there is a big difference between emotional intelligence and empathy, and we can say that emotional intelligence is used by people with decision-making power, which means that it is one-sided, the person himself must understand, realize and deal with his feelings and the feelings of others and take decisions based on a set of feelings that enable them to be understood by the other party, and this is often done by higher administrations and those who have the right to make the decision, but in the case of empathy, the empathizer person is not the decision maker, but uses this skill only to help the other party to Make decision.

According to the above, let me tell you, my friend, that in the case of sports sales, you need more to use the skill of empathy, but in the case of personal training, you need both skills; Through emotional intelligence, you can understand and realize the client's feelings and understand his requirements and needs, and then take peaceful decisions regarding the training program for the trainee and give him instructions and instructions in a professional and more professional manner. As for the empathy skill, you will always need to use it with new clients to help them decide to participate in your training program, while you need it with your current client to understand and realize his feelings about the training program and share these feelings with him to reach the goal of the training program in an easier way, and also you will be able to through this emotional participation with the trainee, obtaining his confidence and permanent satisfaction, as well as modifying some training behaviors whenever necessary, so empathy acts as an “alarm clock” that constantly alerts you and gives you a correct reading of your customers’ feelings.


And now you will ask yourself how to apply “Empathy” in a practical way in personal training, let me tell you that in the following article through easy and simple steps.