There’s been a quiet shift happening in the world of business. Not the kind captured in headlines or industry jargon, but something deeper – a change in how people respond, how they make decisions, and what they expect from the people advising them.
For many years, across many industries, sales culture was built on pressure. Closing the deal. Creating urgency. Following scripts. The idea was simple: if you pushed enough, something would land.
But people have changed. They’re more aware, more discerning, more sensitive to tone. They can tell instantly whether someone genuinely cares about helping them or is simply working through a checklist.
And because of that shift, something else has happened, something I’ve seen clearly over the last fifteen years:
Cold sales is quietly dying. Empathy is becoming the new competitive edge.
This isn’t soft sentiment. It’s simply how humans work. When people feel understood, they can make decisions calmly and confidently. When they feel pushed, they pull away.
Empathy isn’t a trend, it’s a return to what works.
1. People Don’t Want to Be Sold To - They Want to Be Understood
At the heart of every conversation is a person with real concerns, real pressures, and real hopes.
Cold sales rushes past all of that, it delivers a pitch before understanding the person in front of you and it pushes a solution instead of exploring a situation.
And the reaction is almost always the same: walls go up, trust collapses, and the conversation becomes transactional.
Empathy works differently. It slows the pace. It invites people to speak honestly and it listens before it responds.
When someone feels understood, their guard drops. They’re willing to explore, to share, to trust. That’s where real advice begins.
2. The Strongest “Sales Technique” Isn’t a Technique at All
In traditional sales, persuasion is the goal. In modern service, clarity and connection are the goal. The irony is that empathy, something that can’t be rehearsed or engineered, creates more clarity than any script ever could.
People decide emotionally first- Then they justify rationally.
When someone feels safe with you, they trust your guidance. And trust makes decisions easier, not harder.
In a field like health insurance, where the stakes touch people’s health and family, empathy isn’t optional. It’s the foundation.
3. Pressure Creates Resistance. Safety Creates Openness.
One of the biggest myths in sales is that pressure speeds things up. In reality, it does the opposite.
Pressure triggers defensiveness – People slow down, hesitate and question everything. No one makes good decisions in a pressured state.
Empathy does something different – it creates psychological safety.
When clients feel safe, they open up.. They talk about their worries, they ask the questions they were afraid to ask and they allow you to understand the real picture.
Empathy doesn’t slow the process- It clears the path.
4. You Can’t Fake Empathy - People Feel It Instantly
People today have an incredible sensitivity for authenticity. They pick up subtle cues:
• The pace of your voice
• Whether you’re listening or waiting to speak
• If you’re curious or just moving through a script
• Whether you genuinely care what happens to them
Clients feel when you’re selling, they feel when you’re learning about them, they feel when you’re trying to hit a target – And they feel when you’re trying to help.
Empathy really isn’t something you perform, it’s something you practice. Think about it.
5. True Empathy Speeds Up Decisions, Not Slows Them Down
Some advisers avoid empathy because they think it takes too long. But when empathy is done properly, it actually reduces friction.
Clarity comes quicker and concerns come to the surface far earlier. Misunderstandings vanish, advice becomes more accurate and decisions feel natural. (Certainly it goes without saying it obviates buyers remorse and with insurance as a the subject it reduces post sales lapse rates).
People don’t delay because they need more details. They delay because something inside them doesn’t feel settled. And when they feel understood, everything moves forward..
6. Empathy: The One Thing Big Firms Can’t Copy
This is where empathy becomes a genuine competitive advantage for smaller firms.
Large organisations can copy: pricing, branding, processes, technology, marketing messages etc
But they cannot copy your heart, they cannot copy the way you make people feel and they cannot copy a culture built on listening, care, and staying human.
Empathy cannot be industrialised, it cannot be automated. And it cannot be standardised across thousands of staff – it lives in people, not systems.
And this is where small firms win big. Not by scale, but by depth. Not by volume, but by connection.
7. Empathy at Lifepoint - A Standard, Not a Strategy
At Lifepoint, empathy has never been our “sales approach”. It’s simply how we’ve chosen to show up. We don’t advise until we’ve understood. We don’t quote until we’ve listened and we don’t recommend until we’ve learnt someone’s story.
All of this creates clarity, trust, and a sense of certainty – not because we’re trying to “sell better”, but because we’re trying to serve properly.
Over the years I’ve learned that people don’t remember the policy you recommended. They remember how you made them feel during the conversation.
Certainly in health insurance, empathy isn’t an advantage – It’s a pre-requisite for the job.
What Comes Next
In the next articles, I’ll go deeper into:
• What clients genuinely value in a broker
• How to build a team culture around human service
• Why values and reputation now matter more than marketing
• The psychology of trust in advice-based businesses
• What the future of our industry looks like in the age of AI
The businesses that win over the next decade won’t be the ones with the hardest pitch, – in my humble opinion they’ll be the ones with the deepest understanding.
Cold sales is fading, empathy is rising – And I believe that’s a very good thing.
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The Death of Cold Sales: Why Empathy Is the New Competitive Edge
