In marketing, it is easy to look at the recipients you are scheduling your next email to as numbers. However, those numbers are people and when is the last time you asked yourself if your email is going to provide value to them? An Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker, Host of the B2B Roundtable Show, and the Founder & CEO of markempa, Brian Carroll, challenges marketers to not get lost in the numbers on their email lists, but to go back to their roots, which is caring for and helping their buyers. This episode discusses how to apply empathy mapping to your marketing, tactics for getting to know your buyers, and career advice for every marketer. Check it out!   Takeaways: Reciprocal altruism is when you do something for someone else without expecting anything in return. Before a marketer sends their next email, they should consider putting themselves in the shoes of their recipient. Does the email connect with something the recipient cares about? If you are not aware of your own feelings, how are you going to be aware of someone else’s? An empathy map has the marketer approach their customer from the lens of what is the customer doing and saying and how are they thinking and feeling? Marketers need to get to know their customers and understand their problems, what they care about, and the language they are using to describe those problems. Listen to some sales calls, do buyer persona interviews, and put in the work. Marketing at the root is figuring out what your buyers care about and then connecting with them in their current state.  Career advice from Brian Carroll: Life is not going from mountain top to mountain top. Be willing to say yes and embrace the uncertainty of life and know that when you feel uncomfortable or the most afraid, that is probably where you are supposed to be. What would you do in marketing or in your career if you were not afraid? How is your fear controlling you?   Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianjcarroll/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/brianjcarroll Markempa: https://www.markempa.com/ B2B Roundtable Podcast: https://www.b2bleadblog.com/b2bpodcast/ Lead Generation for the Complex Sale: https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Generation-Complex-Sale-Quantity/dp/0071458972   Busted Myths: Trust is something that can be automated. - This is NOT the case. Trust is built overtime. When recipients receive your automated marketing emails, do they feel that you care about them and are trying to provide something valuable? The best marketing feels like helping, so what are you providing to your buyers that can help them in their journey?