Beata Leyland
Business Owner & Author of this article
If you snap, as all of us do it, don’t kick yourself for doing it. Have compassion towards yourself, apologise for whatever you say in a genuine way.
Intrigued ?
All of us have these moments when one call, email, or conversation can ruin our day, or even week.
It’s hard to keep going and stay focused and not let these emotions carry forward during the day and don’t put them forward to others.
I have a feeling that last the few months truly prepared me how to talk with people who behave in a less standard way as we are used to in business.
They are plenty of great phrases to try to come back to the point but sometimes they don’t work and here I would like to show you how I fix certain unpleasant meetings without carrying bad emotions all day.
Let me dive in straight to two examples.
Example 1.
Person trying to sell aggressively.
You are well prepared in a business meeting, and other side tries to sell, sell, sell their product completely ignoring your requirements, even more overwriting your requirements.
On the personal level I would think total narcissist, or someone took sales classes from the wrong place, and this is partially true.
Second part of the coin is about the fact that this someone is completely not a fit for my project.
If we would finish here and close the meeting it wouldn’t be a problem until Mr X started to be passively aggressive while selling towards me and my client.
Yes, you read it correctly. Phrases like “please respond to the question”, “We don’t want to corner you”, and “I would like to clarify”; just wasn’t working with my client.
As a result, my client logged off from the call as it was so unpleasant.
You might ask what sparked such a bad reaction.
Honestly, it was a question about MOQ as Mr X changed it every time I asked the question until the point when it started to be very uncomfortable, I would even say passively aggressive.
My client stopped to feel comfortable there and left as most of us would, I believe.
There is a lesson out of this conversation.
Every conversation must have certain respectful frames where all people feel comfortable.
If someone tries to dominate the meeting, stop it and put boundaries.
Asking questions to clarify doesn’t mean corner anyone and if so it’s important to say it out loud.
If the atmosphere is unbearable, it is better to propose finishing meeting than to continue.
Always even in such a situation thank them for all of their time.
All of us have bad days.
Meetings are not easy especially when you want to present yourself in the best light so this part is totally understandable but in our example, I’ve ignored also some cultural differences.
In some cultures, haggling is acceptable from the first minute and you need to understand with whom you really talk.
It is tricky but trying to take into consideration the part of the day, geographic location and genuine interest about person X truly helps.
Small talks are great icebreakers.
Example 2.
Mixing politics with business.
Nowadays this is unfortunately very challenging and every word matters.
There are companies from a few different sectors who calls me, text me on the regular basis asking for potential cooperation.
When I’ve politely explained that I don’t see room for such cooperation and asked for removing me from their mailing list it didn’t work.
Everyone who lives in the U.S. has plenty of blocked phone numbers exactly because of such people, but there are some which work beyond traditional understanding of called calling.
They provoke you or are straight rude to continue conversation and be remembered.
Recently I’ve gotten many requests about various overseas projects which stopped or are paused due to fact that with political instability people are simply cautious.
Some of these messages were simply standard follow ups and after my response they stopped but some of them, they turned into political debate which I did not start.
It was truly shocking for me how the same people can take almost the same message so differently, but we live in an era where some people put an equal sign to their political beliefs.
What to do in such situation?
My method is to simply politely thank them for a message and assure them that my previous message wasn’t about mixing politics and business and wish them a nice day.
On a human level I do understand people who called me since months asking if I have clients who might be interested in their services, but on the other hand ignoring someone’s boundaries is straight disrespectful.
When politics encroaches too much in the business world, this costs disruption and of course people are defensive especially if they see a lack of income, but ignoring external circumstances is not very wise long-term.
I believe all is about communication as in order to draw the line of “please don’t call me”, you need to be strict and how people take your input is up to them.
My lesson out of it is to be respectful but also be aware there are people who don’t cope well with stress caused by external circumstances.
There are not many people who can be great negotiators and withstand pressure so expecting such a level of restraint wouldn’t be realistic at all.
We live in a world of big rapid changes so it’s hard for all of us to cope with that and seeing the other side truly helps.
Some people after a few such calls per day lose their cool and honestly, I can’t blame them.
I know realtors deal with multiple such calls every day.
How they can still be polite?
I don’t know.
All situations where I could say that I dealt with difficult people were about the same issue, namely crossing the line and my personal boundaries and beliefs.
Our body and nervous system perceive such situations as danger so no doubt we carry these emotions for a while.
The best what I’ve discovered as a coping mechanism is empathy towards yourself and the other party.
Zooming out to see the whole situation helps too, so you can see it’s a part of your day and a lesson, nothing life threatening.
There are different methods of breathing to calm nervous system, quick meditations, walks, and looking at the nature.
It’s to create you a perspective, a distance so you a see difficult conversation as a part of something bigger without allowing your brain reliving it all over again.
If you snap, as all of us do it, don’t kick yourself for doing it.
We all are humans, have struggles outside of workspace and it is not always possible to shut yourself down and switch into super professional mode especially once someone push the wrong buttons.
Have compassion towards yourself, apologise for whatever you say in a genuine way.
Once you show compassion and empathy towards yourself it will be way easier to do it towards others.
All of us are triggered and such difficult situations are to make us sharper, more resilient.
Life is about understanding who we are as a human being, and in business an essential part is drawing boundaries with people and for the most part difficult people are excellent teachers of that.
It’s all about perspective.
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