A healthy sales rep. ought

not take unhealthy verbal

abuse from any prospect

or be expected to do so!

      —————–It is impossible to be vital, growing and truly productive if you are in a situation where you have to subject yourself to client’s verbal abuse. Being cussed at, yelled at or berated should not be expected of any sales rep. It is the view of this sales pro that being the punching bag for an irate customer should not be the job description of any sales rep.

     When I started my sales career; my position was in an office. My duties were both internal sales to new cutomers and sales service to existing customers. I held this position for a large international hardware company. With my distinct, celebrated southern drawl; it was an interesting thing to see me struggle to manage the New England States. Square peg in a round hole? You bet! I most certainly was. 

    But I worked really hard. I came in early and stayed late. I was determined to succeed at my first executive position and I did. I did but there were certainly some bumps in the road. One of them was dealing with unruly people. Still, even though I had to deal with some people who were different for me. I am a people person and I found some common bond with most. But a few, just were plain unpleasant every day and in every way.

     For instance, there was this individual at Centercore Corp. in NJ. I remember the buyer’s name will but will not repeat it out of courtesy. His arrogance, unmannerly harshness and foul mouth was a thorn in the flesh to everyone. Especially me.

     This was in the day of telexes. Remember those. If not, you are a rookie. [Just kidding]. Anyway, with telexes, you did not get immediate answers like we do in today’s world-wide web community. You had to wait for the answer the next morning. And if it did not come or someone was out of the office or etc.; you could have to wait another day on answers from oversea’s suppliers.

     Centercore was a huge client of this company that I represented. So, it was important to keep them happy. But you could not keep them happy, even when there were no problems. And on this occasion, an unexpected backorder from an over-seas supplier caused a HUGE problem. Understandably so, the production capacity of a factory was dependent on the supply of parts we provided.

     Still my mother was not a female dog. My IQ or the lack thereof did not cause the part delay. God’s last name is not damn and my name does not end with …hole. When this tyrannical tirade of verbal abuse was levied my way by this buyer. I found it necessary to tell this buyer that I did not appreciate it and requested that he quit talking that way to me. He informed me that He was a huge customer and he would talk any _______ way he wanted to, to me. I politely informed him that I wanted to help him, IF he could talk to me in a civilized manner. He did not. I hung up. He called back; louder and more obscene than before; threatening my job if I hung up on him again. I did. He kept his threat & called my superiors.

     I wish I could say that they were happy with me and supported my action. They did not. But at the same time, they didn’t support his either. So it was just an uncomfortable subject for a while. Eventually, the National Sales Manager got tired of having to handle every order and handed the account back over to me. The buyer was never my bosom pal but he never cursed me, nor yelled at me again. I handled his account well and he gained respect for me.  —– So what are the morals of this story?

   You should not have to accept unacceptable behavior in sales. That does not mean that you should be sensitive. Do not pull the stunt I did; unless the customer is clearly over the line!

     The customer will never respect you, unless you respect yourself. So there really are lines in the sand that you should not tolerate prospects trampling over.

     I was interested to see what a great young sales consulting pro thought on the subject. So  @Scott_Juba and I talked and wrote back and forth about how to best handle, such challenging prospects. Scott wrote a great post on “dealing with the difficult customer.” Here was some of his awesome selling ammunition.

*** Scott reminded us of the invaluable power of a TO (TakeOver). Yes, the TO is an undervalued sales     strategy that can save face and save business. It is a tried and true strategy to use in closing more business. Furthermore, it can solve friction that is produced by natural differences in personality types. Problem clients will come and a good game plan for how to deal with them sets you up to win, even in tough situations. And the TO is a great game saving and game winning strategy.  Here is the link to Scott’s article on the subject.  READ: http://bit.ly/I2eF5A