Disarm Them!

Sometimes you have to face a colleague or client or make a call that is just so incredibly uncomfortable for a host of reasons. Instead of focusing all your efforts on arming yourself with ammunition to fight, why not focus the same energy on DIS-arming your subject instead.

 

Yesterday, I had to make a difficult call to a significantly more difficult client. At first I listed in my mind ALL the horrible things they had done that have slowed down everything about the sale of their apartment to a crawl. This was going to be my ammunition for WAR! Then as I dialed the dreaded number, I thought of a moment with my friend from Texas who visited in New York a few years ago. Instead of yelling at a cab driver who was driving like a lunatic (my immediate, automatic and natural inclination) she reached forward to the cab driver and with a charming smile and her kind, Texan drawl said: "Excuse me sir, I love this music you are playing. May I ask a favor of you? I would so greatly appreciate it if you were to slow down. I have a rather weak heart and I would rather get to my appointment a bit later than have a heart attack and ruin your day!" The cab driver slowed down instantly.

 

So instead of going into attack mode, I applied this lesson with a few "you are so right" and "that's such a great idea" comments along with some well timed laughter. The testy client was almost immediately pacified. I dialed into my empathy gene. I recognized this was the best way to calm him down knowing how stressful selling a home can be. Instead of attacking, I focused on the future benefits of our life together....me as the broker and he as the happy client.

 

DIS-arming is usually much better than WAR! (It's much more fun too and can make you feel extremely powerful!)