Don't Press Send
 
 
 

Picture this. You wake up to a gorgeous day outside. Sun shining, birds chirping, all that good stuff. You grab a basic, yet delicious avocado toast, favorite caffeinated beverage, and head to the office. The office dog greets you, tail wagging. TODAY IS A GREAT DAY.

You unpack your things, you sit down at your desk, open your laptop, turn on your moderately embarrassing (for someone your age) pop playlist and are ready to attack the day. Inbox only has 10 emails!? NOTHING CAN GO WRONG TODAY!

Then. It happens. Your mood quickly shifts. The avocado toast begins to work itself back up and no amount of office dogs in the world can help you. Your client has ‘come in hot’ to your inbox. They have entered your happy place with anger, malice, misinformation, emotion, and poor grammar/line breaks to boot. In your head, you can hear them yelling these words at you.

Your shock turns to anger, annoyance, and 25 other emotions. Your first instinct is to pound the keyboard like Beethoven playing the 5th Symphony. This client is flat out wrong, and you’ll refute them point by point, issue by issue. You’ll reference emails from months prior, screenshots, charts, graphs, the works! You’ve got an air tight case, and you’re ready to go to war.

I assure you, 99.99999% of the time, this is NOT the path to fruition. Don’t push send. Seriously, don’t do it. It’s not worth it. Here’s why. Besides probably feeling regretful, this route doesn’t just burn a bridge, it tears the bridge down, and allllll the surrounding nearby roads. Profound, huh? Sales is a cat and mouse game in a sense. I want clients money. They know I want their money. And I know they know I want their money. In exchange for $$, I myself, and my company, provide value and a service. Since I don’t physically do the work; build the website, design the logo, etc. my value comes in the form of education and communication. You have no clue who this client will talk to about this, what their network is like, and how they will describe the situation. You must get them back on your side.

Regardless of the industry you’re in, chances are, your job or company deals with some sort of sales transaction. It could be a physical product (apparel, technology, etc.), your time (lawyers, CPA’s, etc.), a service, or numerous other things. Regardless…it’s all people. Let me tell you something, some people are awesome, some people suck, and some people are awesome sometimes and suck the others. Myself included. I have bad days. I am a dick to Comcast when I call them to tell them my Internet is operating at a snails pace. SERIOUSLY HOW IS IT SO SLOW!?!?!?!…I digress. Dealing with the people aspect is the most difficult part of most jobs, mine included, also the most rewarding. It’s funny/ironic though…both sides of a transaction have basically the same goals.

  • Everyone wants value. You’re either getting value or providing value.

  • No one wants to be screwed financially.

  • Everyone wants to look good to their bosses, superiors, and colleagues.

Aside from the adrenaline and overall feeling of ‘winning’ a new client or project, diffusing situations like the one I described is the best part of my day. Here are some of my patent pending tips for cooling off an angryyyyyy email.

  • Pick up the phone. Emails are cool, but I find most of the time if I call and talk to them, it’s much easier, their attitude changes, and all is right in the world again. Make sure to follow up with an email for documentation purposes

  • Put yourself in their shoes. There’s most likely SOMETHING you can relate to as to why they feel how they do. They very well may be ‘wrong’ by the letter of the law, but it may just be because they don’t understand something the way you do. Education is paramount.

  • Show empathy: regardless of right or wrong, the goal here is to find a middle ground that appeases both parties.

  • If you are wrong, and they were justified…take blame, fall on the sword, and let them know what you’re going to do to make it right.

  • BE NICE. This seems like common sense and something we learned in elementary school, but I find this to be rare in the business world. If you’re nice, people are far more willing to help and be nice in return.

Every situation is different. Every person is different. There is no sure fire way to handle these situations. However, if the office dog doesn’t provide the stress relief required and all else fails, write your angry response, and send it to a colleague…just make sure the client isn’t CC’d