3 Ways To Embrace (Not Avoid) Your Tough Customers

Easy customers are great, aren’t they? Sales people love when customers are friendly, open, engaging and just plain old pleasant. They make us smile. They listen attentively to our sales presentation. And usually, they’re the customers that sales success is easy to achieve.

But there’s a problem with solely embracing easy customers. If you can only find sales success when you are dealing with pleasant, well-adjusted people, your success will be limited.

But guess which buyers are being ignored and dare I say avoided by your competition? It’s all those difficult customers. You know the ones…

Mean Martin

Silent Sally

Entitled Edward

And the list goes on. But there’s hope! When you learn how to embrace the most difficult customers, you IMMEDIATELY open up a pool of potential purchasers that your competition won’t / can’t handle.

Here’s a tip: Do you want incremental sales? Then learn to embrace the difficult customers because your competition is avoiding them at all costs.

You may think working with difficult customers requires too much time and effort. False! Here are three ways you can embrace difficult customers and boost your sales:

1. Learn to Separate the Person from the Behavior

Seldom are difficult customers actually difficult people. Most difficult customers simply have a lot of “stuff” going on. Maybe they’re overwhelmed. Maybe they have some not-so-great things happening in their life.

Or maybe, just maybe, they’ve been screwed over by another salesperson and they’re super defensive to make sure it doesn’t happen again. (Can we blame them?)

Whatever the reason, we need to separate the person from their behavior. In our minds we need to understand that, just because this person is seemingly difficult, doesn’t automatically make them a jerk or a terrible person.

Separate the behavior from the person, and you’ve mastered the first step to winning over your difficult customers.

2. Don’t Take It Personally

When a buyer is trashing your product or service, remember to separate yourself from what you are selling. Just because they are saying “no” to what to you are selling doesn’t mean they are saying “no” to you as a person.

So try not to take their negativity personally. Don’t get down on yourself just because someone is getting down on what you are offering.

3. Keep Your Energy Levels High 

Difficult customers are energy sappers. They can destroy your mojo in two seconds flat. But think about it, if the customers comes in negative and you allow yourself to get dragged down with them, who wins? Nobody!

But, if you maintain your positivity, then you’ve got a chance of bringing them around.

The energy in the sales conversation is the sales professional’s responsibility. End of story. Don’t let difficult customers determine your energy.

Want more help with learning to embrace difficult customers? I just released my latest book, which shows you the most effective, modern strategies for closing deals. It’s called, Dealing With Challenging Customers: 7 Reality-Based Techniques for Tackling Tough Customers

Grab your copy today and take the first step to empowering yourself to be bold and close the deals your competitors are leaving on the table.


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About the Author: Jeff Shore

Jeff Shore is the Founder and CEO of Shore Consulting, Inc. a company specializing in psychology-based sales training programs. Using these modern, game-changing techniques, Jeff Shore’s clients delivered over 145,000 new homes generating $54 billion in revenue last year.