How to dial down crazy in your business
If you spend anytime in the market place at all you will find real quickly that there’s a lot of people having a real tough time dealing with the stresses of their individual lives. Blame it on the state of the US politics, blame it on the isolation that ironically social media has created, or write it off as predestined state of affairs as foretold by early church theologians, the reality remains it’s here. So how do you navigate the troubled waters of the troubled?
There are a few things I think you can do to help yourself, your business, and ultimately your potential clients.
- Expect it. One of the biggest hurdles new entrepreneurs or online marketers have to adapt quickly to is the hostile waters that the market place has become. Everyone has their own reasoning and rationale of how the market environment has become increasingly agitated but for whatever reason you subscribe to just know it has. This means you are going to run into people that you are genuinely trying to help that are simply just miserable and can’t help themselves but offer you a whole heaping of misery too. Just politely decline and stay focused on your objectives.
- Don’t internalize it. Remember it’s not about you but them. I had a guy continually post negative comments about me and my business several weeks back. I have to admit for a moment I was scratching my head wondering what this guys deal was. Nothing he was saying was true nor was it rationale but that didn’t stop him from going full blown crazy. Researching more about the guy I noticed he’s left a negative review about everyone he’s ever dealt with. Everyone from the local McDonalds to a lighting store could not make this guy happy. As Bill Engvall states in his stand up routine made famous by the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, “Here’s your Sign.” This guy really should be made to wear one but nevertheless I had to remind myself that his drama didn’t have to become mine.
- Manage with your message. In chapter 8 of my book, You Are Worth More there is a story about a self described marketing guru named Lewis that felt my colleagues and I should jump whenever he called because of his own sense of self worth. In this story I share a life lesson in business that I learned long time ago. You can close the sell but open the door to Pandora’s box when you allow others to dictate the terms, time, and tenor in which you speak with them. Common courtesy for both parties is a prerequisite for good business. In chapter 8 page 66 I write,
What this gentleman needed to learn was that it is my products and services that are for sale, not me. This is a distinction most people do not get. You sell what you do, not who you are. Your self-governance, style, methodologies, and identity should never be on the table for purchase. If I accepted his approach, he would be in control of how his business would be conducted, when, and by whom. By yielding to his demands, I would have allowed him to set the expectations of the relationship, not to mention doing most of the work. When you allow other people to set the expectations for you on what you offer, produce, or give, you have already lost the business. You may close the sale, but you have opened the door to Pandora’s box, costing you far more in the long-run, both stressfully and monetarily.
As John Maxwell so eloquently said in his 21 irrefutable laws of leadership, “you can be a thermostat or thermometer.” Leadership demands of us to be thermostats. Set the environment you are willing to operate with in your business and the right people will chase you down to do business in your comfortable space.
