Marketers invite you to take part in a survey, dozens of beauty salons call you to offer another miracle procedure, and banks lure you with loans … The most annoying thing is that no requests “do not call this number again” work. What to do? Business coach tips.
I usually get calls from insurance companies twice a year when my or my wife’s car insurance runs out. Moreover, dozens of companies with which I have never dealt are calling. On other days, bank employees offer to take a loan, marketers ask to participate in a survey … And no matter how politely they talk to me, I feel annoyed, helpless and angry. This reaction is understandable: strangers invade my personal space when I do not ask them to. And the caller does not give me a free ticket to Tahiti – he expects action from me, demands attention. I perceive these calls as a kind of violence, manipulation of me. And of course, I resist.
Sometimes external stimuli are even beneficial for us – they allow us to throw out anger. But what if I don’t have such a goal?
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- 4 rules of communication without aggression
First of all, understand what exactly is happening. The operator did not intend to offend us or piss us off: he was just doing his job. This event is neutral. And how to treat him and how to react – everyone decides for himself. You can resist passively (be indignant, hang up), or you can do something yourself. Like… just letting the situation be. We live in a world where people need to sell their product. Realizing this and noticing my annoyance, I can cope with this feeling – not scream, not get angry, but, for example, smile and say thank you. Or joke: “Sorry, I’m in Hawaii right now, could you call back in three months?” Or ask for a courtesy: “You know, I have my own agent, with whom I have been insured for many years. If you don’t mind, please remove my phone number from your database, because you will just be wasting your time. The request is a very powerful tool, it implies that the last word always remains with the one who is asked. It creates a situation of mutual respect and even partnership, allowing the other to do the best. At least, I did just that and so far there have been no calls. Of course, they can happen again. But the choice of how to treat them is ours.
Vladimir Gerasichev, business coach, head of Business Relations, co-author (together with Oleg Sinyakin) of the book “DreamTeam: How to Create a Dream Team” (Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2012), host of the “Keep Your Word” project on the Dozhd TV channel.