Don't be fooled by everything you hear.

Hi [name] and welcome to your Weekly Sales Tip from Ian Keightley @ Salescoach for [date]

Don't be fooled by everything you hear.

When the market brings extra challenges we often see people under stress and reacting to unimportant or unnecessary factors in ways that can be disappointing. The classic we are seeing in this market is stressed people failing to ascertain truth from fiction, prejudice from reason, fact from rumour and motivation from reasonableness. 

The simplest version of this is with our seller clients who may be in denial about what their property is now worth  and from Buyers who are still waiting for the market to come down. Lots of counsel and market research is required over time to have them see reality. They may not like it but choosing to ignore the market truth only prolongs and even amplifies the problem. When this goes beyond business and into personal, it can cause a great deal of unnecessary stress.       

I was recently contacted by Barbara who sounded quite stressed and who was looking for some advice. When we met is was clear that Barbara was a classic case of someone who was quite distraught about what she was hearing about a friend and this reaction was stopping her from focusing on her productive sales tasks. Barbara was also clear that this was such strong gossip she thought it might be true - afterall everyone was talking about it. Barbara had tried to defend her friend over the last few weeks but no-one was listening. In fact, after hearing it so many times Barbara was starting to doubt her friend.

I asked Barbara why she hadn't asked her friend about it. It appeared she was already stressed with work, already under pressure financially that she just couldn't find the courage or energy to tackle it. It was also quite clear that the perpetrator's supporters would make her life uncomfortable if she didn't join the throng. It was during that discussion that she started to see that her lack of honesty with her friend was contributing to the growth of the rumour, giving it more legs of credibility than it was ever worth. 

The worst thing though, was that Barbara had initially sought out the person in question to confront them and get them to stop the nonsense. Barbara said she had left two phone messages asking to meet and get clarification with the prepetrator rather than the risk of upsetting her friend. As we usually find in such circumstances the perpetrator never called back - would not front up. 

The more we talked the more Barbara saw that her reaction was totally unreasonable - her words and judgement, not mine - and that her friend deserved the opportunity to not only know what was being said, but to put their case.

We talked through some options on how to address it and once Barbara had chosen to act, she phoned her friend and met with them that day. Barbara rang me that night to say thanks and that her friend had understood her stress, appreciated the honesty and quite simply gave their version of events that erased Barbara's doubts and allowed her to drop the concern, eradicate the stress and get her focus back on the job. Barbara's ability to clarify the position for HER enabled her to focus back on her work. 

Her friend also found the perpetrator unwilling to meet and justify their statements. Barbara shared this with her colleagues and this had many of them wondering what the originator's motivation really was.

The message from Barbara's experience was to not just believe it because it is "said', and to value friendship above rumour. Barbara is back on a roll - her focus is back at work, not diverted by colleagues with too much to say, too little real work to do and with stories that may divert attention from their own lack of achievement. Barbara is rapt to have her friendship intact.