Do you struggle to understand how to deal with customers or coworkers who take advantage of you?

Most of us are nice, kind and caring people. But this could become a problem if those we work with or serve as our customers try to take advantage of our kindness.

This was a real challenge for me as a new salesperson who wanted to be liked by his customers and fellow coworkers. I sometimes found myself in situations when I was being taken advantage of by both. I felt like I was getting eaten alive by both.

My coworkers viewed me as a generous Christian man and some saw it as an opportunity to skate me on deals, have me running stupid errands and getting me to take half-deals that should have never been half-deals.

I remember one specific situation when I was showing cars to a couple when a senior salesman came out on the lot and told me that my Sales Manager was looking for me - and it was IMPORTANT!

I left my customers with him while I ran inside and went through each department trying to find my manager. I couldn’t find him and went back outside, only to realize that my customers were now gone. I finally found my manager in the wash bay area and he told me that he didn’t need me for anything. Moments later, my coworker returned from a test drive with my customers and sat them down at HIS desk. When I confronted him on it, he told me that they felt more comfortable with him, but that if I didn’t make a stink about it, he would leave me on half of the deal and he wouldn’t tell the manager what they had said about me.

I was #SharkBait.

Some customers can also be difficult to work with. Some will see blood in the water and your sale can quickly become a feeding frenzy. They go from being “BFF” to just wanting the BBD (Best Bottom Dollar)! This was also a problem I struggled with in the beginning of my selling career.

We have all had clients who seem to only care about what’s in it for them. Some are even so bold as to say it to your face. Others may even accuse you of all the negative stereotypes they think salespeople are. They expose their rows of teeth and begin to tear your gross to shreds.

How do you swim with the sharks without becoming the bait?

It starts with NOT CHUMMING THE WATER!

We chum the water when we let people think they can see us as bait. To avoid becoming bait, I learned to own my voice, own my time and own my value.

Own your VOICE

I began to own my voice when I began to speak up and speak out when I saw things my coworkers said or did that I considered ‘shark-like.’ I also began doing this with my customers.

This did NOT mean that I became unkind, defensive, or threatening back to them. In fact, I did quite the opposite. I appealed to a better version of them. I called them to be greater than what they were doing or how they were behaving.

I remember saying this (privately) to a coworker who had been a bully towards me: “I believe you are better than this. The way you talk to me and others doesn’t make you sound funny, it makes you look like you are a bully and I know that’s not who you really are. You are not hurting my feelings but you are hurting everyone’s opinion of you.” This salesman began to change his ways and we later became good friends.

I also started owning my voice with my customers. I had a client who said to me, “I don't care if you have to lose money, that’s the most I will pay!” I responded with something along these lines: “Sir, with all due respect, I don't believe you. You seem like a hard-working man, and you are older than me and have probably bought more vehicles than I've sold so far. But one thing I can tell about you is that you are a decent person. I don’t sincerely believe that you would ever ask a person or a business to hurt themselves just to do business with you. Getting a great deal? YES! I want that for you and for myself. But you just don’t strike me as someone who would ask a person to lose money. Fair and competitive – that’s what I will do. But I am not the sort of employee who will ask my employer to make a poor business decision simply because I failed to build enough value.” The customer retracted his position and then bought at an agreed upon fair value.

I have since used a similar approach with many other customers. If you appeal to their better versions of themselves and remind them who they are or want to be, it often turns sharks to sincere reasonable people.

Own your TIME

Owning my time meant that I began to take control of my day and my activities. Rather than showing up every day to see what happens and then leaving wondering what happened, I began to plan my day. The ultimate sign of owning my time was planning it the night before.

I made a list of my top priorities for the next day. It could be items like these: status on my top 10 hottest leads, recent sold follow-up, walking my inventory, knowing the current programs, long-term follow-up, prospecting, or product knowledge.

I also planned my workflow by paying attention to traffic and phone patterns at the dealership. A majority of customers pulled on the lot and called in at specific times of the day. So I needed to be at my desk working on follow-up when the calls were likely to come in, and on the lot doing my inventory and product knowledge training when lot traffic was higher.

Own your VALUE

Owning my value came later for me in my sales career. In the beginning I wasn’t confident that a customer would (or should) pay me more than to a dealer down the road. I often would cave in immediately when asked for a discount by saying, “Let me check with my manager”, “What number did you have in mind?” or “What would it take to earn your business?”

I realized that these phrases just CHUM THE WATER! They don’t build value, they diminish it. I became #SharkBait.

It wasn’t till I began to own my voice and own my time that I began to own my value. The more prepared I became (by planning my day), the more productive I became. The more productive I became, the more profitable I became. My product knowledge and inventory walks helped me understand the best fit for my customers quicker and allowed me to show them the value better. This increased my confidence that I was showing customer the right car the first time.

When I realized that I had been doing and saying things that diminished my value, I began replacing value diminishing techniques with value building ones. I started using language such as, “If my pricing were similar, or even if I was a little higher, wouldn’t you rather buy this vehicle, buy it from me, and buy it now?” Or I’d say, “It seems fair to me to pay a little more for something when I see more value in it, so is it fair to say you see value in me and what I’ve done for you today?”

Here is another example: “The goal of any good and healthy business is to be fair and competitive. After all, if any business is always the highest, they will go out of business, and if they are always the lowest, they would also go out of business. So let’s come up with a fair and competitive number so I can continue to serve my customers and community!”

If you want to swim with the sharks without becoming bait, stop chumming the water!

Ask yourself these questions:

1. How can I start owning my voice by appealing to people’s better versions of themselves and speaking up without being rude or defensive?
2. How can I start owning my time by planning my day and income producing activities?
3. How can I start to own my value by using value-building language and improving the skills that elevate my value?