Like most Guerrillas, you probably focus on your own attitude when approaching prospects, making presentations and closing sales, but when you are forced to deal with tough customers, you need to see things from their perspective.

Guerrillas regard the selling field as a battlefield and know that difficult customers require a strategic battle plan. Let's examine some of the attitudes you may encounter and some techniques for turning them around.


I. Angry Customers:
This customer may be clinging to a prior experience or upset about an ongoing situation.

Approach:
If it falls upon you to defuse the situation, do so immediately. If you can get the customer to talk about the situation, you can dissipate some of the anger. Resist the urge to get defensive and reassign blame. The customer doesn't care that a temp mislabeled their order. Admit the error to the customer and make a personal commitment towards resolution. Ask the client how she would like to see the situation handled.

If the customer refuses to let go of the anger, get personal by paying attention, listening and suggesting a face-to-face meeting to hammer out present and potential difficulties. Keep your promises by staying on top of the situation until it is resolved.

Closing:
Use what you've learned about the customer's business in your sales pitch. Offer to make concessions that are mutually beneficial. After resolving the problem to the customer's satisfaction, ask for the sale.

II. Abrasive Customers:
Your customer may be an overburdened business owner who regards your sales call as an unsolicited interruption. His natural personality style may be abrasive or he may use this "persona" as a conscious bullying technique.

Approach:
Allow the bully to believe that he is squeezing the best possible deal out of you. Make sure to differentiate between his "act" and his true objections. This is not the customer to make small talk with. Get to the point quickly and encourage him to articulate his needs instead of just pushing you around.

One way to defuse the tension is with humor. Another is to side with the customer. If you have a boss, make him the bad guy. If you are threatened with loss of business or blacklisting, don't rise to the challenge. Just smile and ride the wave.

Closing:
The only time that you should lose your cool is when closing. By getting emotional, you'll convince the abrasive customer that he affected you, that you've been broken down and are ready to offer him a great deal.

III. Irritable Customers:
This customer has a negative perception of your company based on past experience or competitive smears. This negativity manifests in a bad attitude.

Approach:
First let's look at what not to do. Don't encourage the customer by bashing your firm. You may secretly agree about flaws, but keep that to yourself. Don't go overboard by presenting your company as perfect either. You need to rebuild your company's image in the eyes of an irritable customer. Use testimonials, positive financial reports, and media articles that cast a flattering light on your firm.

Ask the customer precisely why she holds that negative perception. If she's still smarting from a previous bad experience, point out new mechanisms that have been implemented to prevent those things from reoccurring. If the salesperson she dealt with earlier was inept, explain that you are a pro and won't drop the ball. If you've been smeared by the competition, point out that you must have seriously threatened the other firm who mounted the charge and discount their allegations.

Closing:
You can offer the standard money-back guarantee or go one further with a "no-goof guarantee," offering to grant significant concessions for specific mistakes. Assure her that your product is risk-free. Finally, emphasize the product rather than the company.

IV. Contrary Customers:
You say red; he says blue. Some customers seem to question and oppose everything you suggest. Is this just their personality or do they have legitimate objections?

Approach:
To determine your customer's sincerity, try reframing content and context. These tactics are explored in the book "Guerrilla Selling." In content reframing, you change the value of the content by shifting the context. To accomplish this, you must evoke the feeling associated with a particular item and swap it for a different, more positive feeling. If your customer objects to a product's cost or frivolity, you can acknowledge the objection, but assure them of the product's excellence and long life.

In context reframing, you alter the context of an objection, examining the same issues from a different vantage point. A salesperson would agree that a luxury car's sticker price is double that of an economy car, but explain how financing over an extended period of time could keep prices down while allowing the customer to drive a much nicer car.

Closing:
If the customer just loves to complain and be contrary, join them in maligning the competition. Be direct with this customer, requesting specific objections. If you can, come up with additional objections before they do, and resolve them. Then ask for the sale.

By shifting your perspective and trying to understand the behavior of your customers, you can reveal the underlying meaning of seemingly random hostility or resistance and turn around angry, abrasive, irritable and contrary customers.