Whether you have been in business for five months or five years, you have likely run into some interesting situations with customers, employees, and suppliers. Perhaps a client isn’t paying you on time (or at all!) or an employee has decided it’s okay to take extra long lunch breaks! One thing that is for certain in any business is that you are going to run into challenges with customers, employees, and suppliers. And, you need to know how to deal with those challenges in a way that maintains relationships and moves your business goals forward.
My most requested topic for coaching and training is How to Manage Difficult Conversations and many of my clientele are business owners who are frustrated with trying to deal with minor issues with clients, employees, and suppliers before the situation gets worse. So, I want to share with you my Top 5 reasons as to why you, as a business owner or professional, need to learn how to handle all types of difficult conversations and how this skill-set will impact the success of your business or career.
- Managing difficult conversations is a business management skill-set. If sales were declining you would get sales training. If you wanted to improve customer service, you would get customer service training for your front-line employees. Managing difficult conversations is the communications training that you and your employees need to navigate all sorts of situations and problems with clients, employees, and suppliers as they arise. In fact, knowing how to manage difficult conversations is often the underlying skill-set that you will need to get the sale and provide exceptional customer service.
- The success of your business or career will depend, in part, on your ability to develop and maintain good relationships. Those relationships have to be mutually beneficial. So, when a problem occurs with a client or employee, you have to know how to deal with it in a way that benefits both parties. If you don’t know how to manage difficult conversations or situations you run the risk of losing an employee or a customer.
- Learning how to manage difficult conversations is also a stress management tool. How many nights have you lay awake, unable to sleep because you were thinking about a conversation you had to have the next day with someone? My clients often tell me that they are less stressed and more confident because they know they can deal with any situation that might come up with a client or supplier.
- Problems don’t solve themselves! In fact, when you avoid dealing with a situation with a client or employee, there is a chance that the problem will get bigger. This means it will take you even longer to deal with a situation after it has escalated, which will take you away from other important work such as serving other clients or going out and getting new clients. Once you know how to manage difficult conversations and situations you can deal with issues as they arise before they grow into much larger problems.
- Your reputation is at stake. Let’s say you can’t resolve an issue with a client to their satisfaction and that client decides to tell others that they weren’t happy with your product or service. Consider what the impact will be on your business. You want to be known as a person who is easy to do business with and handles problems in an assertive manner. You don’t want to be known as the person with the bad temper or as the person who gives in to every client request.
As you can see, knowing how to handle difficult conversations is one of the best tools to have at your disposal to help you run your business. Avoidance isn’t an option and knowing how to manage challenging situations with clients is critical to providing exemplary customer service and ensuring customer retention. Turnover is also costly for businesses. For that reason, you also need to be able to effectively navigate all sorts of issues with employees.