Always Be Closing
Training Day.
I was working at the premier hosting company Hostgator, and the entire company from top to bottom was getting treatment from a ‘closer’.
This man was the man companies called when they wanted/needed to raise their bottom lines from anywhere between 8-10% per year. This man was ‘THE MAN’!
He’s like the character that Alec Baldwin portrayed in Glen Gary, Glen Ross, you know the guy who yells “Coffee Is for Closers!!!”
Our entire company sat in a conference room as he paced the room like a young Tony Robbins.
He was there to make us “better at sales, deflection, and customer de-escalation.”
He was there to make us ‘righteous badasses’ in the 8 hours he was assigned to spend with him.
You were either intimidated by him and/or wanted him to like you.
From ‘good morning’, he had you in his vortex.
He opened the chat with the importance of calming tiger customers down, you know the customers who curse at you, yell at you sometimes out of frustration, other times because they are just pricks.
What is Customer Service, someone who has never worked it might ask? Well, to anyone who has, it’s hell on earth… on a good day!!!
“I’m going to be running a de-escalation exercise of what to say when you have an irate customer” he began…
I laughed to myself, thinking of all the crazy customers I had dealt full of anger. I didn’t really have a strategy for dealing with ANY of them, and I knew that I didn’t want to deal with ANY of them.
My go-to response to difficult customers would be to either avoid them and/or clam up with them on the phone.
So Marc says I’m going to play a couple of phone calls I heard.
I was listening to some of the phone calls from Quality Assurance. ‘I’m not sure if this guy is in the room, but we’re going to train you whoever you are’, Marc says.
The phone call started.
“Hi, thank you for calling Hostgator support this is Jordan speaking, how may I help you today?”
My eyes darted towards the speaker.
“Holy shit!” I thought “that’s my voice.” I tried to remember what I even said on this call because I sure as hell didn’t remember it.
“Where’s my money, and why is my site down?”
“At the moment, sir, we are experiencing a blackout.”
“I was promised by Hostgator that our site would be up 99.9% of the time. My site has been down for 3 hours, and I want a refund.”
“Sir—”
“And another thing, I’m missing out on sales. I just sent an email, and now you’re going to fix this? You are costing me money, Jordan you know that?”
“I-I”, I stuttered.
“How are you going to fix this?” the customer snapped.
Marc paused the tape.
“We’ve heard enough.” He said, “Is Jordan here today?” his eyes scanned the room, looking for the red seated failure.
I sheepishly raised my hand.
“Stand up,” he asked.
I stood up, with all eyes on me. The entire company was listening at a failure of mine, and I wanted to be anywhere, an-y-where, but there!!!
“I’m sorry team” I said, and yes, before I knew it, those words had left my lips.
“That’s not why I stood you up Jordan. You see me?” Marc asked.
I nodded.
“Do you think I know how to handle myself on a phone call? Close deals?”
I nodded.
“Guess what? I wasn’t born that way. I learned through trial and goddamn error!” Marc explained.
“The same thing happened to me.” A voice from the back chimed in. The entire room turned, it was Gavin the assistant manager of returns.
“I had a customer who stumped me the same way that they did Jordan. In fact, I think I had a worse reaction, because I didn’t respond for 3 minutes. I just put him on hold and got some water, and took the time to think of a response.”
Everyone laughed.
“When I came back I told him I didn’t have a solid answer for him, but I would take his grievance to management later.” Gavin said.
Marc took the room back by raising his hands as he laid his palm on my chest.
“Remember that you are the expert. THEY called you because YOU have the answers. When you lose your composure, and forget who you are, there’s a power shift” Marc said.
My heart was beating.
“Who has the power?”
Before I realized it I screamed, “I DO!”.
The room clapped and I sat down.
As the presentation progressed, other tactics for phone conversations and handling of customers were discussed.
I was halfheartedly listening to the other topic of discussion because the realization that I had the power the entire time had washed over me.
I had realized that it was up to me to choose the tides and tones not only of my phone calls, but of my life as well.
I was forced into the fire, but I had to embrace my failure to improve.
Had it been up to me to figure this all out on my own, I’d still be in the same position.
I would have continued to ‘nut-up’ in conflict situations.
I had learned a new model to use going forward.
Do you think that maybe it’s time you pushed yourself further?
Where is a place that you feel insecure?
Is it cold calls for your business?
The way I chose to push myself further is to embrace conflict situations.
Seek discomfort.
Seek situations that push your career, relationships, and life further.