 Imagine, imagine, imagine that it's two o'clock in the morning and you're fast asleep until your phone rings. In your disoriented state, you knock over the glass of water on your bedside table reaching for your phone. You look at the display and numbers are coming up all blurry. As soon as you answer the call, you realize you've made a huge mistake. On the other end, it's one of your clients and they're not so kindly informing you that their website is down. Has anyone had this happen to them? Even with a glass of water? When you work as a freelancer, one of your jobs is to support your clients. Unfortunately, it's inevitable that some of these people are going to be angry. Although it may be the last thing you want to do in the moment, dealing with these situations can actually be a benefit to you and help you grow your business. Frustrated customers can provide excellent feedback on how you can improve, but that's not the only reason to reach out to these angry clients quickly. Your current and past clients can be either your biggest proponents or your worst enemies when it comes to getting new leads. If you think about your business, how significant has word of mouth been to your bottom line? Think about where your money comes from. A study conducted in 2014 revealed that almost 75% of freelancers list word of mouth marketing as their primary source of getting business. So if a customer fires you or you fire them while they're still angry, just think about the ripple effect that creates. Not only will you lose their business forever, but you'll lose out on the possibility of them selling you to any of their friends. That's why it's extremely important to quell the storm in these angry clients as quickly as possible, even if they don't remain your customers. When people are yelling or swearing at you, they're mad, they're stressed, they're frustrated. They're caught in a motion mind, and it's next to impossible for them to think calmly, rationally, and logically. It's a state of mind where thoughts and behaviors are simply a reaction to how you're feeling, and it's not the place to solve problems. I'm going to present a common scenario you've likely encountered as a freelancer. I call it the angry client. Scene one, a motion mind. My website's down. I don't know what you've done, but nothing's loading and I'm losing thousands of dollars because of this. You need to fix this. This is urgent. Hold on a minute. I didn't do anything to your website, so don't blame me. If you want my help, you'll need to calm down first. Calm down? I can't be calm when my website's offline. I'm paying you to make sure it works, but maybe this is a sign that I should stop paying you. Fighting fire with fire can lead to an extremely heated situation. In this scene, did you see how quickly I got defensive? And then I got all wrapped up in my own emotion mind and things spiraled out of control. At this point, my client has lost faith in all of my abilities, and they will likely find someone else to work with, and I'll certainly never get a good reference from them. We've all been caught in emotion mind, and most likely we didn't make the best decisions. Understanding that without judgment is the first step in being able to help others temporarily stuck there. Opposite to emotion mind is logic mind. This is the space where rational, intellectual, and fact-based thinking happens. Emotions simply aren't part of the equation. When we're in logic mind, we remain calm, devise our strategies, and respond to the problem. Seeing as how much of our lives are working lives revolve around working with computers, either designing websites or writing code, it's fair to assume that we all spend a considerable amount of time in logic mind. So let me run through another scene of the angry client, and this time it might seem a bit more familiar. Scene two, logic mind. My website's down. I don't know what you've done, but nothing's loading and I'm losing thousands of dollars because of this. You need to fix this. This is urgent. Okay, can you tell me if anything has changed with the website recently? Did you install any new plugins or make any updates? I have no idea. Maintaining the website is your job. If you're not doing it properly, why the heck am I paying you? So in this scene, I certainly didn't escalate the problem, but by remaining in logic mind, I never addressed the customer's feelings. High intensity emotions like anger and frustration need to be addressed. They need to be diffused, and they can't be ignored. Otherwise, things can still get out of hand. Who here has tried to help someone, a client or not, and they just seem to get angrier at you? You may even have gotten a response of, you're not listening to me. Of course, it's noble to try and help. But what the customer really wanted, at least at first, was to be heard. So what can we do to ensure that our clients know that we've heard them? What can we do to ensure that our clients feel acknowledged? Well, while we're thinking logically about this, let's look at a Venn diagram. On one side, we've got emotion mind, and on the other side, we've got logic mind. That coveted middle ground that connects the two which otherwise can't communicate with each other is wise mind. Wise mind is a Buddhist concept, which leads to a balance of both logic and emotion. When we're in this state, we make better decisions because both our reason and our feelings are reassured. It's feeling sympathy for people having trouble, as well as proposing solutions to help them. Our challenge when working with angry clients is twofold. First, we need to get into and stay in wise mind. And second, we need to pull the customer out of their emotion mind and have them join us in wise mind. Just like flight safety instructions, you need to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you're able to assist others. If you're not already in logic mind, it'll be impossible for you to help others get there. So here are a couple tips to help with this first challenge. Observe. Think of this like a quick 10 second meditation session. For example, take a deep breath and watch as the air passes from your nostrils to your lungs. Or if you're at your computer, imagine that you're in your fingertips as they rest lightly on your keyboard. Once you've observed, describe. Try and describe what you're experiencing. I can feel my heart beating in my chest quite heavily right now. Feel a little tension in my jaw. Succeeding in this first challenge takes practice and dedication, especially if you're getting yelled at. It does get easier. It's really easy to get pulled into emotion mind when someone insults you, attacks you, or offends you. But you need to know how to get your brain involved with all of its logic and reason to balance the scales so that your heart isn't making all the decisions. And likewise, if you're only in emotion mind, sorry, if you're only in logic mind, you need to tap into your feelings a bit so that your sentences will be understood. Our second challenge is to get them into wise mind too. Now don't worry, it doesn't involve any hypnosis or magical spells. All you need is genuine and sincere validation. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the verb validate as follows. Recognize or affirm the validity or worth of a person or their feelings or opinions. Cause a person to feel valued or worthwhile. Just reading that feels good. Of course we all want to be valued, that our thoughts and opinions matter, and that our feelings are valid. It feels great when someone actually takes the time to listen. Validation works beautifully because it works on a subconscious level. If it's done well, the person being validated simply feels like they've been listened to. If we're caught up in our emotions, having someone validate how we're feeling will have an immediate soothing effect. Our shoulders drop, our heart rate slows, and we're able to take a deep breath. Being heard feels good. That fiery emotion has been addressed, now it can be moved aside to make room for logic. As freelancers, you work very closely with your clients. Most likely you're the only person they call when there's a problem, a question, or anything going wrong with their website. Sometimes what you hear is pretty harsh. But how you respond can make a world of difference. Now that we know a bit more about Wise Mind and the power of validation, let me run through another scene of the angry client and we'll see how well it goes. Scene 3, Wise Mind. My website's down. I don't know what you've done, but nothing's loading and I'm losing thousands of dollars because of this. You need to fix this. This is urgent. Well, that's not good. I completely understand how vital it is to have your website online. Let's figure this out quickly and get things working again. Any chance you made any changes to your website recently or did just happen unexpectedly? Thanks for your help. I haven't changed anything. I leave that up to you because you know what you're doing. I have no idea what's happened. Let me know if you need anything from me. That's the exchange we're looking for. Once the client trusts that I'm on their side, we can solve the problem together. Let me dissect this exchange and I'll explain why things went so well. First, I imagine myself in the customer's shoes, the skill of empathy. I completely understand. Those words told the customer that I know what it's like to be in their position. With empathy, or sympathy in this case because my website has certainly crashed before, I was able to validate the customer's feelings of being stressed. Next, I made the customer feel listened to by echoing their words with a synonym. They used urgent, so I used vital. I could have also used crucial or critical. I just made sure to match their level of emotion in my choice of language. And finally, I reiterated that we're on the same team by using the word let's. The word builds trust and affirms to the customer that we need each other to solve the problem. And that is, after all, what we both want. Welcome to Wise Mind. So now that we've arrived, let me run through another example and we can put this into practice. If you receive the following email from someone, how would you respond? I just installed your plug-in and it gave me the white screen of death. I can't believe you would release a version that doesn't work. Don't you test your code first? If you don't fix this fast, you'll be losing a lot more customers than just me. Think about it. Remember the steps. Make sure you get into Wise Mind first. Figure out what emotions the customer must be feeling and validate them. And then finally propose a solution. This would probably be my process. My gut reaction is anger. I take offense to what that person just said. Of course I test my code. I'm on a staging site first. I'm clearly in a motion mind, as you can tell. So I need to get into Wise Mind. Okay, what's going on here? How would I feel in their shoes? I'd feel frustrated. I'd feel irritated that it's broken. I'm calling out for help right now. That's what this email is. So here's how I would respond back. Something very simple. How frustrating. Let's figure what's going wrong and fix it. That's all it takes. You've listened to the client. Now let's propose a solution. The infamous white screen typically points to a plug-in conflict. So let's start there. And that's it. I hope that this has been helpful. My name is Mindy Postoff. I'm a support ninja for WooCommerce. You can find me on Twitter at WooMindy. I'll be tweeting a link or the slides after this. We have a couple minutes for questions. I've left you all in a moment of zen. Thank you.