Why You Shouldn’t Turn Angry People Into Your Biggest Fans

One of my super powers is turning any angry customer into a raving fan.

The only trouble is that sometimes it’s quick and sometimes it takes all day.

An important realization about this:

There’s the 5% of people who won’t be happy no matter what.Maybe it’s more, maybe it’s a little less—that’s not the point. The point is that no matter what you do, a small percentage will always complain, ask for a refund, or just won’t be soothed.There’s a name for them.

They're called haters.

Trying to make them happy is futile.

Then there’s everyone else.

They could be split up into the groups of “people who just want their money back,” or “people who just want a manager to hear them out,” or “people who are trying to game the system so they can get free stuff.”

There are a lot of people in this category and it’s up to you to decide who to spend your time on.

And that’s the lesson.Are you going to make a customer for life with your effort to transform them? Will empathizing and listening and collecting their feedback make them feel heard enough to give you a second chance?If the answer is “they’re going to be unhappy no matter what,” then it’s probably time to bail.

2 Minute Action

Whats something that’s taking up 80% of your time right now?Now is a good time to prioritize fixing that.Make a call, make a list, send an email, whatever you need to do to start fixing that.Its usually the bottom 20% of your tasks that take up 80% of the time required to complete it.

Don’t Be Like Rocky Balboa

It hurts me to say it, but it’s true.

I’m even from the greater Philadelphia area.Don’t be like Rocky Balboa.He got his shot at the big time, and it’s true that he survived it—but he sustained some serious damage.He has brain trauma, he almost went blind, his friend Paulie lost all of his money, and it took him years to muster up the courage to see his son.It’s all very sexy in the movies.But Rocky is a clumsy fighter and it took him two movies just to get the training he needed to be a more technical fighter.We all know how the story goes, but what if something had gone wrong?

Just one half-inch could have flipped his life even more upside down.

So, the next time you are faced with a problem or an impossible challenge, you should consider working smarter and not harder.Consider the odds and the consequences.Hope is not a strategy.Increasing your odds is a strategy.

2 Minute Action

What’s something is taking up 80% of your time or energy?Whats the thing that is causing 80% of your friction in whatever you’re doing.Work or life.That is your target.Take 2 minutes to identify some possible targets today.

What You Have To Do

What you have to do is exactly what you decide you have to do.

And that part is up to you.Do what will get you the result you want. Scrap the rest.Most of the time (following the Pareto principle, here) we spend 80% of the effort to get only the last 20% of the results.ACTION:What's something that you're doing that's causing more pain than it's worth? Can you stop doing it right now?You can Pareto-Optimize your life, one small step at a time:Do the bare minimum to get the results.Say what you need to say, and scrap the fluff.Write only enough to get the message across.