While many counterproductive emotions in the workplace result directly from economic stressors, it’s decidedly untrue that managing those emotions requires waiting until the recession passes. Here are tips to help you lead the way toward emotional recovery right now:

1) Become aware of your emotions. Ineffective emotional responses like outbursts of anger or regrettable decisions usually happen beneath our awareness. To keep your feelings from flying under the radar, ask someone you trust to observe you and give you feedback. Ask them to pay attention to such behaviors such as:

• Fidgeting
• Avoiding eye contact
• Raising your voice
• Interrupting people
• Brushing people off in difficult situations

The beauty of self-awareness is that just thinking about your actions will help you improve them.

2) Set a positive tone. Try to exude confidence, but make sure it is real. A keen lie detector comes standard with everybody’s mental machinery so if you’re faking confidence, your people will know it. They will either sense your insincerity, or they’ll think you’ve lost touch with reality.

To become more positive, take a couple of minutes at the start of each day to think of a few things that are going right and jot them down. Glance at those things a couple of times throughout the day to keep you from thinking catastrophe-thoughts or dwelling on them and then spreading anxiety.

3) Show that you care. The tendency for many leaders in times like these is to get things done, because perseverance has been a key to most people’s success. Rather than backing down from a challenge, we tend to toughen up during tough times. This is a fantastic character trait. However, don’t let your focus narrow solely on tasks at the risk of alienating the people you count on. These are tough personal times for many people, and by simply acknowledging that you understand what they are going through, you will help tremendously to calm them.

byJeremiah Wilson, Founder and President of ContactPoint, LLC.

I stand in front of businesses large and small and teach them how to get more sales. And I often ask this question: why does a customer choose you?

How do they determine where to buy a set of tires, stay for the night or get a massage?

After I ask these questions, hands always shoot up: “Price!”

Wrong.

Based on our research, price is NOT the number one consideration for someone making a purchasing decision.

Now, before you stop reading in disgust, let me be clear; price is a consideration and a specific price range is a big consideration. However, over 80% of the time price is NOT the number one reason a customer chooses you.

So what are the biggest reasons a customer decides to buy from a certain business?

Value – This can mean different things for different people. Value could mean a combination of price and quality. In other words: a good deal. For someone else, value means being treated well. For someone else it may mean ‘feeling’ like they made a good purchasing decision after-the-fact.

Confidence – The customer has to have confidence that they were well taken care of during the purchasing process and confidence they will be taken care of in the future. Your actions control this outcome. Are you treating the customer in a way that engenders confidence? Are you acting like a salesman or making educated recommendations as a trusted consultant? Are you treating the customer with respect and kindness? These actions build confidence.

Trust or ‘Like’ – Finally, the number one factor a customer—either consciously or subconsciously—considers when making a purchasing decision is, whether or not they like and trust you. It’s simple. We like to hang-out with people we like and trust. We like to work with people we like and trust. And, yes, we like to buy things from people we like and trust.

Think about it this way: if your employees were more likable on the phone could your price be $20 dollars higher than the competition and still get the business? You bet. What about $40 or more? Depending on the situation, and the customer, absolutely.

If you can get a potential customer to like you, you can avoid or overcome almost any price objection. But, instead of attempting to get to know the customer, instead of getting them to like you, what do most employees do? They immediately quote a priceor they try to price match, in a last ditch effort to get the client. In most cases, all this price talk is simply unnecessary. Just get the customer to like you.

3 Ways to Get the Customer to Like You

Tone – When you’re speaking to a customer on the phone, the words you use are only 14% of what you’re communicating. The tone of your voice is 86%. If you sound happy and engaging, the customer will like you.

Validate – Make sure the customer knows that you’ve heard their concerns. Make sure they know that you care about them. That is the key. Phrases like ‘I understand what you’re saying’ or ‘So let me make sure I understand correctly’ followed by a restatement—are really, really important.

Questions – Ask many. Make sure they are open-ended. Think ‘why,’ ‘what,’ ‘where,’ ‘when,’ and ‘how.’ Everyone likes to talk about themselves. If you ask questions and are legitimately interested in the answers, the customer will like you.

And remember don’t fall back on price. Price is a cop out. Immediately quoting the price is an excuse for an employee to avoid getting to know the customer.

Our statistics prove: if you avoid quoting price at the beginning of a phone call, you will close substantially more sales

Remember, price is not the number one reason someone buys something from you; them liking you is.