Summary: Many business owners and salespeople have struggled with the effects of stay at home orders, mandated company closures and social distancing requirements. Some have been able to thrive, finding levels of creativity and resilience they never knew existed, while others have retreated, becoming entitled, fearful, or even hostile. It really shows how adversity can reveal a client's true colors.<br> <br> <br> <br> David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Chris Templeton and I will be talking about how adversity can affect clients. Welcome Chris.<br> <br> Chris: Hi, David. Boy, is this true. You know, I imagine everyone in business has seen it in action. Some prospects and clients are doing everything they can to move things forward, while others are withdrawing, becoming moody and demanding. It's almost like they become different people. Isn't it?<br> <br> David: Yeah, it's really shocking in some cases. People that you might think you knew, people who you thought were one way and you find out they're kind of not that way. It really does point out that people react differently to adversity. And let me just say, it's completely understandable when people are dealing with really tough issues in their business and their lives, it's going to have an effect. There's no way that you can get around it. But I think as business people, we have to be able to recognize this, identify it as early on in the cycle as possible and determine, decide, is this person, is this prospect still someone that we would like to interact with in our business?<br> <br> Chris: So, David, what do you think accounts for the primary difference in these people's responses?<br> <br> David: If I had to put my finger on it, Chris, I'd probably take it back to one primary thing. And that is fear. How frightened is this person? How scared are they about what's going on? How scared are they about their ability to be able to handle it, to be able to deal with it, to be able to process whatever issues they're having to process and to be able to move forward from it? I've had conversations with people who have been on both sides of the fence... separately. I have people who, some are on one side of the fence, who are really focused and they know what they're doing, and they're really geared up and they're moving forward. And I've talked to people on the other side of the fence, who are just feeling defeated and frightened and not inclined to want to take action. And in those situations, the biggest difference that I see is the level of fear. The people who have the knowledge that they're going to be able to make it, that they're going to be able to pull things out, those people seem to be doing just fine. The ones who seem to be struggling the most are the ones who are not quite convinced of that. They don't know what to do next, exactly. They feel like their business is really struggling and they're not quite sure what to do to change it. So I would say in addition to the fear, it's also the not knowing how to handle it, not knowing how to address the fear and make the changes they probably need to make in order to keep things going in the direction they really want to go.<br> <br> Chris: I think that another way to look at this is that some people are in problem-orientation mode, and some people are in solution-orientation mode. And when you're in problem-orientation, we keep telling these stories where we just pile it on and then there's this and that. And how are we ever going to get this done? And you can just kind of feel the angst building and building and building. And then there's the solution side. People who have a perspective that says "times are tough, got to monitor, got to adjust." But they focus on moving toward the solution. And when you're in problem-orientation mode, it is really,
