by Judith McCrackin   

Stress and conflict impact the sales process
Stress and conflict can occur at several points of the selling process. They both can bring to the surface aspects of your client that you have not seen before, sometimes evoking a Jekyll and Hyde effect. Even when you have invested a great deal of time and effort in understanding your clients and have been working effectively with them during the initial phases of the sales process, you can still be surprised at individual characteristics that can emerge during stress or conflict. Under extreme and continuing stress, many people exhibit the exact opposite of their usual patterns.

It is helpful to remember that conflict arises in situations where one person’s concerns or desires differ from another person’s; that conflict often evokes stress; that stress can bring out the Hyde in even the nicest of Jekylls. Effective management of conflicts between buyers and sellers can prevent potential showstoppers from unraveling the deal.

Negotiations sometimes bring out the worst
The negotiation of price and terms often sparks posturing between the buyer and seller, which can sometimes lead to the seller losing a buyer or the buyer losing an ideal property. It is important for you to be prepared to facilitate the kind of communication that helps both the buyer and seller avoid any rigid "line in the sand" positioning.

During the option period, buyers often want to renegotiate the price or will try to influence the seller to do property repairs. This final negotiation can often be as challenging as the price and terms scenario. Again, your role is to help prevent these discussions from evoking the kind of polarity that can put the contract at risk.

Calming the fears of trailing spouses
Trailing spouses, especially if they are reluctant, can present special challenges that translate to conflict and stress. You must be able to demonstrate sensitivity to the potential issues of a trailing spouse, be respectful of their personal boundaries, and respond to information that they want to share. It is important you do this openly without being invasive.

Some degree of stress can be reduced if you are particularly resourceful in providing practical information about personal services, convenient shopping, schools, etc.

It is important to recognize that some individuals deal more effectively with the changes associated with a relocation than others. Individuals who are slower in accepting and adapting to change often experience tremendous stress, causing shifts in their nature and their ability to process information and make decisions. Trailing spouses sometimes have a history of frequent relocations, often causing a build-up of personal frustration that feeds stress.

Move-in dates can become tricky when the home is new construction. Stress can surface when movers are set up for delivery and the move-in dates shift. Closing of the house of origin becomes a source of stress when the funds for closing a new sale are put in jeopardy. Assistance you provide in easing these situations will help the client retain a resourceful state and, therefore, can protect your interest in closing the deal.

Understanding individual conflict styles
Clients often give cues about their general response to conflict, and there is a high payoff for attending to this information. There are five distinct categories of individual response to conflict, according to research performed by Ralph Kilmann and Kenneth Thomas, who developed the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Inventory. The five styles represent various combinations of degrees of assertiveness and cooperativeness and characterize the interpersonal processes that an individual will tend to use in conflict situations. They include:

Avoidance: low assertiveness, low cooperation; focus is on delay, and those involved will be reluctant to communicate directly.

Accommodation: low assertiveness, high cooperation; focus is on yielding, and those involved will express more interest and concern about others’ needs and interests.

Competing: high assertiveness, low cooperation; focus is on winning, and those involved will tend to generate win-lose propositions, focusing more on their own needs, interests, and perspectives.

Compromise: moderate assertiveness, moderate cooperation; focus is on finding middle ground, and those involved will work to split the difference in their positions.

Collaboration: high assertiveness, high cooperation; focus is on a win-win solution, and those involved will work to seek solutions which satisfy both parties.

Patterns for handling conflict are often heavily influenced by an individual’s family history and are often not conscious. In other words, a person can exhibit a clear pattern of conflict avoidance and not be fully aware that they tend to avoid conflict situations in general. Therefore, your role is not to "label and fix" a client’s conflict behavior, but to be aware of the general pattern and know how to ease the client through a particular situation.

If you observe a pattern of potential conflict avoidance in your client, your role and focus will be to facilitate and ease the negotiations that are necessary to close the deal. You will probably need to bolster the client in being more assertive in getting their needs and positions defined and articulated. You may also have to help them stand their ground, working to establish a comfortable point of communication with the seller. It is important to not let a client who is conflict-avoidant begin to feel stressed or overwhelmed.

If you observe a pattern of competition in your client and sense that they tend to take a win-lose position in their approach to developing an offer, you will need to work to get them to be more reasonable about the practical needs and interests of the seller. You must help them become more sensitive to the potential risk of losing a property that they might really want if they put the seller in a win-lose position.

If you have a buyer who is competitive and a seller who is avoidant (or the reverse combination), your role is to facilitate every aspect of their communication. You will need to focus on keeping the buyer and seller in conversation throughout the sales process, working to keep each party open and flexible in considering their best options, creating a win-win position when the deal is closed.

Your methods for handling conflict figure in the equation, too
Knowing your own approach to conflict will help you ease through the tricky situations that can emerge throughout the sales process. Effective navigation of scenarios that are natural arenas for conflict helps prevent the kind of stress that evokes a Mr. Hyde and becomes a barrier to closing the deal.

How individual needs for control, inclusion, and affection can impact the sales process

An understanding of individual needs in three specific areas can influence your approach to building and maintaining the kind of relationships with clients that help close the deal. According to Will Schutz, Ph.D., who developed the FIRO-B (Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation/ Behavior) Inventory, much of the behavior we exhibit toward others is motivated by our own needs in these dimensions.

For example, if you have high expressed needs for control, which indicates comfort with responsibility and leadership, you may be a take-charge person who will initiate decision-making for your clients, and you may be fairly assertive in influencing specific solutions. For some clients, this may be effective, and for others it may have a negative impact upon your ability to maintain rapport and effective communication.

Conversely, if you like others to initiate control, you may work best with clients who are more assertive in the decision-making process and may not want you to be highly influential in directing their focus. The key is to maintain sensitivity to the client and be able to create comfortable conditions that support effective communication.

If you find that a client seems to be resistant to your assertiveness or your decision-making influence, you may want to adjust your approach to provide them opportunity to take more control of the decision-making process. Some clients will be reluctant to take direction from others, indicating a probable high need for control, which will have some form of expression if you are observant.

If you have high needs for expressing inclusion, you will probably extend to your clients an open interest in being closely associated and highly involved in their property search and related decisions. If this is the case, you may easily take offense when a client goes forward on some part of the process without your direct involvement. If the client has high needs for inclusion and these are expressed, while your own needs for inclusion wanted are low, you will need to pay attention to expressing your attentiveness and interest in a way that will seem appropriate to them.

If you have high expressed needs for affection, you will probably expend a lot of energy being friendly with your clients and have a natural tendency toward becoming emotionally involved in their situation. This will work best for you when the client wants a high degree of personal relationship, but it may have a negative impact in other cases where your emotional involvement will seem invasive.

If a client has high needs for affection and these are expressed, and your wanted needs for affection are low, you may need to work to be comfortable with the degree of friendliness and personal involvement that will be extended and is likely to be expected to be reciprocated.

When these important relationship elements are attended to sequentially, initial rapport-building would incorporate an assessment of the client’s expectations about inclusion and affection. If you attend to these appropriately, the client may be more comfortable with a higher degree of influence, leadership, and authority from you.

Having the self-understanding and flexibility to be able to adjust your own patterns to what is effective for your clients will set you up for continued success. Knowing what others need to feel comfortable is a tremendous asset to closing the deal.

Judith McCrackin is the president of THOUGHTSPACE, Inc., an Austin-based firm that provides individual and organizational performance development consulting to a wide range of clients, with a focus on the development of interactive capability.

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Tips for maintaining effective communication in conflict scenarios:

Provide opportunities for both parties to be heard and understood.

Encourage both the buyer and seller to be candid in expressing their needs and interests.

Check for understanding as each party presents their position.