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99% of the time the world of blogging is a happy and magical place, filled with positive people who want to support you, but every so often, you'll get a comment, message or email so shocking, rude or upsetting that your taken back, emotions sent in overdrive and patience tested to the extreme. Emotions and business are never a good mix but don't worry, this happens to everyone and it is possible to react in a way which can make everything better. Here's my guide to keeping cool under pressure and retaining your professionalism.

1. Sleep on it
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Though it's tempted to button-bash a response in the heat of the moment, it's never the right approach and can often escalating an issue, making it much worse. I'd bet the company above typed out the first thing that came in to his head after receiving our chase-up email. Instead, force yourself to wait until you're feeling calmer, no matter how excruciating it may be or how much it plays on your mind. If you wait until your head is clear, you're less likely to say something you'll regret and if you sleep on it, your subconscious usually works out the best way to respond by the time you wake up. As a bonus, the other party will probably have calmed down too and will be more responsive to your answer. They may even realise they've overreacted and send an apology email before you've even had a chance to reply. This has actually happened a couple of times for us!

2. See things from the other perspective
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Trying to see things from the other person's point of view is a great way to fix a problem. Examine the events that leading up to the outbreak and try to find the source of frustration. Can you see why they feel the way they do? For the emails above, we worked out that they probably weren't interested in working with us regardless, so thought the wrong demographic was an easy answer to get rid of us. When we challenged this, they thought ignoring us might work but when we were persistent, they got annoyed and felt under attack which led to the angry response.

People often respond angrily when they feel under threat. Calming them down by hearing out their point of view, letting them know they're being listened to and responding in a non-threatening way will ease them and make them more receptive to your opinions. Knowing what we knew after seeing things from their perspective, we were able to sympathise with them for being annoyed by spam and ensured them that no harm was meant and we only wanted to help promote their awesome products (flattery always helps if it feels sincere). We also needed to make it clear that we'd no longer peruse them and collaboration was completely optional.

3. Say sorry
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Once you've seen things from the other perspective, it may become clear that you have made a mistake somewhere and it's time to swallow your pride and apologise. Even if you don't think you've done something wrong but they do, it's always good to take one on the cheek and say sorry. Just make sure it seems sincere. Sometimes we'll miss a bug on CO+K and get angry support requests, we always apologies and promise to fix it straight away, which leads to lovely follow-up emails from the members saying how much they love the site and how great as customer support we are. All they needed to hear was a sorry and that they're problems were being listened to.

4. Stay positive
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Staying positive is the most important key of all. After you've slept on it, looked at the issue from the other perspective and apologised if you needed to, it's time to work out what you want to get out of the situation, as well as what the other person would like to get out of the situation. Is there a way you can compromise so you can both get what you want? There may be an answer, or it may be best to let it go but the key point is that you end things on a positive note letting the other party know there are no hard feelings and they can always get back in touch if they change their mind or want to talk to you.

5. Keep it private
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I've noticed a lot of bloggers and writers venting about emails and things that have ticked them off on social-media. Not only does this come across as unprofessional, it intimidates their followers when the only person it's relevant to or aimed at is the person who annoyed them. Instead, keep it between you and the person you're dealing with. It doesn't matter how many followers you have, venting online only comes across as you trying to flex your power of authority and will only make the other party feel threatened and you're back to where we were in part two! And, if you really need to vent, you can always turn the situation in to a constructive article for your blog.

Have you been in a situation where you found it hard to stay professional? What tips do you have?