fblog•me

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.