My second job after college I worked on a phone queue. During those 13 months, we launched a new distribution center and transitioned to a new order management system.

All that to say, I spoke with a lot of angry customers. Most change has its bumps before benefits…

There were a couple phone numbers that my team and I had memorized. When you saw it pop up on your screen you knew you had a notoriously angry customer on the other end.

But I had a secret weapon up my sleeve: “the magic sauce”.

In 2015 I had a wonderful instructor, Nettie, at the University of Richmond, who taught some business classes. One of the things she taught was this “magic sauce” when discussing objections. It is a framework: validate, reframe, advance.

Magic Sauce:

• Validate the concern.
• Reframe the situation.
• Advance the conversation.

Reminding me of the magic sauce is “No Drama Discipline”, a parenting book I am listening to right now through Libby.

It turns out this strategy can work for parents as well (any parent will tell you nothing works all the time. I’m too new to parenting to confirm or deny this.). I certainly have found it useful at work and in relationships.

Why does it work? As the authors describe in “No Drama Discipline” validating someone’s concern calms them down. When we’re angry our “base” brain is engaged (the lower parts of your brain control your emotions), but validating one’s concern enables them to engage the thinking part of their brain (the prefrontal cortex). The authors say you need to “calm their downstairs brain” so you can “talk to their upstairs brain”.

Let’s look at a couple examples of this in practice.

If you have an angry customer calling about delays. You can validate their concern by saying “That is frustrating. You ordered something expecting to get it in a week because our dates were not accurate.” You can reframe by assuring, ‘This is a temporary issue that we expect to resolve by x date.’ and advance the conversation “I understand you need this by y date, I do have y SKU in stock I can swap you into.”

Give it a shot: validate, reframe, advance. You might find it works like magic.

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