Do unto others as youd have them do unto you. Dont worry; Im not trying to take you to Sunday school under the pretense of a business article! However, in one form or another we have learned this rule for as long as we can remember. Many people try their best to apply this rule in their everyday lives. But, how many of us try to follow such a simple principle when it comes to business?

If you think about it, it could single handedly be the most important rule to follow in business. After unpleasant sales encounters, most customers are not most upset with the product or service that they purchased. Sure that may have been the root of the problem. But, most people understand that we dont live in a perfect world and sometimes things dont work!

The reason most people leave these situations upset is because of the way that theyve been treated. They feel that they have spent the money for your product or service that for one reason or another did not perform properly. This upsets them, but what really angers them is that they feel that no one cares.

Weve all had negative customer service experiences. Those of us in sales have most likely been on both sides of such exchanges.

When were in the salesperson role, we may be running ragged from an extremely busy day. We may have issues going on in our personal life. We might simply have gotten up in a bad mood that morning. Theres nothing innately wrong with any of those things. However, it is our job to find a way to put all of those things aside to help the people were paid to assist. This is why I feel that sales people should really be required to take Acting 101! Ideally, we would always be able to genuinely be interested in listening to our customers and helping them find the solutions that work best for them. But, we all know that thats pretty much impossible everyday, absent a fairly large prescription of Prozac! Salespeople are just that, people. Were not always going to be at the top of our game, but we must be able to act as if we are. Convincingly, act as if we are!

On the other hand, being that salespeople are people, we are constantly faced with these situations in which we are the customer. Undoubtedly, you have run into a few salespeople who have irritated you or who may not be quite as helpful as youd like.

Now, obviously, we will never be able to be perfect in all of our customer interactions. However, if we were to try and keep the good old Golden Rule in our consciousness at all times when dealing with customers, I think wed find our jobs more enjoyable, our customers happier and yes, even our profits growing!