A few weeks back my fellow columnist, Geoffrey James, viciously assaulted my customer-friendly response to an arrogant, insensitive correspondent.

My original query was from a guy who worked in an advertising agency but didn't like catering to stupid clients. He also sort of accused those who were too servile to clients of being disgusting suckups. I told him that he had a bad attitude and that it was the job of every professional to venerate his or her customer, no matter how "smelly, stupid or demented" that customer might be. I did not say, "The customer is always right." But I did say it was the responsibility of the person who is serving the customer to, well, serve the customer. It's called, you know, management.

Mr. James took issue with this:

Excuse me, but that's the kind of advice a pimp gives to an aging street walker, not advice appropriate for a young executive who wants to be successful.

This is in itself highly insulting - to me, to pimps, and to streetwalkers. It's also rather unkind to sales people, the best of whom manage their customers and clients with great sagacity and subtlety, while at the same time never alienating or driving even the most odiferous away. Did I say that sales people or advertising people should simply perform whatever action that the client demands? Certainly not. I said the client must be managed. And the only way that a customer, client, or, for that matter, senior officer can be managed is from a position of understanding, respect and strategic sang froid.

The problem with Mr. James' view is that it positions the fictional "young executive" as an adversary to the client because the client has not come up to some mythical standard. Ah, to live in such a world! It perhaps exists only in business publications.

I should probably interject here the interesting juxtaposition in his comments between aged hookers and young executives. I smell ageism. Why not young and inexperienced hookers and elderly, wizened executives? Why do our executives have to be attractive and our hookers less so? And what about those pimps? Are they old, too? Mr. James continues:

Letting a customer treat you like garbage is the best way to screw up your career and screw up your company. No self-respecting sales professional should be forced to cater to a customer who is "smelly, stupid or demented." And no company that's worth working for would force them to do so. Any firm, or sales rep, that truckles to a "demented" customer gets what it deserves - endless problems, missed payments, and probably a lawsuit to boot. Lie down with a skunk, and you end up stinking.

Well, as Annie Hall would say, la di da.

I'm going to ignore the obvious rebuff to all levity here - as well as the rejection of dramatic license in my verbiage - and go right to the point. The challenge for any professional is to land the big, smelly fish, not the tidy little fresh ones. This takes a variety of skills and levers, including but not limited to:

• Wheedling
• Encouragement
• Liquid inducements
• Scolding
• Duplicity
• Guile
• Emotional badgering
• Kindness
• Friendship
• Guilt provocation
• Capacity to sustain boredom in the line of duty
• Patience
• Determination
• Thumb screws
• Strong stomach
• Unwavering yet flexible strategy
• Adroit execution of tactics

None of these can be pursued by a "young executive" with a nasty and supercilious attitude toward the customer, even the worst ones. As in certain forms of yoga or martial arts, we must begin with an open, relaxed posture and a positive energy flow.

Can we all get mad, disappointed and grossed out when the client behaves badly? Can we eventually FIRE a really terrible customer when our ability to serve that individual is irreparably damaged? Of course we can.

But as an old CEO of mine used to say, "You can't pick your boss." I think that's true. And in a very real sense, the customer IS your boss. He's certainly paying your way.

The trick, in the end, is to actively manage the situation, not let it manage you. That's what they pay you for, whether you're young or old, a hooker or selling something less interesting. Mr. James contends, "The relationship between a sales professional and a customer is a relationship of equals." I don't know what business he's in. His bio suggests he is a very accomplished journalist and writer. I wonder what he does when he runs into a smelly, stupid and demented editor?

There are, believe me, quite a few of those.

By Stanley Bing