Some salespeople think that Sales Call Reluctance is just picking up the phone. Telephobia is only one type of Sales Call Reluctance.
There are actually 12 distinct types of fear that can cause salespeople to avoid the prospecting. It is vital to know which of the 12 types of call reluctance is holding your sales career hostage. Do any of these sound familiar?
• Doomsayers will not take risks. This type of call reluctance can be lethal to a sales career.
• Over preparers tend to overanalyze and avoid action. They’re busy, busy, busy people busy with current clients, admin work, organizing files, studying the latest trends- which keeps them from meeting qualified prospects.
• Hyper-pro salespeople are obsessed with image, but when it comes to their presentation skills, they’re not better than the next salesperson. They look good, but they confuse packaging with prospecting.
• Stage fright causes many salespeople to default on prospecting that would lead to opportunities to present before groups.
• Role rejection plagues those who are secretly ashamed of any kind of selling. These are the salespeople who deflect any association with being a salesperson. They tend to believe that society dislikes salespeople, and they themselves get irritated and annoyed when salespeople solicit them.
• Yielders fear intruding on others. They have a strong need to be liked and are habitually waiting for “just the right time” to make contact. Of course, that time rarely arrives.
• Socially self-conscious salespeople are intimidated by up-market clients. They feel inferior in terms of wealth, education, status, or prestige.
• Separationists are afraid to mix business and friends.
• Emotionally unemanciapted salespeople are afraid to mix business and family.
• Referral aversion affects those salespeople who selectively forget to ask for referrals out of fear of disturbing existing relationships.
• Telephobic salespeople are uncomfortable using the telephone for prospecting.
• The oppositional reflex characterizes salespeople who tend to criticize or blame others for what goes wrong with their careers. Even though they are usually gifted, talented, and intelligent people, they don’t take responsibility for themselves and often don’t get ahead.
A solution for call reluctance
If you recognize yourself in any of these styles, you need not feel embarrassed or ashamed. But at the same time, you don’t have to go on living with it. Call reluctance is learned which means it can be unlearned. Most cases can be arrested or even eliminated. All can be improved.
The first, but often the most difficult, step in overcoming call reluctance is admitting that you are not prospecting consistently. Once you’ve admitted that to yourself, you can look at changing your attitudes. Call reluctance is simply a manifestation of a person’s negative beliefs about prospecting for new business – so overcoming it is all about learning to change your beliefs.
Thought realignment is a very effective tool for changing your thinking. Look at it this way: A belief is merely a thought you think over and over and over again. What you think determines how you feel, which, in turn, determines what you do (or don’t do). What you do everyday becomes your seemingly intractable habit.
