5 Steps to conquer sales call resistance
As sales leaders, one of your primary goals is to ensure a high sales productivity of your salespeople in order to achieve your annual sales goals. However, sales productivity of your sales force can be impacted adversely by sales call reluctance of your salespeople.
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What is sales call reluctance?
Sales Call Reluctance refers to the emotional hesitation to initiate contact with prospective buyers on a consistent basis. This condition limits the number of sales leads available and the amount of new business generated. It manifests itself in the form of call reluctance, procrastination or avoidance.
Shannon Goodson and George Dudley wrote a book several years ago called, The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance. They interviewed over 11,000 sales people.
Here is what they found:
• 80 per cent of all new sales people fail because of Call Reluctance.
• 40 per cent of all veterans stop prospecting because of Call Reluctance.
• You will make times less money because of Call Reluctance.
As you can see by the statistics above, sales call reluctance is a huge problem.
Symptoms of sales call reluctance
Sales call reluctance it is best typified by the salesperson who hangs around the office every morning drinking coffee, hausa koko or eating a bowl of waakye and engaged in an informal small talk with other salespeople rather than getting out into the field for the earliest possible start; the salesperson who shuffles paper, organises their desk, makes more lists, checks emails, writes proposals, does research, performs administrative tasks, engages on social media rather than dials the phone numbers of his prospects. The one who procrastinates all day long by rationalising:
"It's just barely 9:00 am. That's not a good time to call anybody. They're just barely settled in. Still fuming about the early morning traffic. I'll wait a little while."
"It's Tuesday. Most of my prospects are really busy right now with usual long weekly management meetings. It will be best to let them relax after this really hectic meeting before I call and interrupt them."
"It's already lunch time. That is also not a good time to call them since they will be away from their desk. I'll wait until after lunch to make these calls."
"My prospective client has just returned from his annual leave. S/he will be very inundated with work. I'll give him a few days to settle down before making the call."
"Eh! The day has just ended. It's already 4:00 pm. It's too late to contact such a busy executive. S/he will be winding down their day. I'll rather call tomorrow morning."
Indeed, there’s evidence to show that there are salespeople who are just scared to make a telephone call to a prospective client. Their fear is such that they become hugely relieved when they are told the prospect is unavailable at their desk. They are even happy to pass on the information to their sales managers. Another example are those salespeople who step out seemingly very confident and looking forward to a sales appointment, but are rather relieved when they are told their prospective client is unavailable.
Every sales professional is a victim to sales call reluctance
As a professional salesperson and manager I have experienced and continue to experience instances of call reluctance in my career with some devastating consequences: losing out on continuous and profitable business deals for instance. Usually, if call reluctance does not affect you all the time, it probably affects you some of the time.
This is due to the fact that fears, doubts, and anxieties are the plagues that infect most sales professionals like you and me, preventing us from peak achievements, maximum earnings, and great enjoyment. According to the book Zero Tolerance Selling, "avoidance of the possibilities of rejection and failure is the disease rampant in the ranks of sales professionals."
Five steps to conquer call reluctance
Considered as the number killer-disease of sales professionals, what are the possible cures for call reluctance, procrastination or avoidance? The authors of Zero Resistance Selling recommend the five steps to conquer call reluctance.
Step #1: Choose prospects you can feel good about calling on.
As salespeople, we feel comfortable with prospects and clients with whom we have a relationship. There are areas of commonality in terms of our communication styles, social styles as well as other areas. As a result, salespeople feel good about calling on such individuals or companies. This limits the amount of anxiety experienced by salespeople to call.
Step #2: Be 110% sold on what you are selling
Some of the reasons for sales call reluctance include the lack of product knowledge by salespeople and secondly their own beliefs in the product they are selling. Salespeople must be sold on their product to build their confidence in improving their sales call reluctance. This is what makes network marketing people so successful. They build their business on person usage of their products.
Step #3: Recall past accomplishments
Success begets success. To overcome their sales reluctance, salespeople should always be positive in their mindset. Recall past successes as an enabler to overcome any fears of sales calling.
Step #4: Mental rehearsal
One of the missing dimensions in the lives of sales professionals is our inability to prepare mentally before any sales call. Like professional athletes, salespeople ought to prepare mentally before the play.
Step #5: Relax!
Remember that no salesperson died out of rejection by a prospect or client. Relax and enjoy calling on prospects and clients. No need to put too much pressure on your self. That way you will make fewer mistakes.
Wish you a call reluctance-free selling! GB
