If you think consistent prospecting is not important to sales success, think again.  According to George W. Dudley and Shannon L. Goodson, authors of “The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance: Earning What You’re Worth in Sales,” 80% of new salespeople are terminated within the first year due to insufficient prospecting activity. 

Don’t be misled by the title or research found in the book. Sales call reluctance is not limited to sales teams using cold calling as their main prospecting strategy.  It’s not limited to new or untalented salespeople. Sales call reluctance occurs in successful, goal-motivated, and goal-directed salespeople. It is defined as, “an emotional short circuit that goes bad when a salesperson is charged with contacting prospects.” Instead of investing 100% of their energy in contacting new business opportunities, a significant amount of energy is spent coping with some form of sales call reluctance.

Dudley and Goodson have identified 12 types of sales call reluctance.  Here are 5 for you and your sales team to review:   

1.  Stage Fright

In stage fright, the first thing that comes to mind is public speaking, which is one of the ways this form of call reluctance plays out.  This type of call reluctance is a real problem for salespeople in industries using seminars to promote their business; i.e. financial planning.  There are two other ways stage fright call reluctance shows up in salespeople.  The first is at events which involve ice breakers and group activities. Ever had a salesperson that is reluctant to join a leads group?  They are pretty good at one-on-one conversation, but dread standing up and sharing their “30 second commercial.”   

Stage fright also shows up in “bull pen” cold calling environments (often found in stockbroker or financial planning offices).  The salesperson with this type of stage fright fails miserably in this environment because they don’t like being “on stage” when making contact with new prospects.  Note: this same salesperson will make cold calls, as long as they are in a secluded environment like a home office.  A sales manager not recognizing this form of call reluctance can end up losing a good producer due to ineffective work environment.

2.  Yielder

This salesperson avoids conflict like crazy and is more interested in being liked than going to the bank.  It’s difficult for them to ask tough questions or talk about the investment needed for services.   Yielder’s give away time and money without asking or expecting anything in return.  Not rocking the boat is their goal for the day.  The yielder salesperson waits (and waits) for just the right time to contact prospects.  Their conversations sound like:

§  Mondays are bad days to make calls because people are returning from the weekend.

§  People are getting ready for the weekend on Fridays so they don’t want to speak to a salesperson.

§  Everyone is out of the office on Tuesdays. 

They wait so long for the right time that they run out of time!

3.  Social Self-Consciousness

This is a killer for salespeople entering the financial planning business.  Salespeople suffering from this form of call reluctance are intimidated by prospects with wealth, power or advanced education.  They make it a habit to call on non-decision makers who don’t stir up feelings of inadequacy.  The result is wasted time getting to the final decision maker, or investing time with prospects who can say no, but cannot say yes.  This same salesperson also has trouble developing a good referral network.  Because of the intimidation factor, they tend to run with other colleagues who suffer from the same form of sales call reluctance, generating poorly qualified referrals all together. 

4.  Referral Aversion

In this form of call reluctance, the salesperson will say, “I just forget to ask my clients and colleagues for referrals.”  The reality is this salesperson fears jeopardizing relationships and won’t ask for referrals from clients or colleagues.  They’d rather continue to make cold calls instead of building profitable centers of influence.   

5.  Role Rejection

This is the salesperson who is secretly ashamed of being in sales.  They deny being in sales calling themselves relationship mangers or account mangers…anything but the lowly word salesperson. Associated with this form of sales call reluctance is another scenario called Quit While Succeeding (QWS).  Research has documented top sales producers who quit while at the top of their game.  The physical and mental energy required to cope with this form of sales call reluctance was too much so they walked away from lucrative sales positions.    

The good news about sales call reluctance is that it is fixable through a variety of methodologies.  Take a look at your sales team. They may not be reaching their highest potential because of some form of sales call reluctance.