CALL RELUCTANCE IS MOSTLY BLAMED

Peter Collins

Mentor ~ Coach ~ Acclaimed Author ~ Sales Strategist ~ Closing Specialist - High End Sales Trainer

Published Mar 21, 2022

Salespeople Want to Blame all sorts of Challenges on Call Reluctance

Call reluctance perhaps the most overworked excuse ever allowed to enter the sales profession. There are obviously some genuine example of call reluctance, and for those familiar with my other works, you will be aware that this one subject tends to be perhaps the greatest ONE PROBLEM AREA facing the modern sales force in Australia today. And with it come the peculiarities it brings, such as:

• It is bigger and more wide spread than most executives will admit to.

• It is statistically the main reason for a high turnover in many a sales force.

• Sales experts tell us that over 84% of salespeople suffer from it.

• My own personal research shows that figure possibly exceeds 95%.

Despite all that, I don't believe this excuse named “Call Reluctance” to be the culprit most make it out to be. The reality is, the majority of that which is labelled call reluctance, by well meaning individuals, is not call reluctance either in the medical or academic sense.

I therefore offer the following explanation as a more accurate guide to some of the other sales force problems that are generally labelled as call reluctance. In fact, most of what many believe to be Call Reluctance is usually nothing more than one of four basic FEAR syndromes. But before I do that, please allow me to explain why those problems exist in the first place. And those problems generally exist because of a lack of the foundational concept known as effective focussing.

Too Many Don’t Believe they Can

A while ago, I read that at the root of some salespeople's call reluctance, is the simple fact that these salespeople don't believe. That’s right, they don't believe they are able to do the job satisfactorily – if at all. What’s more, they don’t fully believe in their company, and/or they don't fully believe in their service capabilities and worse still, they don't fully believe in their product. But, because they don't believe, they don't prospect either – yet they would be the first to blame their lack of belief on call reluctance

Moreover, there have been numerous studies, based on huge samples of salespeople from all walks of life show it’s sales call reluctance, and not the fear rejection, not inadequate sales training, or low self-esteem, poor self-confidence, the lack of product knowledge, or low self-discipline, ambiguous or over ambitious goals, or the fear of success, or even the fear of failure, or any one of these are the primary reason for any manner of underperformance in sales. Nothing else even comes close.

In addition to that, sales call reluctance is a mixture of a combination of thoughts, feelings and “avoidance” behaviors that combine to keep otherwise talented, motivated and potentially high-level salespeople from earning that they would normally be capable of earning – or worse still – earning what they are really worth.

Many New Recruits don’t Stay Long Either

Now let’s add a further equation into this highly emotive mix. Many companies who use highly developed psychological assessment criteria to hire salespeople, found up to 80% of these new “sellers” selected for sales positions across companies and industries fail to complete their first year in sales. That was in spite of extensive sales training, even more expensive sales support, generous commissions, and endless advertising support and competitive products, they didn’t sell enough.

But the reason they didn’t sell enough, is that they didn’t feel that they had enough prospective buyers to sell to. These are the same people that felt that prospecting for new clients, even asking for referrals, was emotionally uncomfortable, and because of this they couldn’t or wouldn’t make contact with prospective buyers often.

The outcome to each of the businesses that made an investment into those salespeople is predictable. All of their sales training, generous commissions and advertising support have proved to be an extravagance, a mere added expense that is unable to return a cent until and unless the salespeople they hire and train make contact with prospective buyers in sufficient numbers.

But, to make matters worse, it doesn’t stop there, because there’s the further statistic associated with this. Other surveys have revealed that around 40% of all experienced, and high-producing salespeople will readily admit to one or more episodes where they too suffer call reluctance severe enough to threaten their continued existence in sales. In other words, that suggests that around 40% of all the organizations that employ salespeople typically rely on them to meet their production goals, may also be at risk.

The Call Reluctance Fraud Factor

The Call Reluctance Fraud Factor has a lot to do with a lack of belief in either the salespersons ability, or the company’s ability to deliver great service. Successful selling as always involves two parts; the first part is selling to yourself and the second is selling to your client.

If the salesperson is not 100% sold on the quality of the product and follow-up service being sold on the day, they will tend to avoid all kinds of selling situations. Then once this happens, call reluctance may easily take on enormous proportions

And a Quick Way to Reduce Call Reluctance

There are many suggested ways of reducing Call Reluctance, but as a former sales manager, I kept working on ways of reducing Call Reluctance, and found much of what I had to address differed from one salesperson to another.

However, the one surefire way that I stumbled upon was to stop my salespeople from over preparing – and over preparing is a form of call reluctance. How do I know that? Because I have fallen into that trap many times in the past. What woke me up, was the reduction in my sales results – and because I was working on commission only each time I suffered from over-preparation, I managed to get on top of the situation quickly.

As a manager, I would simply make sure the salesperson left the office by a certain time in the morning. Alternately if they stayed at the office later than they should, they quickly realised they were missing out on a social life. Then to ensure that they didn’t over-prepare at odd times, I would personally arrange for them to call on an existing client early in the morning.

The more I monitored start and finish times with my salespeople, the more I could rely on their results, and when they are achieving well, call reluctance always seems to take a backward step.

Another way I stumbled on eliminating call reluctance was to measure success by the number of scheduled appointments on their daily report sheets. At the times these were light on, I would then see what unscheduled appointments they worked, because the unscheduled appointments in the main were unprepared calls. A good mix of the two always impressed me, because I knew to do both well they needed to be on top of their game.

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This Article is by Peter Collins - In a sales career spanning more than 50 years, Peter Collins has focused on helping and bringing out the best in others - whether it involves training or mentoring salespeople, managers, business consulting to SME’s. Since the 1970’s Peter has built a reputation as a Nationally and Internationally Published author, and of the 130 books he has written over the past 48 years, Peter has 65 Business Books to his credit, (but he is mainly known for one book based on the Audio Tape series of the same name, Over 50 Ways of Closing the Sale). Peter also has written 23 Christian books. One of Peter's books, How to Play the Guitar sold almost 2 million copies in the late 1970's and is still selling well through second hand online marketers worldwide. In his personal life, Peter has been sought after as an encourager and motivator that has given of his time and talents freely despite his busy schedule. Subsequently, he has assisted churches, pastors, community and charity groups, as well as individuals through his teaching, training, development and on-going mentoring.

Peter can be contacted through his website – profitmakersales.com