Confront Call Reluctance

Sales managers often mistake the symptoms of call reluctance for anything from weak closing techniques to tougher-than-usual competition in the field. Although call reluctance plagues many salespeople, and even afflicts some top producers from time to time, its root causes can go undetected for months. Salespeople affected by the call reluctance bug may make fewer calls and close fewer sales, resulting in potentially staggering costs to your company.

In this exclusive PSP interview, licensed clinical psychologist and call reluctance specialist Dr. John Musser and Coaching For Results founder and principal E.B. Hutt Bush explain how call reluctance sabotages performance and profits, and what sales managers can do to identify and eliminate the problem.

An Equal Opportunity Affliction

Dr. Musser warns up front that call reluctance respects no boundaries. "No one is immune – including top producers and upper-level management," Musser says. Research conducted by George Dudley and Shannon Goodson of Behavioral Sciences Research Press, Inc., reveals that about 40 percent of all salespeople will, at some point, experience a career-threatening case of call reluctance.

Dudley and Goodson’s findings also confirm that call reluctance prevents 80 percent of new hires from completing their first year on the job – a potentially staggering loss in training costs.

Call reluctance doesn’t always fit into neat categories, either. Salespeople who eagerly make calls today may hesitate to make contact tomorrow.

Who Pays?

Salespeople aren’t the only victims of call reluctance. When the problem stifles prospecting efforts, the bottom line suffers as well. Rudy Juarez, director of sales and marketing at Dallas, Texas-based Behavioral Sciences Research Press, Inc., maintains that one case of severe call reluctance may cost a company up to 15 units of business a month, or 180 units a year. The cost of one call reluctant salesperson coupled with the condition’s high rate of occurrence make it a problem most companies can’t afford to ignore.

Managers with habits or attitudes that foster call reluctance – overpreparation for calls, obsession with personal or company image, fear of addressing groups – often transmit those traits to their sales teams. Managers, for example, who are intimidated by contacting high-profile, prestigious prospects may pass that fear on to their salespeople, which may trigger a widespread attack. Eventually, the entire organization suffers with fewer sales and a weaker bottom line.

Impact On Attitude, Overall Performance

To compound the problem, call reluctance shows up in more than just poor prospecting. Its demotivating effects often penetrate other areas of performance. "Obviously," says Bush. "long-term call reluctance eventually reduces sales and profits, but there’s also an emotional cost – the fear and self-doubt that go hand in hand with the problem. It’s analogous to energy being siphoned off that could be channeled into more productive pursuits." Musser adds that salespeople who fight their fear with every call often pay a premium in decreased job satisfaction, and that the stress may prompt even very successful salespeople to quit their jobs.

Confronting Call Reluctance

Call reluctance is one of the most debilitating of selling problems, but is also among the most curable. "If your sales team realizes that call reluctance happens to everyone from time to time, they become more willing to examine it," says Bush. "First, managers must appeal to the salesperson’s self-interest and provide the tools to solve the problem in a nonjudgmental way. Managers shouldn’t intimidate salespeople by pushing something on them, but should reassure them by admitting to their own attacks of call reluctance and providing the tools to address it." Convince your salespeople that those who confront the problem stand to reap big benefits.

Says Dr. Musser, "Salespeople who overcome call reluctance are more confident, and the greater their confidence and improved self-image, the easier it is for them to present themselves and sell, because they’re not stifled by the fear and avoidance behavior that rob their self-esteem."

Identifying A Problem

To pinpoint a call reluctance problem, Juarez recommends careful monitoring of the contacts your salespeople make. Ask individuals with consistently low calling rates why they aren’t making more, and listen carefully to the answers. Juarez claims that the excuses salespeople offer for not making contact often give away the underlying problem. Listen for salespeople to say, for example, that they prefer "popping in" on clients instead of selling to them by phone – call reluctance may be the reason. The problem often manifests itself in a person’s unique selling style: be wary of such call reluctance behavioral markers as overpreparation, hesitation to speak in group situations or obsession with image and credibility. Carefully assess personal quirks or selling habits to help you spot and solve contact initiation problems quickly and effectively.

Conquering Call Reluctance

In addition to regularly scheduled coaching sessions that address individual problems, Musser and Bush implement word-based and mechanical-based techniques to break down call reluctance barriers.

– Word-Based Procedures  Musser explains, "Word-based procedures require us to look at how salespeople talk to themselves internally. We help change the internal dialogue from self-defeating to supportive." To accomplish that goal, Bush and Musser examine the underlying elements of performance – the "coaching infrastructure." Since these elements – the salesperson’s habits, beliefs, performance-measuring standards and goals – largely determine behavior, Bush and Musser must redefine, clarify and write down a new infrastructure. Bush explains, "We help people take the elements that already exist in their heads, tailor them to encourage maximum performance, and put the new infrastructure on paper so that we can take action around a definite plan."

The salesperson’s identity is the primary target. "We want them to use creativity and a sense of humor to develop a 10-word identity statement that describes a salesperson operating at an optimal level. We encourage the use of superlatives and/or names of people they admire in the statements, which become reference points for performance," Bush says. The positive identity statement then encourages the profitable, productive behavior consistent with the statement.

– Mechanical-Based Procedures  After using word-based procedures to change the negative thinking, Bush and Musser advocate mechanical-based procedures, which use a physical stimulus to extinguish unproductive behavior. Salespeople who avoid making phone calls, for example, may wear a rubber band and give themselves a snap when they hesitate to pick up the phone. Presentation-shy salespeople can better manage their fear by holding a cup of warm water or coffee to reduce stress as they speak. "Our hands and feet do get cold when we’re under stress, and if you can warm them, even artificially, it has a calming effect on the body and literally helps you to relax on a physiological level," Musser says. These kinds of tactics convince the body to relax, which gradually teaches the mind to do the same. The more times the person can engage in the feared activity while calm and relaxed, the more quickly that person may be conditioned out of the fear.

A Long-Term Solution

Lasting results, says Bush, require regularly scheduled coaching meetings and reliable follow-up support. "Managers need to find out what their salespeople’s Achilles’ heel is," says Musser, "so they can approach salespeople and ask them about the specific areas of performance that cause problems for them." The greater the manager’s knowledge of a salesperson’s weaknesses, the more effectively that manager can help solve the problem and prevent future call reluctance attacks. "To some degree," says Bush, "managers must look at a salesperson’s skills set just as a coach would analyze a basketball player’s strengths and weaknesses. If you know a salesperson is weak in three of twelve areas, you’d encourage regular practice on the nine areas they’re not having problems with, but you’d want more focus on the three weak spots."

Bush also raises the issue of institutionalized call reluctance, which refers to organizations that unintentionally encourage salespeople to feel ashamed of their profession. Companies that avoid using the word salesperson or use vague, flowery titles to describe a sales professional send a negative message and may be encouraging the role rejection that often precedes an attack of call reluctance.

Though call reluctance can inflict considerable damage to sales, the greatest danger lies not with the problem itself but with a failure to identify and correct it. Make your salespeople aware of call reluctance and its causes, and monitor the calls they make carefully for changes in typical calling patterns. Learn your team members’ individual personalities and selling styles to reveal behavioral markers of call reluctance. With a heightened awareness of the problem and how to handle it, managers and salespeople can work together to keep sales – and calling confidence – high.