How To Deal With Sales Call Reluctance
Sales call reluctance is the anxiety or internal doubt that a sales person can sometimes feel when it is time to pick up the phone and make cold calls
. This reluctance can have a significant impact on sales results as it can either completely stand in the way of a sales person picking up the phone to decrease activity or can impact the confidence and tonality in the sales person's voice when they are on the phone.
The good news is that it is very common and understandable for sales professionals to experience some level of this and there are some clear things that can be done to work through it.
Sales Call Reluctance Defined
Sales and cold calling reluctance can manifest in two different ways: conscious reluctance and unconscious reluctance. Conscious reluctance is when we are fully aware that we don't want to pick up the phone and either have doubt or cold call anxiety. This can be described as either fear, stress, or lack of direction when it is time to pick up the phone.
We can also experience unconscious reluctance and this is when we don't exactly think about how we don't want to make calls, but more so are very effective at finding other important tasks to do when it is time to making calls. For example, when it is time to make calls, we might decide to craft and send an important email. The email is important and needs to be sent so it allows us to justify not making calls. This can be called being "productively unproductive" and is a clear result of sales call reluctance.
Finding the Root Cause and Solving the Problem
The first step in dealing with sales call reluctance is to become more aware of what makes it occur and this can be traced to two likely sources: fear of rejection and lack of knowledge.
Fear of Rejection
Whether we admit it or are aware of it, there is an internal part of us that extremely dislikes the feeling and experience of rejection. As a result, we can often avoid scenarios where there is potential for rejection.
When it comes to cold calling, rejection is a very likely and sometimes very probable outcome. Even if we are operating at a high level, we still stand to face rejection. This can have a direct impact on sales call reluctance and here are four things to keep in mind:
Not personal: We need to keep in mind that when someone says "no" and rejects our cold call, they are rejecting the sale and not us as a person. It is nothing personal against us as they likely do not know who we are or anything about us. This may sound silly to point out, but our first natural reaction to rejection on a cold call can often be to take the rejection personally in some way.
No physical pain: There is not any physical pain that can result from cold call rejection. The worst thing that can happen is getting hung up on. And there is really no real impact on us when that happens.
Not everybody is a fit: If we are calling to sell a product, there is no possible way that everybody that we call is going to be a qualified prospect. As a result, we have to get rejection when we encounter some of the people from the segment of prospects who are simply not a fit for what we sell.
Still accomplishing something: When someone rejects us, it may hurt and feel like we are wasting our time. But the reality is that even when someone hangs up on us or says "no," we are still accomplishing something, as we can now take that person off of our list of people to call. Every "no" gets us one step closer to a "yes."
Lack of Knowledge
Another thing that can cause sales call reluctance is to simply have a lack of knowledge on what to do when it is time to pick up the phone. Cold calling is one of the most challenging tasks for a sales professional to do so it is very understandable to not know what to say and what to ask when making cold calls.
The good news is that by simply using a cold call script and preparing for the objections that you might face from the prospect, you can greatly increase the knowledge you need to know to be successful and reduce reluctance.
by: Michael Halper
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