Feb 13 2008
Fear Of Calling
Recent studies have confirmed the obvious, that is to say that “fear of calling” in sales, can contribute to a significant proportion of lost sales revenues. One study that I read recently found that as many as 40 per cent of established salespeople experienced periods of “fear of calling” severe enough to threaten their future in sales.
Stemming the ever-increasing costs of the “fear of calling” syndrome cannot be addressed by training alone. It requires an experienced coach or mentor to work with each salesperson’s particular set of beliefs, so that they feel truly empowered to breakthrough their self-created mental barriers. One particular statistic in the following survey should give any salesperson suffering from “fear of calling”, renewed confidence
How Customers Regard Salespeople Survey:
Salespeople who do not bother to make appointments. 45%
Salespeople who know nothing about the customer’s business 60%
Salespeople who know little about their products and services 60%
Salespeople who call too often. 39%
Salespeople who don’t call often enough. 49%
Salespeople who do not have the authority to negotiate prices. 45%
Salespeople who do not ask for the order. 40%
Salespeople who are not properly or sufficiently organised. 55%
Most desirable quality customers want to see in salespeople? –Competence!
Customers Can Sense Fear:
We must remember that a salesperson’s state of mind is instantly transferred to their prospect or customer, which means that the challenge for organisations is to constantly create a highly resourceful state in their salespeople. This is extremely important, because when salespeople lack belief in themselves, their product or their service, they unconsciously transmit their attitude to prospects in a variety of subtle and sometimes overt ways.
The Slippery Slope:
Typically, salespeople who believe that if they had lower prices, they would win more deals, tend to attract more price objections. This in turn leaves them feeling scared or reluctant to talk to prospects about what they have to offer. Their downward spiral then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Salespeople’s desire to succeed may be so dominated by a need to be liked, that they’ll avoid asking prospects for information that is needed to identify the prospects’ compelling reasons to buy. When this happens, closing becomes a real issue because salespeople, fearing rejection, perceive that asking for the order might cause a breakdown in the relationship with their prospect.
Summary: The Importance of Divine Intervention From Above:
Most Sales Directors grasp the concept of activity management, skills development and knowledge development. Intuitively, Sales Directors also understand the vital importance of the right mindset. Yet far too many feel powerless to help their salespeople turn their negative beliefs into positive ones. Those few Sales Directors who do tackle such negative beliefs and are able to change their salespeople’s self-limiting beliefs into empowering ones, have found an unbeatable path to success.
Today’s News: Over at Salesopedia today, the topic is objection handling and they have highlighted some great articles from amongst others, Lee Salz and Keith Rosen - you can check them out here
The more observant of you will have noticed a new banner in the left-hand column, which takes you straight to my new site - yep, The JF Consultancy is launched 
I will be discussing it in more detail tomorrow.
Tomorrow: On the JF Guest Author Spot, leadership guru and very good friend, Kevin Eikenberry makes a welcome return.
