Overcome Call Reluctance And Increase Sales

By Bill Gager

Itr/OULD you rather walk through Y V a raging fire than make a cold call? Would you prefer to eat rusty nails than attempt to up-sell a customer'l

As a salesperson or sales manager, if you even hesitated with your responses to these questions, then you may be suffering from call reluctance. But that's okay, because You're not alone. In fact, neatly 90Vo of salespeople experience some level of call reluctance.

The top reason peoPle fail at the sales profession is that they don't initiate enough sales to be successful due to call reluctance. Most salespeople prefer to wait until the customer initiates a sales discussion, rather than bring the topic up on their own.

A huge number of causes for call reluctance exist, but the main reason is simply discomfort. Either you feel uncomfortable with the possibility of rejection, or you don't know what to say or do to initiate the conversalion.

Regardless of the root of these uncomfortable feelings, you can overcome your call reluctance and feel more comfortable approaching customers and prosPects when You use these six steps:

l. Recognize, Acknowledge and Express Your Negative Feelings

Many sales people don't like making new business approaches to customers and prospects, and these feelings are natural. But this doesn't have to hinder your success. In fact, research has shown that a salesperson's attitude toward cold calling has little effect on their prospecting effectiveness, as long as they don't let these negative feelings stop them.

Recognizing your negative feelings and expressing how you feel about making sales approaches to a friend or colleague can help overcome call reluctance. Simply through expressing how you feel, you can release the paralyzing energy ol your negative feelings and be more comfortable initiating sales situations.

2. Determine the NecessarY Levels of Contact

The next step in overcoming call

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Rigidlom reluctance requires you to look at how your discomfort affects your success. To meet the goals that You set for yourself, the goals your company places on you in terms of new accounts and growth of existing accounts, how many new sales do You need to get?

Say, for examPle, that to meet Your goals, you need to make l0 sales Per week. Next you need to subtract the number of new sales that will come to you either through advertising, referrals, or existing accounts. Maybe five new sales seek you out, without anY effort on your part. So l0 minus five means you need to initiate five new sales per week to be successful.

3. Set Goals

Now that you know how manY sales you must initiate, you must set behavioral goals for yourself by looking at what you're currently doing. Say, for example, you need to initiate five sales per week to meet your goals, but currently you're not initiating any. If you decide you're going to stretch yourselffor five calls in the first week, you're setting yourself up for failure, because the behavior change is too drastic. Instead, set a reasonable

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Suppose you set your goal for this week at one new sales call. After you reach that goal. you can set it one higher at two. The key is to set goals you know you can make, work yourself up, and build your confidence until you become more comfortable.

Also, your goal must be behavioral, rather than time based. For example, if you say you'll spend two hours prospecting this week, you'll never do it. Human beings are extremely talented at putting off the things they don't want to do. No matter how disciplined we are, we never find time for the things we don't enjoy.

4. Picx Targets

Once you've set your goal for contacts, determine who you want to target. When you're just starting to overcome your call reluctance, you must pick the low-hanging fruit-typically your current customers. With these people you've already accomplished the hardest part of the sales process, which is to get people to buy from you the first time. Don't start looking for new customers until you've complete- ly exhausted the new business opportunities with the ones you already have. Plus, at this stage in overcoming your reluctance you want to recondition yourself and build confidence through several small successes.

5. Devise a Plan

Part of the reason salespeople feel uncomfortable with initiating new business is that they don't know what to say or what to do to win people over. So after targeting specific prospects for your sales efforts, plan how to approach them. Your plan must be very specific in what you will say and what you will do to win their business, and then you must practice it until it feels natural. Your approach plan should also be easy to memorize and duplicate so you can use it over and over again. and make it your own.

The more detailed you are in your plan and the more you practice your approach, the more conversational it will be and the more comfortable you will feel delivering it.

6.Implement

Overcoming your call reluctance will not be easy; it takes work and commitment to make behavioral changes. But one of the greatest ways to make something you find uncomfortable feel more comfortable is to get out and do it. If you don't start making calls and initiating sales discussions, you'll never overcome your fear. So you must hold yourself accountable for the goals you set. f,\ r,,1

By communicating your goals to a trusted friend or colleague, you can ensure greater follow-through. Make yourself accountable for results by telling someone about the goal you've set for yourself, then plan for followup discussions to make sure you stay on track. Plus, by sharing them with someone, you take the goals out of your head and make them more real.

Call reluctance is a common problem, but with commitment and practice anyone can overcome it. When you commit yourself to improvement and use these six steps for overcoming call reluctance. you can increase your sales, exceed your goals, and reap the benefits of greater success in your sales career.

- Mr. Gager is president of Gager International, a sales tonsulting and coaching Jirm. He can be reached at (860) 526-5922 or gagerinternational.t'om.

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Crown Close To Extinction

A $57.3 million sale of three of Crown Pacific's, Portland, Or., sawmills was approved Aug. 19 by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge.

The sawmills were bought by International Forest Products, Vancouver, B.C. (see August, p.26).

Crown is also negotiating a deal to return its 500,000 acres of timberland in Oregon, Washington and Idaho to its lenders.

Once the timberlands are handed back to the lenders, Crown will have no significant assets and the company will be disbanded.

Interfor will keep most of the approximately 600 Crown employees, and plans to increase employment at the three former Crown mills.

Timber Plan Sparks Debate

U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio's proposal under the Rural Employment and Forest Restoration Act that calls for aggressive thinning on public lands in the Northwest, producing 500 million bd. ft. of timber, has gotten mixed reviews from Douglas County, Or., timber industry professionals.

The industry feels that conservationists would not agree on the plan, which focuses on thinning.

The proposal also calls for bans on controversial logging of approximately I million acres of old-growth stands in areas open to timber sales, and a single definition of old growth.

DeFazio and the timber industry see two sides to the proposal. DeFazio said all but a few mills have retooled to take smaller-diameter wood, benefitting mills and ecology.

The industry doesn't think so. "DeFazio is proposing a slit in the throat of the remaining mill capacity in this district," said Paul Beck, a forester with Herbert Lumber. Riddle. Or. Herbert Lumber relies primarily on older, larger logs.

Beck also disagrees that old-growth logging should be phased out and feels there's still demand for small and larger-diameter wood.

According to Francis Eatherington, forest monitor for Umpqua Watersheds, Roseburg, Or., "Many of the forests set aside late successional reserves that were clearcut before they were set aside for wildlife. In order to restore them, thinning is necessary."

Still others, such as Bob Ragon, executive director, Douglas Timber Operators, Roseburg, feel the proposal is politically motivated.

"DeFazio is trying to show voters in his congressional district that he's trying to do something," Ragon said.

Forestland Split At Auction

Longview Fibre, Longview, Wa., and Rainier Evergreen Inc., Tacoma, Wa., have split the acreage in an auction for the Wilkeson Tree Farm near Tacoma, Wa.

Plum Creek Timber Co. sold 15,000 acres to Longview and 1,000 acres to Rainier Evergreen. A conservation group is trying to purchase what's left of the timberland.

Longview's portion of the land will remain mostly in forestry managed by one corporation. But Rainier Evergreen has not yet released information on what it plans to do with its land.

There are still 500 acres of unsold land that Cascade Land Conservancy wants to buy to protect endangered species and help complete a recreational trail.

Plum Creek still has 3,000 unsold acres inside the tree farm, which it plans to keep.

Cascade and Pierce County are working together to buy and conserve 1.000 acres alone the Carbon River.