One of the most common reasons I hear from salespeople not making prospecting phone calls is they're reluctant to call because they won't know what to say. This reason is used both surprisingly enough for warm calls and for cold calls, too.

Now the reason for cold calls is probably easy to understand, after all, they are calling strangers. Salespeople feeling reluctance about calling known contacts may be less expected and can be caused by the same, and some very different, reasons.

Let’s examine both and consider some ways to keep call reluctance from becoming call paralysis.

“Reasons” Not To Call

“I’m tired.”

“Dang voicemail!”

“I don’t feel good.”

“I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“I am too busy selling.”

These are just a few of the excuses I’ve heard from business people rationalizing not making cold calls.

What business people don’t often confess about these “reasons” is that they are really just excuses for not making prospecting phone calls that are uncomfortable. And almost all of these excuses are borne out of a feeling of inadequacy or inferiority. This feeling of inferiority has less to do with the value or potency of their product, and more to do with the role they find they have to play to sell it -- the role of “the salesman”.

Sales Stigma

Since our culture has established that a salesperson, or worse yet a telesales person, is a negative role, when they find themselves in that role, they worry too much about what their prospects will think about them. And even when they do make the call, they’re often so worried about how they might sound that they go on and on about their product and may never get around to talking about the prospect’s needs.

Hardly Significant

The interesting thing about all this anxiety over making calls is that the receivers of the calls actually barely even give the bad ones they receive a second thought. Most people just consider these calls they receive at work to be at worst an interruption or nuisance, and at best a call from a company they may want or need to know something more about. So when salespeople feel like the next cold call is a make or break situation instead of a casual inquiry, they make too much of themselves and need to realize that their phone call is a small blip in the prospect’s busy life.

Conquer It

Salespeople that find themselves paralyzed and not making prospecting phone calls should consider three things to help them conquer it. One: Their reasons are really just excuses, irrational and not real, so they need to face up to and dismiss them. Two: You can call anyone if you just make it about the conversation, not sales. And Three: Sharing the news makes for good conversation and a soft cross-sell.

Joe Marr is a public speaker, sales and management consultant and trainer, and runs the Sandler Training center at 501 Avis Drive in Ann Arbor. To get more information on Selling Smart training sessions being conducted this season, call 734-821-4830 or visit his Web site at www.sandlerannarbor.com.