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January 21, 2006 at 07:00 PM
There will always be times when a financial professional won’t “feel like” making calls. For the intermittent phone-avoider, this article won’t be too helpful. But for those of you who would admit to yourselves that you repeatedly “do something else” instead of making your appointment-setting phone calls, then perhaps a new look at this behavior is in order.
Many managers and trainers will use the phrase “call reluctance” when referring to a specific behavior, i.e., avoiding the phone by finding some other busy work (although legitimate!) during what could and should be calling time.
If you ask managers and trainers, “Why do you think your agents are avoiding the phone?” 9 times out of 10 their answer will be “fear of rejection.”
I disagree.
I, too, thought it was “fear of rejection” until I found that my experience as a phone trainer proved otherwise.
First, how can someone in sales be afraid of rejection? No one sells everybody they see; yet, the morning after we don’t make a sale, we wake up and go after the next sale. If we were truly afraid of rejection, then we wouldn’t be in sales of any kind.
Second, and more importantly, I have seen many “call reluctant” people get on the phone after admitting in class they were suffering from this malady. Yet, after receiving help composing a script that sounded more genuine to them and felt more like the message they wanted to say, they got on the phone. So how can they be “call reluctant” when they gladly picked up the phone in these circumstances?
I think there’s something else going on.
Let’s talk about the people who tend to go into the financial services industry. I would like to make a group of assumptions about those people who might be reading this article.
First, you’re probably a pretty smart person. (That’s not just for reading National Underwriter and other professional journals, but rather because this industry requires a certain amount of “smarts” for initial admission: one has to pass all the licensing exams.) Second, you’re probably an out-going, people-oriented person. If you don’t like people, it’s pretty hard to be a financial consultant.
Third, you most likely have extraordinary verbal skills. Most sales people do. (That’s why we all have to work on listening.) Most of us are great talkers and can engage all types of people in conversation.
And last, I’ll assume that you have faith in your ability to achieve success. People who can do a commission-only job usually have this personality trait.
