Though organisations generally need to find new clients on a regular basis in order to keep growing, many sales managers and company owners invariably see their sales people fall into the trap of selling mostly (sometimes only) to existing customers (whether the salesperson’s own or pre-existing their employment), avoiding almost entirely prospecting, that is the process of proactively contacting potential new customers.

Salespeople will usually defend their reluctance to approach new clients by over-emphasizing the time they are required to spend in maintaining their relationship with existing clients they are handling, or liberally use “account management” as an excuse for not prospecting, as though account management by itself or maintaining a good relationship with customers should preclude a conscientious and on-going effort to establish a business relationship with new clients.

No one should diminish the importance of keeping your existing clients happy and maximising the sales you can achieve out of each existing customer account, but in the same way no one should use that as an excuse for not growing the business through regularly adding new clients to the company’s client portfolio.

If of course you are in the enviable position of having achieved full market penetration and believe there are no new customers for you out there, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with a strategy solely focused on “defending your turf” i.e. keeping the competition off your existing clients and directing all your resources to achieving just that and aiming at maximising sales revenue from each existing account. So a question you should ask at this point is the following: Is this the position your company is in today? If your answer is yes, then you need read no further.

If however you are like most of us, knowing that there is untapped potential in the market and that your company has got possibilities for substantial growth through selling to new clients, you should then perhaps start having a closer look into the reasons why your sales force is not on approaching potential new clients on a consistent, repetitive, daily basis.

One barrier that prevents sales people - both new as well as experienced ones- from prospecting for new business is Sales Call Reluctance i.e. the hesitation to initiate contact with potential new clients. Sales Call Reluctance is not the latest fad or the latest trendy management book to hit the appropriate section at your local book shop. Sales Call Reluctance has been the element of scientific study for nearly three decades by behavioural psychologists George Dudley and Shannon Goodson and is a scientifically documented condition that can take a number of sales inhibiting forms; some salespeople have a fear of prospecting through the use of the telephone, others avoid prospecting by considering it beneath them, others have a fear of asking existing clients for a referral (a huge untapped resource for new sales considering that research has shown that 80% of customers are willing to give a referral but only 20% are ever asked for one). 

Where Sales Call Reluctance exists and is left unattended it causes not only lost sales for the company and lost revenue for the sales people; it can also cause even successful sales people to hang their hat and move on, either to an industry or to a company where they hope – consciously or subconsciously- that prospecting for customers is not necessary. Upon realising that sales prospecting is a necessary and important first step in achieving  their sales targets they may decide to leave their sales career altogether, sometimes even at the height of their success. Studies have shown up to 80% of all new salespeople who quit sales as a career, do so because of their inability to come to terms with the activity of prospecting for new business, in other words they quit because they were unable to overcome their Sales Call Reluctance.

Where the existence of Sales Call Reluctance has been detected and corrective measures were taken, the effects on sales results were impressive. Companies across the world and across industries have been using Dudley and Goodson’s work to give their sales forces what one executive from a major global company said to the author of this article was “a competitive edge”.

Identifying Sales Call Reluctance among your existing sales people and taking corrective measures to help them overcome such reluctance will enable your sales force to reach new potential clients and achieve measurable increases in your company’s sales.

Also, identifying Sales Call Reluctance during the hiring process can improve the retention of sales staff; accelerate the production time of new recruits; and reduce the cost to the company by reducing the possibility of hiring non-suitable candidates.

BSRP Inc, the global authority on Sales Call Reluctance for which we are the authorised licensees for the markets of Greece Cyprus and the Middle East, has the tools to assess whether Call Reluctance exists within your company’s sales force, to what extend and in what form.  Once you see the picture you can decide which of the available measures you can take to help your sales people reach more clients.

We will be happy to discuss with you how BSRP’s tools may be able to help your sales force unleash its true sales potential in your market. Please email us on dinos@peopleachieve.com.

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