A Fate Worse Than Death
February 2003
Does death sound more appealing than the prospect
of speaking in front of an audience? Stage Fright Sales Call Reluctance impairs
salespeople from effectively using audiences to promote themselves and their
products or services. Like many of the call reluctances, stage fright is an
emotional problem, not one of logic that can be talked away. "Threat Desensitization,"
which breaks the fear-inducing situation down into its component parts and then
assigns fear or stress points to each part, can be an effective treatment.
by Frank Lee
Sales Academy,
Inc.
Ask anyone who suffers from stage fright, and they often equate speaking
in public to death and dying. I have even heard someone claim that it is worse
than death. Well, here’s the bad news—Stage Fright Call Reluctance can be even
worse. Does that mean that Stage Fright Call Reluctance is worse than worse than death?
Salespeople with Stage Fright Call Reluctance make quick career decisions.
They decide early on in their careers that they will never make a living doing
party-type sales or that they will not be making group presentations to sell
anything. They compensate for this by concentrating their efforts on other types
of sales where selling is conducted one-on-one. Having made this decision, they
tend to find sales pretty lucrative. They rarely stop to calculate how much
extra money they could make if they would overcome this affliction. They simply
resign themselves to avoiding those opportunities. Some even brag about how
scared they are of public speaking. Perhaps it’s not bragging—perhaps they are
simply warning others not to call on them to address a crowd even if the whole
crowd would then buy something from them.
Here’s the good news: it is one of the easiest of the call reluctances to
cure. Most salespeople with this call reluctance refuse to believe it. I always
get that knowing smile when I tell someone how easy it is to fix. It’s as if
they think I don’t know how they feel, and they just know it will never go away.
Stage Fright Is Not One Thing
Stage fright is the general fear of speaking in front of a group of people.
In the case of Stage Fright Call Reluctance, sometimes two or more people constitute
a group, and this inhibits the salesperson from comfortably addressing them.
To compound the problem, it’s not even one thing. It can be one of three separate
types, explained below.
A few years ago, the call reluctance pioneers, George W. Dudley and Shannon
L. Goodson, noticed that some salespeople with Stage Fright Call Reluctance
responded differently to the treatment they had prescribed. Puzzled, they conducted
an interesting experiment with 28 salespeople. They subsequently repeated this
experiment with many more salespeople after they discovered some important results.
They asked salespeople with high incidences of Stage Fright Call Reluctance
to complete a simple questionnaire that contained only three questions. The
first question asked them to rate their fear of speaking in front of a group.
The second asked them to rate their fear of speaking in front of a group of
people who could see them but had difficulty hearing them because they were
hearing-impaired. The third question asked them to rate their fear of speaking
in front of a group of people who were sight-impaired. They could hear them
but they could not see them. They then tabulated their responses.
This experiment confirmed that there were indeed different types of Stage
Fright Call Reluctance. If, they reasoned, Stage Fright Call Reluctance was
one thing, then the answers to all three questions should be the same. They
were not. What they found was that some people became even more uncomfortable
when they knew they could be seen but not heard, while others became extremely
uncomfortable when they knew they could be heard but not seen. There were a
few who reacted badly to both scenarios.
Three Types of Stage Fright Call Reluctance
This led them to identify the three types of Stage Fright Call Reluctance:
X, Y, and Z types.
The X types consisted of people who became overexcited and worried a lot.
Their primary behavior was worrying. This put them closer to Doomsayers who
tend to worry about worst-case scenarios. Speaking in public was just another
thing they had to worry about.
The Y types were over-concerned about appearing as if they did not know what
they were talking about. Their primary behaviors consisted of making laborious
notes and preparing over and over again. Their presentations would be stiff
and formal, and they often read their notes verbatim. These salespeople related
more to salespeople with Overpreparer Call Reluctance.
These are salespeople who are constantly preparing but who never seem to find
the time to do the things they prepare for.
The Z types were the show time people. They were more concerned about how
they appeared to the audience. Their primary behavior consisted of making sure
the image was right, that they looked great. This puts them closer to salespeople
with Hyperpro Call Reluctance. These are salespeople
who are over-concerned with projecting the right image. They tend to avoid situations
where they will look bad even if those same situations can bring in sales or
money.
Regardless of the type of Stage Fright Call Reluctance, it impairs salespeople
from effectively using audiences to promote themselves and their products or
services. In many cases, it results in avoidance behavior—avoiding selling opportunities
simply because “I don’t do things like that.” However, in many other cases,
it does not always mean they will not do it. It means that when they do, they
are far less effective than they could be. Because they are so afraid, they
often forget to say something, or they sound lame or stilted, or they simply
ignore the audience and just say their piece and then get out of there.
Does It Affect All Salespeople?
Several years ago, I tested a large group of salespeople and found them to
be extremely high in Stage Fright Call Reluctance. I wondered if this was a
problem since I knew that they did not regularly make group presentations. I
decided to ask them how important it was.
A few hundred took a short questionnaire. It asked them if they made group
presentations, how many they did, how many they thought they should do, and
did they think they should do group presentations because it would help their
sales. I then put them into groups and asked them to discuss the issue and present
a group consensus on whether or not group presentations could help them make
more sales and if they felt, as a group, that they should make group presentations.
Individually and as groups, they were asked how many group presentations they
did and how many they thought they should do.
The results surprised me. Overwhelmingly, they said that group presentations
would help them increase sales and that they should be making them. They also
admitted that they did not do very many and wished that they did. There was
a huge gap between the number of group presentations they said they did and
what they said they should do. This told me that even agricultural implement
salespeople needed to overcome this call reluctance because it could lead to
bigger and more sales.
Is It Important?
In today’s business world, it seems more and more that salespeople have to
present to groups. Sometimes these groups are large; sometimes they consist
only of a couple of decision-makers. Often, they are boards of directors or
panels of company experts. Salespeople with Stage Fright Call Reluctance will
have difficulty in these circumstances.
Again, it does not mean that they will not do them. It means that they will
not be as effective in them as they could be. They usually leave these meetings
kicking themselves for not saying something or for doing something they feel
embarrassed about later. Often they feel they had not been very effective—and
they probably were not.
Stage Fright and Telesales
When I worked for Mr. Dudley and Ms. Goodson, we visited with a CEO of a
telesales company in Australia. His salespeople were not doing as well as he
had hoped. Our representative there had administered the call reluctance test
to all the employees. We noticed the high Stage Fright Call Reluctance scores.
We asked about the working conditions and found that they worked in a sort of
bull pen. Mr. Dudley suggested that they erect walls between the telesalespeople.
They did and their sales took off.
Why? In their former situation, they had an audience all around them. Every
other telesales person was part of that audience. With more privacy, they were
more at ease and less anxious about the calls they were making. I have seen
this many times since.
Imagine If You Can …
Whenever I discuss stage fright with salespeople and they tell me that they
do not have to make group presentations, I ask them to imagine that they could
do it and then ask them to estimate how much additional business they could
get if they did. This usually opens their eyes to opportunities that they were
habitually avoiding. Once they realize the scope of these opportunities, they
sometimes become motivated to overcome their Stage Fright Call Reluctance.
How To Fix It
I often read with some amusement the articles written by stage fright “experts”
who tell readers to talk it away. Like many of the call reluctances, stage fright
is an emotional problem, not one of logic. If it were logical, one could simply
talk it away. Unfortunately, the words we use to talk it away are usually the
same words that got it there in the first place.
Mr. Dudley and Ms. Goodson describe a very effective technique in their book, The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance called "Threat Desensitization." This is a mechanical cure. In other words,
it does not require you to understand or even agree with the method. If you
simply do it correctly, it will muscle out the stage fright in less than 2 weeks.
It breaks the fear-inducing situation down into its component parts and then
assigns fear or stress points to each part. It then attacks the weakest part
first, which automatically lowers all the rest. By working through the ranks
from lowest stress points to highest, it systematically destroys the fear altogether.
Does it work?
Ask Annette, an independent sales trainer who had paid other people to teach
workshops for her until she dealt with her call reluctance, which took only
10 days. Ask Bob, an insurance salesperson who now regularly does presentations
comfortably to boards and makes bigger sales than he had been accustomed to
getting. There is a seemingly endless list of people, in and out of sales, who
have learned that speaking in public does not have to be like death and dying.
Other Sales Call Reluctance articles include the following:
Call Reluctance, the Fear-Free
Prospecting and Self-Promotion Workshop, and all related terms are copyrights
and/or registered trademarks of Behavioral Sciences Research Press, Dallas,
Texas. Sales Academy, Inc., is an Advanced Authorized Dealer for the Call Reluctance®
Program. Frank Lee is an international expert on Call Reluctance®. He can be
reached at (800) 898-3743 or at . He welcomes calls or e-mail from salespersons
and sales managers even if just to chat about the call reluctance problem.
Opinions expressed in Expert Commentary articles are those of the author and are
not necessarily held by the author's employer or IRMI. Expert Commentary articles
and other IRMI Online content do not purport to provide legal, accounting, or other
professional advice or opinion. If such advice is needed, consult with your attorney,
accountant, or other qualified adviser.