Emotionally Unemancipated Sales Call Reluctance is quite a mouthful. It simply
means that, if you have it, you will find it very difficult to mix business
with your family. You will have difficulty selling to them and may even find
it impossible to ask them for referrals or help. The people most likely to help
you will be out-of-bounds for you. The more you have of this, the worse the
problem becomes.
Like Telephobia, this is a targeted type of Sales Call Reluctance. It only
affects your ability to sell to your family. Other family encounters are generally
unobstructed. This type of call reluctance is not a problem if your family members
are not in your market. If they are, you might ask someone else to sell them
for you.
While not a difficult one to cure, most salespeople with this call reluctance
prefer to avoid the issue altogether and compensate for the lack of family help
by working harder with strangers.
Bob "The Wheel is Turning" Taylor
When I first started selling life insurance many years ago, my second sales
manager was Bob "The Wheel is Turning" Taylor. (The first and last names have
been changed, but the middle part has been left intact.) Bob was a smart, respected
sales manager. He earned his nickname because he was always telling us, "The
wheel is turning." His voice would take on a sinister tone as if he were delivering
some ominous news. He would be referring to the fact that time was going by
and we needed to hustle. My first sales manager was Big Bill the Basher. Why
do we salespeople label our sales managers like this?
I still regard Bob as one of the best sales managers I ever had and I credit
him for having saved my faltering sales career. As good as he was, I look back
at something he did that has stuck with me and that could have caused me to
become more call reluctant than I already was.
We had weekly sales contests and I always managed to pull out just enough
sales to win them each week. I was determined to win. The prize was an unusually
shaped crystal drinking glass and I was getting quite a collection. My wife
looked forward to Monday nights when I would bring a new one home. One week
when I was one sale short to win the prize, I called on my sister and sold her
the policy I had been meaning to sell her but had never gotten around to doing.
When Bob announced me as a winner that Monday, he made a snide remark: "Let's
see how well Frank Lee does when he runs out of relatives."
His remark shocked me because I felt it was not warranted. After all, I rightly
felt, family members needed insurance too. But guess what? I didn't sell another
policy to a family member for months. Thank goodness, common sense overtook
this call reluctance. I knew my family members needed insurance and I knew I
was the best person to do the job. So I eventually did sell to all of them.
Watch Whom You Let Near Your Mind
I had no Emotionally Unemancipated Call Reluctance then. Bob's comment could
have helped me to develop it. It had some effect but not a lasting one. Had
he said that to someone who was already leaning toward this reluctance, his
simple comment could have pushed the salesperson over the edge and given him
a full-blown case. This is why author George Dudley warns salespeople to watch
whom they let near their minds.
Sales managers often do not realize the effect their words have on budding
salespeople. They can encourage them or they can cause them to develop long-term
bad habits based on nothing more than the sales manager's state of mind on that
day. I'll bet if you met Bob today and asked him about that comment, he would
not even remember making it. Yet, here I am, 35 years later, and I remember
it as if it were yesterday.
In all fairness to Bob, it made me more determined than ever to sell—just
not to my family. He made selling to family feel like a disgrace so I had to
work harder to earn those pretty crystal glasses.
Job Seekers
I often work with job seekers. We call them "in transition" because they
are in transition from one job to another. Many are high-level executives. Lately,
many have been high-level high-tech people. I found in testing them that a large
number score high on the Emotionally Unemancipated scale.
When I discuss this privately with them, they will admit that their close
family members do not even know of their distressful situation and this is one
reason why they cannot network with them or even ask them for help. They feel
almost ashamed of their position and do not want to discuss it with their families.
While I understand their feelings, I cannot help feeling sad that they would
exclude the people who probably care most about them from having the opportunity
to help them. Unfortunately, like all of the call reluctances, this is an emotional—not
a logical—issue.
The Cure?
In their book, The Psychology of Sales Call
Reluctance—Earning What You're Worth, authors George Dudley and Shannon
Goodson recommend several "prescriptions" for this call reluctance. They work.
However, I often feel that this is something that has to be worked out between
the individual and his or her family as well. There are usually some underlying
issues that also have to be resolved.
One salesperson told me he did not have any family. He was an immaculate
conception. Another salesperson told me, "You ought to meet my family. You wouldn't
want to sell to them either!"
If you are a salesperson with this call reluctance and your family is in
your market, I suggest you get this book and read the chapter on it. If your
family is not in your market, then forget it. Sales will present enough other
challenges for you to deal with.
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 1-800-898-3743 or at