What Sales Call Reluctance (SCR) Is…

Research by Behavioural Scientists, George W Dudley and Shannon Goodson began 30 years ago in the USA when they investigated, what they entitled, the Inhibited Social Contact Initiation Syndrome (ISCIS).

They were curious as to why certain individuals (regardless of their personality, education or personal skill sets) found it more comfortable than others to network and interact with other people in social situations.

They began to uncover a whole range of emotion-based escape & avoidance behaviours specifically associated with meeting people, and their detailed analysis quickly identified a group of people for whom this discomfort would be most dangerous: Sales People

In the commercial world we now know the condition as ‘Sales Call Reluctance’ and, in sales situations, the emotion based escape & avoidance Marker Behaviours can be best described in four ways (see below). All four of these methods demand large amounts of personal energy from an individual and deny them the opportunity to direct it into more productive behaviours such as prospecting, making appointments or closing.

Marker Behaviours

Avoiding: If someone is uncomfortable in a particular sales situation, then they will naturally try to avoid it! They may try to keep themselves very busy with ‘safe’ tasks that they feel more comfortable with (perhaps seeing unproductive but social customers rather than more challenging decision makers). Alternatively they may prefer spending their valuable time at meetings; talking to colleagues on the phone; tidying their office; travelling long distances in the car rather than making appointments by telephone; waiting around premises hoping to bump into customers etc.

Blaming: They blame someone, or something, for their lack of activity or success in specific areas of their sales role. Common justifications may be the legal policy; Corporate Strategies; Marketing failures; Difficult Access customers; Geographic issues of Territory; Management demands; Competitors etc. By remaining comfortably reliant on these to excuse their poor performances, they then fail to actually challenge or change the situations they find themselves in. The status quo remains, and they can then tend to lean on some of the other marker behaviours described here to try to emotionally protect themselves.

Coping: Usually only able to be demonstrated over the short term. They actually do what is required of them, but find it emotionally draining and uncomfortable to keep ‘coping’ with the emotional demands of particular aspects of the role. Over time this often leads to burn out, exhaustion and dissatisfaction with a sales career. Regular job moves tend to be specific signs of this marker behaviour.

Denying: They internally and / or externally refuse to accept that they have any SCR related problems in the areas highlighted by their Remap profile. This refusal to face up to an issue and deal with it means it will remain intact and may be reinforced over time. This often leads to some of the other marker behaviours being exhibited to, once again, try to emotionally protect themselves.