Media

In 1986, behavioral scientists George W. Dudley and Shannon L. Goodson released a slim, unassuming book titled The Psychology of Call Reluctance: How to Overcome the Fear of Self-Promotion. Although it was marketed as a self-help book for struggling salespeople, within its pages was actually the beginning of a quiet revolution in defining, predicting and overcoming obstacles to success in sales and beyond.

Dudley and Goodson had studied the factors leading to success or failure in professional salespeople for years…and had come to a somewhat unoriginal conclusion: Selling is a numbers game. The more customers you see, the more you sell. Fortunately, that was just a springboard to the research that would make them among the most respected practitioners of serious sales psychology in the world. What they discovered and presented in their first book was this deceptively simple, two-pronged behavioral premise:

1. Closed sales are directly correlated with the number of contacts salespeople initiate with prospective buyers.
2. Many potentially successful people experience fear that limits their ability to initiate those contacts consistently and comfortably.

At that time, Call Reluctance – emotional discomfort with prospecting – wasn’t being addressed in most sales training programs. Selection tests, employment interviews, and less formal vehicles like self-help books and workshops were designed primarily around a well-worn model of what “good” salespeople were like: gregarious, aggressive, articulate, money-motivated. Presumed experts from human resources professionals to motivational speakers focused on sales strategies that exploited those traits. But those strategies were overwhelmingly based on an unspoken assumption: That these archetypical superstars could and would consistently seek out prospective customers to sell to.

Dudley and Goodson found that not to be the case. In fact, through hundreds of studies with thousands of salespeople, they tripped back the archetypes (some would say the stereotypes) to reveal the widespread, toxic effects of fear on otherwise motivated, goal-oriented professionals. They developed accurate tests to diagnose it. And they presented effective countermeasures to enable salespeople to overcome the fears that held them back.

The revolution had begun.

That first slim volume described nine distinct forms of Call Reluctance. Dudley and Goodson’s next book, Earning What You’re Worth? (1992), incorporated three additional types discovered in the course of their ongoing research. It also helped broaden the scope of their work beyond sales, helping people in all walks of life to recognize the importance of visibility management and tackle the emotional discomfort that keeps them from promoting themselves and their interests.

Over the years Dudley and Goodson’s research begat other books, other career assessment tools. But Call Reluctance remained their primary focus. Today there are 16 recognized types. Sales organizations around the world utilize Call Reluctance applications to hire and train employees who consistently prospect for new customers. Countless careers have been transformed via psychologically sound techniques to overcome self-limiting fears.