Sales Today · 2026-09-17 · 36 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
56 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Krista B. Jansen, a psychology teacher, breaks down sales call reluctance beyond the surface-level avoidance of phone calls. The episode explores how hesitations rooted in fear of being perceived as pushy or salesy create behavioral inhibitions that limit prospecting activity and business growth. This is distinct from social phobia: people with call reluctance worry intensely beforehand but often perform well once they engage, while those with true phobia remain anxious during the interaction. Jansen emphasizes that call reluctance manifests across all sales-promotion contexts - not just cold calls - and is formally called "inhibited social contact initiation syndrome." She discusses how organizational culture can amplify these issues, citing examples where "yielder" tendencies (fear of aggression) spread through companies and create self-limiting sales cultures. The conversation covers how to diagnose reluctance through testing and addresses the difference between unmotivated salespeople lacking petrol in the tank versus those with genuine reluctance, requiring cognitive behavioral training rather than traditional sales skills training.
People with call reluctance worry intensely for days or weeks beforehand but perform well once they engage (one minute into a presentation they realize it wasn't as bad as they feared), while those with social phobia remain anxious during the actual interaction and may even faint on stage.
Salespeople with call reluctance have about half the sales of those without it, despite having the same number of meetings, because their hesitations cause them to avoid pushing for meaningful business discussions and instead conduct superficial, non-committal interactions.
No - it's a misconception primarily driven by language differences (English vs. American terminology); it applies to any sales activity where you initiate contact or self-promote, including presentations, calling high-value prospects, and any moment where you take initiative to reach business goals.
Research shows it takes approximately eight weeks for new salespeople to adopt the same call reluctance tendencies as their company's management or leadership.
Yes - Jansen reports a 50% success rate using cognitive behavioral training with those willing to be helped, but people who don't want to be helped (showing oppositional reflex) are difficult to coach and may require different management approaches.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode provides a useful framework distinguishing call reluctance from simple phone aversion, introducing concepts like inhibited social contact initiation syndrome and the 16 different types of reluctance. However, much of the content is repetitive - the host and guest circle back to the same ideas (the difference between reluctance and phobia, the importance of goals, the yielder tendency) multiple times across the 36 minutes. There is relatively little novel, actionable insight per minute once the core definitions are established.
It's more about all the hesitations, inner conflict, your thoughts and behaviors that limit you to initiate contact with people that are important to you.
It could be a call presentation, feeling thoughts that limits your activity. That's called reluctance. And the uh, psychology field is called maybe it's easier for English to understand. This is inhibited social contact initiation syndrome.
The episode leans heavily on established research (Dudley and Bryant's 'Relentless' framework, cognitive behavioral training methods) without substantial new thinking. The guest references her own testing instruments and experience, but the core argument - that reluctance stems from internal psychological barriers rather than lack of training, and that goals and motivation matter - is relatively standard in sales psychology. The framing around organizational culture creating reluctance (the 'yielder' culture spreading) is somewhat original but underdeveloped.
We call it petrol in the tank. Do you have enough?
That's why it's costly when we look at it with the same number of meetings, they Say half as much as a person who doesn't have this type of reluctance
Krista B. Jansen presents herself as a psychology teacher at a university with decades of experience working with sales teams and testing reluctance. She has conducted consulting work with multiple companies (accountants, banks, management teams) and references her own instruments. However, she is not a household name in sales, provides minimal credentials beyond self-description, and her educational background is vaguely stated ('teaching psychology in the university'). She is a credible practitioner, but not a marquee figure, and some claims (e.g., 'I never met one who can't be helped') lack supporting evidence.
I'm being a teacher psychology in the university
I had a company, I talked to the management, uh, team
The episode suffers from vague and anecdotal evidence. While the guest mentions a company that doubled turnover and references testing 40 accountants brought from zero to three visits per week, these examples lack dates, names, metrics (what does 'meaningful business discussions' mean quantitatively?), or comparison data. The discussion of Swedish culture and low motivation scores is asserted without data. The '16 types of reluctance' framework is mentioned repeatedly but only a few types (yielder, stage fright, telephobia, hyper-professional) are named or explained. No research citations or statistical backing are provided in the transcript.
Finland and Sweden are the lowest in the world.
I got them up to three visits a week. That's one, uh, hundred twenty visits a week from zero.
The host asks reasonable opening questions and occasionally probes deeper (e.g., 'So what's going on first? Second, how do we deal with it'), but rarely pushes back or challenge the guest's claims. The host does not dig into evidence, ask for specifics on methods, or challenge vague assertions. The conversation meanders into tangential stories (the Berlin Wall in 1989, scam calls in Sweden) that feel like relationship-building but don't advance understanding. The host is warm and conversational but lacks the sharpness needed to extract concrete methodology or press the guest on unsupported claims.
So let's start simple then. I'm a simple person.
So what, what's going on there then? How, what's going on first? Second, how do we deal with it
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
What really stops salespeople from making the call, asking the question or starting the conversation? In this episode, Fred talks with Christer B. Jansson about sales call reluctance and why it goes much deeper than simply not wanting to pick up the phone. They explore the thoughts and behaviours that can quietly limit sales activity, why fear of being "too salesy" can actually make sellers less useful to customers, and why doing lots of activity isn't enough if the conversations themselves aren't meaningful. They discuss: Why knowing what to do doesn't mean you'll actually do it The psychology behind sales call reluctance Why fear of being pushy can hold good salespeople back The difference between activity and meaningful customer contact How call reluctance can become part of a sales culture Why both skills and mindset need attention A fascinating look at what might really be happening when a salesperson knows exactly what they should do…but still hesitates
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Because when I hear it, I tend to think, well, it's just somebody who doesn't really want to pick up the phone. Is that, uh, too simple?
Speaker B: Yeah, that's too general in a way. It's more about all the hesitations, inner conflict, your thoughts and behaviors that limit you to initiate contact with people that are important to you. So it's not only for salespeople, but the research has been a lot of salespeople because it's easy to measure.
Speaker A: You're listening to the Sales Today podcast and I'm your host, Fred Kobstake. On this podcast, we explore how sales professionals can develop a modern approach to winning business, the application of virtual selling techniques, how to create meaningful business relationships, and much more. Why not take our free collaborative selling scorecard to see how your sales approach suits today's environment? Your. You'll find a link in the show notes and, uh, welcome to this episode of the Sales Today podcast, where I'm delighted to be joined by Krista B. Jansen, who is a psychologist, essentially. But really, um. You told me you were.
Speaker B: No, my kids are.
Speaker A: Yeah, kids are.
Speaker B: But I work with them so many years, so I sound like once everyone believes that. So I need to point. I'm not really, but I'm being a teacher psychology in the university, so they think I'm good enough anyway.
Speaker A: Good enough will do for me, but because. Well, actually, what the really interesting thing where, where I came across you is when I saw on LinkedIn, you were talking about sales call reluctance. Yeah. And I thought, oh, this is an interesting area because it, it goes deeper, doesn't it, than just. I don't really want to do that. There's some levels and I thought this would be a great chance for us to explore that and, well, ideally help some people to. To avoid. Yeah. Getting in the way of themselves.
Speaker B: Very true. And it's Good. Much deeper. You 100. Correct.
Speaker A: So let's start simple then. I'm a simple person.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: It's not simple. What, what would you say sales call reluctance is? Because when I hear it, I tend to think, well, it's just somebody who doesn't really want to pick up the phone. Is that too simple?
Speaker B: Yeah, that's too general in a way. It's more about the. All the hesitations, inner conflict, your thoughts and behaviors that limits to initiate contact with people that are important to you. So it's not only for salespeople, but the research has been a lot of sales people. Because it's easy to measure.
Speaker A: Because we should be doing this.
Speaker B: Yes. As a profession, lots of examples, a lot of money, more than people really understand.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Uh, and so it's all, all the hesitation in inner thoughts that keeps us away from reaching the target we want to reach through people.
Speaker A: Okay. Hesitation of thoughts getting in the way of hitting a target. So if I. So to take it broader, if I said I want to do a TED talk, I want to do a TEDx, but I don't know if I can. I don't know if I'm interesting enough. I don't know if I'd be able to stand on that red spot for 15 minutes. I don't know if I've got the right subject. That's a similar thing.
Speaker B: Yes, yes, it's similar. Uh, it's one maybe if you call it stage fright, it's one of 16 different negative thoughts that can make you run away from actually standing there. So you say, I have a friend, he's much better than me, he can do that. Or some people just get sick when it's really bad. But we need to remember a big difference. We also have, you know, psychologists talk about social phobia. So if you take stage frame so people understand very quickly. If you have stage fright as a core reluctance or social phobia. Phobia. Both people. When you say, as a manager you're going to stay on the stage three weeks from now, it start to eat energy. You should have to prospect to call clients. So you will do less these three weeks. You still will do a job, but do you do less? That means you mean depends on your closing rate and everything you're always talking about, you will lose some money. And the difference between these two, when you go up on the stage, the guy with social phobia, he has. It's still on the whole presentation. That's the people who faint on the stage.
Speaker A: Uh-huh.
Speaker B: People with core reluctance, they say after one minute, why was I so worried for three weeks? This was a piece of nuts. This is great. And they perform really good.
Speaker A: Oh yes.
Speaker B: See, between when you get the contact, it's over. It's all. If I make it really easy, all the worrying besides where makes you procrastinate. Instead of making that call, ask for that order.
Speaker A: Ah, uh, right. So if I understand well, I have my TedX and that is at a fixed date three weeks in the future. And so this is going to be very consuming. Yeah. As I'm worrying, worrying, worrying, worrying and
Speaker B: putting all my energy depends how much you have of it. Because we have of course more people with less or more.
Speaker A: But if we're talking about a sales call, it's like Fred, it's not three weeks ahead, it's three minutes. You could pick it up now. You. Yeah, there's nothing to be worried over here.
Speaker B: It's toxic. It takes, we have research on that to take around eight weeks until your new employee salesperson have the same types as the management in the company. That means if the CEO have stage frightened, it take around eight weeks until the new employee salesperson also comes out to groups.
Speaker A: Okay, but so, so let's, let's, let's zoom in then let's get super specific because there are people who, who potentially will be thinking a call reluctance call means picking up the phone to do a cold call to somebody and not expecting to have this call. And things are now getting in the way, stopping them with that activity which is going to help them be successful. That's what we're talking about. So what, what's going on there then? How, what's going on first? Second, how do we deal with it
Speaker B: normally? First of all, I assume they're a sales train so they know what to do. That's the first part. If you don't know what to do, that's, that's a training issue.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: For me when they know what to do and they still don't do it, it's something else. It could be what's drive. What's drive activity is motivation and we call it petrol in the tank. Do you have enough?
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And that you are responsible for as an individual. But the management or the business culture and the leadership could ruin it. The other part is that energy should be used to reach the goals you have. Actually the company pays you for its own goals and that energy should be moving to that. And I had just a company, I talked to the management, uh, team that if I make an analogy, you have 20 cars standing on the petrol station and one petrol and you don't fully fill them. And I assume some of the cars are left to other petrol stations. And they said yeah, that's true. And I said what in hell have you done?
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: Because we measure that and that is not core reluctance. That is other things that actually give the same effect. But there are other reasons. As I said, core reluctance is not the English call, just the phone. It's the more American. Every time you try to self promote when you talk about your company on a party, when you have a chance to call an upscale person you need to talk to. So it's every time you have A chance to promote, to reach your goals.
Speaker A: Ah. Uh, okay.
Speaker B: So that's a misconception between the English and the American word call.
Speaker A: Yeah. One is quite a commercial way to sell more of this because people will pay money to deal with call risk.
Speaker B: Yeah. But we measure all the different types and some types have not with you know, telephobia to do it's other things, but it do inflict the way we use in the phones as well.
Speaker A: Ah. Uh, okay. So call reluctance. So it's any kind of sales activity. Sales intervention.
Speaker B: Yeah. Call. It could be a call presentation, feeling thoughts that limits your activity. That's called reluctance. And the uh, psychology field is called maybe it's easier for English to understand. This is inhibited social contact initiation syndrome.
Speaker A: Inhibited social contact initiation initiation syndrome.
Speaker B: Because if you're just an order taker, you're waiting for another one to take initiative.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: When you're a salesperson, you always take the initiative to meet m. Right. At least the way I'm trained.
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. Okay. So I guess as with many things, the first thing is that we recognize this. Something's happening, something is inhibiting, something's getting in the way.
Speaker B: Right. Why don't I do my numbers? Why? I got a great training in closing from you. So I know what to do. I excellent in training. And when I come out on the field, I still don't do it. Why? And that has with our feelings to do the most common one we call yielder is afraid of being too silly, too pushy, too aggressive. So instead of waiting for the right moment. And some of these people are still waiting today.
Speaker A: Yeah, that is very common. The. The to be too salesy, too pushy too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I recognize that.
Speaker B: That means they are triple opposite. They get too submissive in the way. So they are just friendly. They think the relation is more important than the business. So actually relation is important. But when the relation gets so important it come between the business discussion. We suddenly. I asked a friend talking with some about something. Yeah.
Speaker A: And. And it goes even further, doesn't it? Yeah. In that I cannot ask that. I uh, can't do that. That would break the relationship.
Speaker B: Yes. So no, that's why I don't do that.
Speaker A: To challenge. I don't do that. Well, you've not done anything valuable for the customer because you're not helping them to think you just having a tea party.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So, uh, yeah. That's why it's costly when we look at it with the same number of meetings, they Say half as much as a person who doesn't have this type of reluctance or this type of feelings.
Speaker A: Okay. So worried about being salesy if I parody. You're not very valuable.
Speaker B: Not true. And I even seen that in company. You know the attitude about salespeople. Clients like them. And I had one. They said this guy is too offensive in this company. He coming out bad in this investigation. Uh, about clients. Look at him. And, and I said but he's your bestseller. Yeah. But for just for a short time. He can't live with that. He's too aggressive in our company. And I said but he's still your best sell.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: How long has been the bestseller? And they said 10 years. Yeah. There may be something wrong in your investigation. Not wrong on him. That is how yielder moves into a whole organization. And they even take in a uh, company who doing attitudes for clients against the salespeople and interpret it wrongly.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And suddenly the best salesperson will be moved out because it's out of the culture. So they employ people with more yielder tendencies and creates a culture wheeler which create great problem and will kill the company.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And they don't see it. That's the problem. You may see it outside. I may see it.
Speaker A: Yeah. No, that, that makes sense. I uh, say I'm. I'm now thinking I'm playing back through some, you know, many years doing what I do where some companies have. When I've suggested certain things. Oh no, we don't do that. We don't do that like that here. What do you do? We do these things. They're not useful. Yeah, that's our way. And then they don't like me and I'm the idiot and off we go. Or off I go.
Speaker B: Yeah, off you go.
Speaker A: They carry on.
Speaker B: So it's.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So that's the first problem we say it's at getting people to see it.
Speaker A: Yeah. Then. So we see it, we recognize it. Then what?
Speaker B: You know, the management normally recognize it through excuses why the job is not done.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You see that the uh, the business is not going as good as it should be. And when they look into the numbers, they train sales trainers. They are trained people are good. But they're still not really doing the job. Then it must be something else.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: In the company I talked about, it was the management we needed to work with first because they didn't fill in the motivation, help the people. But when you have the motivation, the petrol in the tanks and the safe people, they really know what to do and they want to do it and it still doesn't really perform. And it's normally in 80% of the cases and its core reluctance lurking somewhere.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker B: The only way to. Is actually to find it is actually to test them to see what is going on. And then we work with cognitive behavior trading as like in sales training. We can only help the people who wants to be helped.
Speaker A: Very true, very true. Um, just as a little aside then.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And I guess this is a trainer or somebody who tried to give solutions, talking to another guy who does sort of thing. When you have somebody that can't be helped, how do you address that?
Speaker B: I never met one who can't be helped, but I do met people who doesn't want to be helped.
Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I meant. Sorry, bad question, bad question. My side, when you meet someone who
Speaker B: doesn't want to be helped, depends on the context. As long as they perform and doesn't disturb the sales organization. Keep them.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: If they're handable, it depends on the type. If they normally suffer from what we call oppositional reflex. Reflex to never agree with the trainer, the manager, it's always someone else's fault. They blame everyone. They could be quite aggressive sometimes and they create a lot of internal cost in the department, then you maybe need to let them go.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And there are certain ways we need to handle these people because actually in the States they sue the company very often when that happens in Sweden, we don't have that culture or in some European countries, But we still need normally to actually, I always say have a friend with you when you talk to them. So you have a witness whatever is happening when you try to get them back. But actually you can get them back. I succeed with around 50% of them. I get back, they see the behavior, they start to confront themselves. But 50% still think I'm the biggest idiot they met in life. And maybe they're right. I don't know.
Speaker A: The reason I asked the question is because I. I went through a period earlier in my career as a trainer where I would try to save them and it would take so much time and, um, so much effort. And like you're saying only 50% I'd ever be successful with anyway. And that meant I wasn't giving the attention to the people that wanted to be there, that they wanted to develop, that could have taken this and we could have gone further, faster, quicker, you know, And I just wasted so much time and I had to. I had to get comfortable with the fact that. Sorry, you know, almost like you don't want to be helped. Well, yeah, you're right. If you don't want to be helped, you can't be helped. And. And I had to let people go, let's say, just not use my time and energy on that, uh, which I felt terrible for. But the majority of the others were getting Adams.
Speaker B: It's better for me to use the time you consume to help another sales person who actually want to get help. Big difference. I had a manager in the company. It was in the. By the owner, and he was very oppositional. And they don't believe in anything if they, um, don't. They see everything as a threat. So I talked to him and I said, can we get an agreement? Why you don't disturb me. You don't need to go. You don't need to be there. But you give me, you know, free of space to work with this and help the people who work. And he said that I can do.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I do things similar in the end because I'm often running training sessions, and it's just like, if you don't want to be here, you don't have to be here, really. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: They are hard to coach. They don't want to be coach. They actually want to be in control of people around them so they feel safe all the time. They feel all feedback is just, you know, threats to them.
Speaker A: Uh, and again, for me, it took some time to get more comfortable not putting my time and effort there. Uh, and I. I can't leave them. But then I do not want them to be like a crab in a barrel. So, you know, when the crabs are kind of climbing out the barrel of the crab, does it pulling them back down. It's like, no, no, that is not acceptable. Because you don't want to get better. Uh, don't stop other people getting better. Don't you drag them back in. Because actually, you're a bit scared that they, uh, might be getting something from this and there could be something in this after all. And you don't want to be wrong about this. So you're not letting anyone else be. Right.
Speaker B: And some of the managers are scared of them.
Speaker A: And some of the managers are scared of them.
Speaker B: Yeah. Scared of them. So they let them be there.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And that's a problem because actually they become the manager then.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: And the role model, and it's not a good idea.
Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. So we went down a bit of a sidebar there.
Speaker B: Yeah. But that happens. We're two consultants. That happens.
Speaker A: But we've got. It doesn't matter. It's all good. All good. So we. We've got the people with the call reluctance. I'll use the. I'll use the generic. It's an easier.
Speaker B: Yeah, do that.
Speaker A: We've recognized this. We've started to understand why. So then some of the things that we can do to help them deal with that. What are those. What are those kind of things?
Speaker B: What we find really good from a sales training Portugal. It's go through all the goals again. So they really believe in them, not just knowing them. So they understand what happens if I reach my goal in this company. And I see that if you look in the test instrument we measure goal what we think. I want to do this. I generalize like you do. For main motivation is petrol in the tank. And I do. I want to use it to go to that town. That's my selling part. So do I really want to do this? Finland and Sweden are the lowest in the world.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And I think I discussed that with agent manager, sales manager in Sweden and everyone have their own ideas. I think it's really. It's something about the Swedish culture of everything is in the process. It's a very productual, uh country. But it's also most sales people that are really low in this. They know the goals, but it doesn't mean anything for them. And maybe that is. Is no challenge in them. They are too easy to reach. I was in the bank and talked and say I can reach the goals in one month. I don't care, you know, or I know the goals, but if I perform them and do nothing more happens. Why should I work more? They have good salary anyway.
Speaker A: See, that's funny because when you said that I started thinking about, well, I'm gonna sit with the goals and do people believe in them? So I believe I can't hit that target. It's impossible. It's ridiculous. Nobody's gonna hit that. What's the point in even trying?
Speaker B: Yeah, that's the other.
Speaker A: That's the other extreme. No.
Speaker B: Yeah, that's another extreme. What you say. I remember when we starting becoming the. What uh was the athletes psychologists coming into the sports and we had a Norwegian guys called, uh, Villa Riley who would book on that. He said a little bit over what you think they can do. It's important. So they stretch.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And that stretch should be rewarded something extra if they stretch there. It should not be really the budget but you know, a little bit higher than. But if we reached it, you will
Speaker A: get this as well. Yeah.
Speaker B: Or the whole sales Department going to, uh, the conference. Instead of whatever you say in Birmingham, you go to the Maldives, you know.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of the listeners might be from Birmingham. You know, it's not that bad. Um,
Speaker B: the best conference ever in union chamber was in Birmingham for me, because when we was there, the wall in Berlin, fall.
Speaker A: Oh, okay.
Speaker B: And we, you know, I'm 70 years, though this was 89. So when. Many years ago. I was much younger then. And we were standing there and we sort of m. Was falling. We were screaming with joy. It was fantastic.
Speaker A: It's funny how you remember things, things like that. Yeah.
Speaker B: Uh, and now the wall is back in another way, sorry to say.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So. So we. Right.
Speaker B: So remember, all people have part of this.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: What we call inhibited social condensation syndrome. When it hits salespeople is lower the number of meaningful business meeting. They do.
Speaker A: Yeah. So. So it lowers the number of meaningful business meetings or. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Interactions.
Speaker B: You have people that can do a lot of meetings, but they are not just informers. They never talk. Get a meaningful business discussion with the client or the customer or what you call them.
Speaker A: Ah, right. So this is where it could be hidden then. So I'm looking at the salesperson and they're doing lots and lots of meetings. Yeah. They're on the phone, they're going out, they're on teams, they're doing all the things. But this is where we need to get into the quality of it. Because if I looked, it would be like. But it's not meaningful. They never ask a question that even.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Remotely pushes the customer. They don't really turn up with any kind of, uh, insight that might shock the customer and might make them have to think harder. They're just going around having. We. We used to call it like a milk round, like the coffee round.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Professional informer.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So then we have to. So it's not just purely activity. Numbers. Numbers, Numbers. Activity. It's the quality of the activity. Yeah.
Speaker B: We call the word contact. The contact is the quality word you need to get contact. You can be in a room with other people without getting contact. You can talk to them, but you don't really listen.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: So that's why we call about meaningful meeting, meaning discussion. That means you have contact with people. So you're allowed to talk, you listen, you learn, and you find out if your product services can actually help the client.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Or prospect.
Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
Speaker B: And the effect is, uh, fantastic. Of course, if they sales train, uh, I Got an accountant company that double the turnover that year.
Speaker A: You keep coming back to the fact that they must be sales trained.
Speaker B: No, not really. This accountant wasn't. And they said to me, you don't, we don't want you to make us uh, sales people. No, you should be account accountant. But part of your job is actually named by university selling acquire clients that you can help. And uh, to do that you need to go out and say hello. Of course you maybe could do better if you were a little bit sales trained and understand how you ask questions in the right way and so on. But in the beginning just go out and try to talk to them and see how you can help them with your knowledge. Start there. And when you find out just that, you know, accountants uh, have never done a company with it, clients call them when they need help.
Speaker A: Yeah, I've got to get my tax done by the end of the month.
Speaker B: So they called up. So they don't need to call. So when they starting to call and go out, you get a company. This was around 40 accountants and from zero to four at least I got them up to three visits a week. That's one, uh, hundred twenty visits a week from zero. Of course something happens
Speaker A: somewhere in that conversation. If you're a half intelligent person, how can you fail but find an area that what you do could be useful for somebody. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: But uh, still in my way, if, if you only do what I'm talking about, you reduce the reluctance in people and run out and they are idiots, then you got a lot of visit with idiots. So you need to do both, both the training to understand, but you also need to do, you know, working with people's feelings in leadership. They do that because they understand that's important. The manager's feelings about subordinate and others and about himself is important. You have a lot of workshop along that. But why don't salespeople work with that or since the first really good researcher can help them out.
Speaker A: Yeah, I'm still laughing about the idea that we've done, we've done all this great stuff. There's no core reluctance. Yeah, but they're still idiots.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker A: I don't know if we can use that word and whether it's a little bit offensive.
Speaker B: No, but it's true.
Speaker A: It's made me laugh. Yeah.
Speaker B: So I hope more people laugh because most people you hire are not idiots. They are people that really wants to do a good job. When they talk about idiots in the company, I say I need to meet them. Why I haven't met Any. But I met a lot of. Lot of fantastic good people on the wrong place. But they are not idiots.
Speaker A: Yeah. Who are just applying themselves uh, wrongly or they haven't quite got the thing that if they just do like this, it's a tiny little adjustment often. Yeah. Like these accountants you spoke about. You know my last book that I wrote. It is very deliberately for non sales people because they don't like that sales language. They don't like the way that we talk about doing stuff. But it's still about asking questions, helping people to think, giving them a way in which they can now do something that we've uncovered together. You just call it something a bit different.
Speaker B: Very correct. Very correct. But this goes for all different job. It's, you know, the job may be. Be perfect when they were hired and then the job changed and suddenly they don't match the job. That doesn't mean it's wrong on them. It's just ring the job change. So they need another job.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: That happened even in sales.
Speaker A: Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely. Because the company's trying to do something different. We're moving from this market to this market. We're changing these products. We've adopted a new selling system.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Given you half a day's training on it.
Speaker B: Yeah. Or the uh, the what you call it the, the way people think about your product and service changed from you know these portable computers we all have today. Yeah. When I was young it was sell. But salespeople knocking company's door.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: Still says people selling portable computers today. You buy them in a shop, you buy them on the Internet. Who cares what's the price? So.
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker B: And that means they don't need salespeople anymore.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And then really sell it. Maybe you have something to do it.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see.
Speaker B: Uh, but not hate paid field says people anymore. It's history.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: That means they change.
Speaker A: Yeah. So let me just, let me make sure we've got this right because um, time has just been flying away from us so we need to recognize it perhaps in ourselves. We can then analyze it. And you're talking about using analysis. You're talking about doing some kind of uh, some kind of test. Some kind of.
Speaker B: The best way is psychromatic testing. It's a really good test out there. But the first part you can do that doesn't cost anything. Uh, buy the book, uh, read it. Uh, it's out there. Cost you 20 um, euros, I think.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: It's called Relentless. Uh, written by Dudley and Bryant. It's on Amazon, they have the rights for it. That's the first start. Read it to understand what is going on and then you can start thinking do I do, Do I have this feeling somewhere? And that is the cheapest way. And even in the book, if you're motivated enough, they have the methods and cognitive behavior training in the book how you can cure yourself.
Speaker A: Uh, okay, so the book is called
Speaker B: Relentless Relentless written by darling Bryant. That's the latest one.
Speaker A: We'll put a link to that in the notes in the show Notes. Find that and what if people want to speak to you? Krista?
Speaker B: Excuse me?
Speaker A: What if people want to speak to you? Where is the best place to find you?
Speaker B: Yeah, Christa, confident approach.com is my mail address.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker B: And as I'm 70 years old is so many scam people calling me. So send me mail first so I know you're serious. It's actually exploded in my phone. Uh, I moved over 65 and in Sweden they say the police say 80% of scams are against people 65 and elderly.
Speaker A: So you've, you've gone into the ICP. Yeah, for the scammers. So if people are listening to this and they think, you know, I'd like to speak to you a little bit more around this, send you an email, say I heard you speak to Fred on sales today and give the telephone
Speaker B: number and I will call you.
Speaker A: Yeah, give me your number and then we'll call you. Oh, brilliant.
Speaker B: Sorry to say it's that way, but that works.
Speaker A: Ah, we will do that. Yeah. Awesome. Well look, thank you for coming on and, and just sharing because it's such a deep subject. We could talk about this for. Yeah but I wanted to get just the kind of the, that, that very. Just a little bit deeper from that thing that you commented on the LinkedIn post to give people an indication of. Look, it's more than just I um, don't want to the stuff sitting below that we can do about and then look there are ways to do that. So look, I appreciate you coming along and sharing, having a bit of a
Speaker B: giggle before you and I'm going to give you clue for some of you people, you know, stage frightened telephobia you can feel in your hands but you know, yielder we talk about it's just the behavior you avoid. So you need to know I should have asked my training. I know I should have asked then, you know, why didn't you ask then you have probably yielded tendencies or if I'm in a meeting, I'm there and sitting and not really listening. I think saying the smart thing I have in my head and waiting for my moment that's another reluctance because you don't hear what the customer is talking about. We call uh, hyper professional. So you have all that in the book and we will bore people. We talk of all types here. So we shouldn't do it read it instead. But the interesting when we measure it we actually know the problem people have and then we can help them directly in what's leading their activities. As long as help and sorry to say some types are easier to cure, some is harder. Take more work. Life is not fair in that way. Yeah, uh, I know my reluctance when I worked with it where I got it from and I couldn't find him, I could sue him and were in America. Of course it's a sales trainer who taught me so many good things. But in his training he also had 5% of that part of correlations I got and every sales people have five of 16 they work with. I had three those time when I started with this and I have all three, what do you call it under control. I have reduced it a lot but it still pops up some now and then and I hate it when I see it.
Speaker A: Oh, interesting, interesting. So all this weekend will be in the book. In that book Relentless.
Speaker B: Yeah, everything awesome.
Speaker A: Well, thank you, thank you so much for coming and uh, sharing so much with us.
Speaker B: Thank you and bye bye.
Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the Sales Today podcast with me, your host, Fred Koepstake. I hope you've enjoyed what you heard today. If you did, please get in touch and hit subscribe. And remember, you can take the collaborative selling scorecard for free to check out how your sales approach works in today's environment. You'll find it in the show notes.
Selling is like tracking serial killers79 / 100
A Smarter Way to Sell in Engineering Businesses43 / 100
The "Ah" Moment That Changes Every Sale36 / 100
Why Being Too Technical Can Cost You Deals41 / 100
Why Sales Teams Struggle to Reach Senior Decision Makers (And What to Do About It)37 / 100