Research on call reluctance shows that avoiding prospecting is a measurable behavior pattern, and that it is linked to how much prospecting people actually do. This page summarizes four sources and links to each one.
Research on call reluctance shows that avoiding prospecting is a measurable behavior pattern, and that it is linked to how much prospecting people actually do. This page summarizes four sources and links to each one.
George Dudley and Shannon Goodson developed the study of sales call reluctance and described it in The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance, published by Behavioral Science Research Press. Their work describes twelve distinct forms the problem takes, such as the Doomsayer, the Hyper-Professional and Social Self-Consciousness.
In March 2010 the Baylor University Keller Center for Research published findings by George Dudley, Trelitha Bryant and Jeff Tanner on 3,319 real estate agents across the United States, in an article titled "Wait ... I'll Do My Prospecting Right After I ...". Three findings stand out: - Agents with higher call reluctance scores were more likely to have made fewer prospecting contacts in the previous week. - Agents with less experience showed more call reluctance, and the authors suggest reluctant agents may leave the profession, which makes it less common among seasoned agents. - The forms of reluctance differed by gender, and women were significantly less likely to make first contact by phone.
W. Verbeke and R. P. Bagozzi published "Sales Call Anxiety: Exploring What It Means When Fear Rules a Sales Encounter" in the Journal of Marketing in 2000. Using data from 189 mortgage salespeople, the paper proposes and tests a model of sales call anxiety, a fear of rejection by customers paired with a tendency to avoid key selling actions such as canvassing and closing. It identifies four components of the anxiety and links them to lower sales performance.
The UF/IFAS Extension fact sheet How to Effectively Reduce Sales Call Reluctance (publication SN011, 2020, by Derek Farnsworth and colleagues) describes call reluctance as a salesperson's hesitation to prospect, attributes it mainly to fear of failure and rejection, and recommends tailoring the fix to the specific type of reluctance.
Call reluctance in real estate, sales reluctance and the R2R Assessment build on this research and apply it to real estate agents and teams.
It is the avoidance of prospecting calls despite having the leads, the time and the knowledge to make them.
The research describes it as a pattern of avoidance driven by fear of rejection or failure, not a skill gap.
Dudley and Goodson describe twelve forms of call reluctance.
Related reading: Call reluctance in real estate · Sales reluctance · R2R Assessment
Dr. Jeffrey Scott Stanton, DCH is the former EVP of Learning & Development at Douglas Elliman Real Estate and the founder and Chief Learning Officer of R2R Diagnostic Group, where he helps real estate organizations and agents diagnose and fix the behavioral patterns behind inconsistent performance.
The R2R Assessment identifies which pattern is actually running and what to do about it. Take a look at the assessment, or book a conversation.