Product Description

Overcoming the Fear of Self-Promotion

Performance alone no longer determines success. Pioneering researchers George W. Dudley and Shannon L. Goodson discovered something more important: self-promotion. Some of the most highly-paid and powerful people did not attain their positions by being the most technically competent. They did it through purposeful self-promotion.

Some people are natural promoters. They are born with the instinct to self-promote. For others often the most loyal, motivated and deserving self-promotion is emotionally difficult. They are rendered invisible by a spirit-crushing condition the authors call the fear of self-promotion.

When the fear of self-promotion victimizes salespeople, emotionally limiting their ability to initiate contact with prospective buyers, it s tagged sales call reluctance. Far more than the fear of making cold calls or using the telephone, sales call reluctance obstructs all forms of prospecting for new business. And it costs. Each year, sales call reluctance single-handedly accounts for over half of all failures in one of the largest professions in the world.

Although written primarily for salespeople, anyone who has to practice visibility management to get ahead can benefit from reading this book. Through anecdotes, examples, and step-by-step directions, you will discover what sales call reluctance really is, how it cripples careers, and how to keep it from limiting your career.

Exchanging white lab coats for blue jeans practicality, the authors, top international authorities on sales call reluctance, guide you through the treacherous myths and subtle misunderstandings which make sales call reluctance the social disease of the direct sales profession. You ll discover key concepts and proven techniques for evicting fear from your career.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #208136 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 456 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780935907124
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Back Cover
Performance alone no longer determines success. Pioneering researchers Dudley and Goodson discovered something more important: self-promotion. Some of the most highly paid and powerful people did not attain their positions by being the most technically competent. They did it through purposeful self-promotion. Some people are natural self-promoters. They are born with the instinct to self-promote. For others, often the most loyal, motivated and deserving, self-promotion is emotionally difficult. They are rendered invisible by a spirit-crushing condition the authors call the fear of self-promotion.

When the fear of self-promotion victimizes salespeople, emotionally limiting their ability to initiate contact with prospective buyers, it's tagged sales call reluctance. Far more than the fear of making cold calls or using the telephone, sales call reluctance obstructs all forms of prospecting for new business. And it costs. Each year, sales call reluctance single-handedly accounts for over half of all failures in one of the largest professions in the world.

Although written primarily for salespeople, anyone who has to practice visibility management to get ahead can benefit from reading this book. Through anecdotes, examples and step-by-step directions, you will discover what sales call reluctance really is, how it cripples careers and how to keep it from limiting your career.

"Your most valuable asset is your earning ability, and in this practical, insightful book, you'll learn how to increase your value and your income continuously throughout your career. It's worth its weight in gold." - Brian Tracy

"The key to success and recognition...down-to-earth theories and practical advice." - -The London Financial Times

"In today's global arena, where change rules and knowledge is power, you either are a leader or a loser. This book is your passport to survive and thrive in the new era. It will get you promoted instead of downsized, teach you how to become CEO of your own life and make your career 'fireproof'." --Denis Waitley

About the Author
George W. Dudley and Shannon L. Goodson are recognized as the world s leading authorities on sales call reluctance and the fear of self-promotion. For almost thirty years they have studied the reasons why so may talented, hard-working people fail to earn what they are worth. With backgrounds in science, research to them is not a hobby. It s a lifestyle. Their research has been featured in popular and professional media including CNN, The Financial Times of London, The Australian, European Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies, and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

Dudley has degrees in research psychology from Baylor University and the University of North Texas. He began working with psychological assessments while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, and for many years directed the Field Testing & Research department of a Fortune 500 financial services company. He is the principal author of the seminal textbook, The Hard Truth About Soft-Selling. His scientific studies such as Where In the World Can You Find an Honest Salesperson? and What Really Motivates Salespeople: A Multi-Nation Comparison have generated worldwide interest. He is listed in Who s Who in America and Who s Who in Science and Engineering.

Goodson holds a Master s degree in psychology from Lamar University. An experienced psychotherapist, author, and researcher, she is also a noted expert on women in the business world. Her research studies such as Women in Management: Self-imposed Barriers to Career Advancement and Leadership Networking: Attitudes toward Networking in Outplaced Executives have been presented to professional associations all over the globe. She is listed in Who s Who in America and Who s Who of American Women.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
It's a typical Monday evening at the United Metro Insurance Agency. Nancy, an agent for three weeks, sits at her desk. Now and then she glances at a nearby wall clock. She knows that prospecting for new business is critical if she is to succeed in her new sales career. But that awareness is not enough to immunize her against an involuntary, heart-pounding fear she can't understand or control.

The selection psychologist who evaluates prospective salespeople strongly recommended Nancy for a career in sales. The standard paper-and-pencil psychological test administered during the selection process awarded her its highest score. She has the personality, intelligence and motivation to succeed in sales. She had been armed with newly sharpened interpersonal skills, an array of aggressively competitive new products, access to expensive state-of-the-art portable computers, and expert support from the home office. But Nancy is like the caterpillar who said to the butterfly as it winged effortlessly overhead, "You'll never get me to go up in one of those." Though equipped by nature and nurtured for success, prospecting scares her to death and keeps her career from ever getting off the ground.

But today she is determined to get an appointment. So she draws a few deep, self-assuring breaths and reaches for the first card in her prospect card file.

"I know what to say and how to say it," she reminds herself. Then she dials the number. As the phone rings on the other end, her resolve strengthens but her composure weakens. Her breath rate increases. Each breath becomes shallower than the one before. Her memory, usually saber-sharp, becomes murky and clouded over. Struggling desperately to conceal her discomfort, she begins her presentation in a voice which is now barely audible.

"Hello, my name is Nancy..."

Larry is a sales veteran. He has fought in the trenches since 1980 selling computer hardware/software products. He is undeniably dedicated and extremely capable in every respect except one-prospecting. While he has changed over the years as a sales professional, his production has not significantly grown. It remains at 1981 levels. Nonetheless, Larry likes to boast that he can "sell anybody, anytime, anyplace," and he probably can unless they happen to be physicians, lawyers, accountants or other up-market professionals and decision makers. Unfortunately for Larry, these groups represent the prime market for his company's new product line.

Larry has been asked, begged and ordered to direct his sales calls to the company's primary market. He either can't or won't. He has been sent to psychiatrists, stress managers, and the best sales training seminars in his industry. He has listened to exhortations from motivational speakers, read inspirational books, and learned how to establish eye contact. But he is still downsighted. He can only set his prospecting sights in one direction, downward. His overworked rebuttal is, "I don't make calls on them SOB's."

Our call reluctance research, the first of its type, was launched in 1970 under the misguided presumption that we were confronting a one-dimensional aggravation, like "shyness" or "timidity." But the view that call reluctance could be condensed to one or two tidy notions, such as "fear of rejection" or "fear of failure," soon broke under the strain of mounting evidence. By 1986, when the first edition of this book was published, nine types of call reluctance had been identified. Since then we have discovered three more. There are probably others.

The custom of down-grading complex behaviors like call reluctance to simple-minded clichs like the "fear of rejection" is a venerable piece of nonsense. For some veteran sales trainers, the practice is still too entrenched to be displaced by objective evidence. Serious practitioners, however, have soundly discredited and permanently discarded these banalities. They know that the dark, mental landscape where call reluctance presides is more complicated than originally thought. It's a province where motivated, goal-directed ambitions are stalked by 12 separate specters, not just one.

Remember Nancy and Larry? Nancy is fighting a form of call reluctance called Doomsayer. It's characterized by a paralyzing preoccupation with mental and physical safety that results in relentless preparation for things that could go wrong.

Doomsayers tend to presume that things are bound to go wrong. They divert too much of their motivational energy to being prepared for the worst. They're perpetually on "red alert." To them, any risk taking is distressful. Since initiating contact with prospective buyers requires taking social risks, prospecting becomes difficult, if not impossible, for Doomsayers to do on a regular basis. They must first receive corrective training.

Larry's sales career isn't suffering from vague psychological aches and pains like the "fear of rejection." He has Social Self-Consciousness Call Reluctance.

Social Self-Consciousness Call Reluctance is an emotional condition that makes salespeople feel inferior to prospective buyers they consider socially or economically better off. Larry habitually permits himself to be intimidated by persons of wealth, education, prestige or power. He copes by avoidance-aiming his prospecting efforts downward. He sustains prospecting comfort by sacrificing one of his most lucrative markets. By doing so, he defaults on his performance objectives. It's a bitter trade-off. Social Self-Consciousness is particularly dangerous in salespeople whose companies routinely market to upscale clientele. Without proper training, salespeople with Social Self-Consciousness Call Reluctance can't make the grade.

Customer Reviews

Powerful, innovative and pragmatic
The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance will help you truly Earn What You're [REALLY] Worth.Although I have long been a fan of the motivational books and still feel they have a place in success, too often, as pointed out by Dudley and Goodson, sales people ignore what they really need the most.For example, someone who is great at setting goals but a poor organizer goes to all the goal and motivation seminars, reads all the books and listens to all the tapes on those subjects but ignores organization.Some of the prescriptions such as *thought zapping, *sensory injection*negative image projection *thoughtrealignment and target reversal can eliminate negative thought habits in prospecting and making sales calls. I've used them. They work.The call reluctance self rating scale on pages 27, 28 and 29 will help you to identify your own individual type of call reluctance or call imposter.I think some sales people have been giving this book low scores because you won't find the silly, feel good type of fluff that is in other popular sales training guides or techniques on how to close a sale. Sales judo, features and benefits, gimmicky or 1980's type sales techniques that don't work anymore etc. This book will show you how to identify weaknesses in your sales personality that can help turn you into a sales winner.For more on sales technique I recommend Advanced Selling Techniques, Close the Deal or the Sandler Sales Method.We've entered a new millenium and these technques will be a powerful tool for all sales people who want to excel in the 21st century.Good luck and great selling to you.

For true students of selling
For many years most sales instructional material was from one of two camps. Either it was some attempt to reinvent the famous Xerox model, or it was filled with personal war stories and self aggrandizement. (See Tom Hopkins book in the "Dummies" series.) No more! This book comes at the science side of selling from a fresh perspective. The authors are neither sales people nor sales trainers, they are psychologists. As such their perspective is based purely on what they have been able to observe and measure. The authors have gotten to the bottom of most sales slumps... People simply stop making calls. The reason? Sales call reluctance. Pretty obvious right? But, the book doesn't just state the obvious, which is, if you've stopped making calls, start making them and you will end your slump. They have broken the causes for call reluctance into 12 different origins. They help you zero in on the reasons that keep you from earning what you are worth and then offer specific and scientific methods to help get back on track. It's a keeper. I highly recommend it.

Saved my Business
I have consistently started out strong in sales roles and then petered out. I had started strong again in my new network marketing business, but had slowed down and saw my business dying.

The problem was that I would be overcome with shallow breath, a foggy mind, and churning stomach when I had to call people I knew but didn't know well.

The book allowed me to diagonose my problem as Role Rejection. I was afraid that I would disappoint people when they learned I was in a network marketing company, and I was physically feeling that fear every time I tried to make calls. I was able to bull my way through, but it was exhausting.

After reading the book and using the exercises I recognized that I was worrying to much about what other people thought of me. I used two of the techniques in the book to calm my nerves and remove the fear.

My business is taking off again!

It is rare to find a book that so obviously saved a career, but this is one.