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• Inner Game of Recruiting
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• Are You Too Nice to Close the Deal?
• Readjusting Your Referral Thinking
• Fear-Free Prospecting: How to Do It
• Eliminate Your Call Reluctance – Elevate Yours Sales
• Stop Freezing in Front of High Net Worth Prospects
• Get Noticed: Three Keys to Effective Self-Promotion
• How Sales Shame Kills Your Prospecting And How to Stop It
• Seven Steps to Getting Psyched UP to Make Prospecting Calls
• Overcoming Sales Call Reluctance Must be Done to Build Business
• 12 Types of Call Reluctance: Are You Plagued by Any of These?
• Five Hidden Weaknesses That Keep Salespeople from Picking up the Phone

Stop Freezing in Front of High Net Worth Prospects

by Connie Kadansky

If you feel star-struck or insecure when you encounter old money, social standing, or power, you may have a form of Sales Call Reluctance that’s impeding your business-building efforts. Here’s how to beat it.

Jerry, a midcareer salesperson, was building a clientele of up-and-coming professionals. He was always diligent about asking for referrals. One day, one of his clients -- an architect -- offered to arrange a luncheon meeting to introduce Jerry to a prominent local attorney from one of the community’s oldest and wealthiest families.

Jerry’s initial surge of excitement and gratitude soon dissipated, replaced by a deep-seated feeling of dread. Jerry had grown up on the “wrong” side of the tracks, and even though he’d been to college and become financially successful in his own right, he felt completely intimidated by old money and social standing. Jerry has alluded to these feelings a few times in the past, but his manager always responded with the same pep talk: “High-net-worth people put their pants on one leg at a time‑just like you and me.”

Paralyzed by imagined inferiority

Intellectually, Jerry knew what his manager said was true, but it didn’t help at all, because he was entrenched in something that we call “social self-consciousness.” It’s one of the 12 types of Sales Call Reluctance that cause salespeople to avoid prospects with wealth, prestige, power, education, or social status.

Salespeople know that in order to succeed, they need to be prospecting and getting appointments with people who are the ultimate decision maker. Often, though, salespeople who come from blue-collar roots or have been indoctrinated into a psychological caste system have a tendency to elevate upscale individuals to exaggerated heights of superiority and influence.

Salespeople with social self-consciousness excessively admire influential or very wealthy people and feel inferior to them, and when they are in the presence of such people, they regress into debilitating behaviors. They swing between feeling admiration and feeling intimidated, conflicted, and even awestruck. They may clam up or begin to fawn on the person, unable to find a healthy middle ground where they can prospect successfully.

Diagnosing the problem

What do you do if you fit this description? All the intellectualizing in the world will not resolve this fear. It needs to be addressed emotionally and behaviorally.

First, you must take responsibility for what you are experiencing. This is not the most popular advice. However, it is really the only way in order to overcome social self-consciousness.

Observe your behavior with service personnel or other people you may feel are inferior to you in some way. Some people who experience social self-consciousness habitually intimidate those they perceive as below them on the social ladder. They treat these people just as poorly and in just the same way as they believe their own social “betters” have treated them.

If you find that you are rude or even somewhat rude toward people that you rate lower in social standing than yourself, immediately start going out of your way to notice how they contribute to society. Notice their value. Everyone, even the homeless person on the street, contributes to society in some way. (For instance, seeing a homeless person may trigger others to be more grateful or more compassionate. This is a valuable contribution.) Begin to treat everyone, regardless of their perceived social standing, with courtesy and respect. Extend pleasantries to everyone you encounter. You will be amazed at the result.

‘Zap’ to interrupt habitual thought

Now it’s time to work on the day-to-day thoughts and behaviors that are standing in the way of your success.

Step 1: Document your negative thoughts. When you think about prospecting someone you view as upscale and find yourself feeling intimidated, write down the thought that is triggering the intimidation. Perhaps it’s something like these:

• “People like her get prospected day in and day out by salespeople.”
• “He must already be working with a salesperson he really likes.”
• “These people are well networked; calling on them is futile. They only work with their friends.”

Notice the story you are making up that is keeping you from prospecting. This awareness is vital. It is not prospecting upscale clientele that is intimidating you. It is your thoughts about prospecting upscale clientele that are intimidating you.

As simple as this may sound, it is very profound. Once you recognize that making up stories is what is making you miserable and casting you into intimidation and self-doubt, you take back the power to stop feeling that way. Your freedom from social self-consciousness begins with your willingness to write down these pessimistic thoughts, or what we call “negative intruders.”

Step 2: Observe your emotions. Once you have identified a negative intruder, notice your emotional reaction. Are you stammering? Does your brain freeze? Is your speech monotone or overly fawning or apologetic? Become a scientist of your emotions and behavior.

Be careful: Many salespeople get angry at themselves at this point. They brutally criticize and chastise themselves for having these feelings. This is a trap of self-sabotage. You must break the habit of self-criticism. It is always destructive, never productive. When you judge yourself, you lose the entire effect of the exercise. So just notice, without judgment.

Step 3: Zap your negative thoughts. Get a wide rubber band and put it on your wrist. Every time you spot a negative intruder, zap yourself with a gentle snap of the rubber band. This will interrupt the habitual thought that is holding you back. Zap every single time you have thoughts of being inferior to or intimidated by someone of higher wealth or social standing than you.

The thought-zapper rubber band is not to be used for punishment. It does not need to hurt, just sting slightly. The purpose is to add a physical component to changing your habits of mind, your thinking habits.

Make no mistakes: Feeling intimidated by important people is a habit. No one is born socially self-conscious. It is entirely learned. The zapper will actually work on rewiring the neural networks in your brain that have been hard-wired to make you believe that upscale prospects are intimidating and that you are not worthy of their business. A habit’s worse enemy is interruption.

If you are the type that would use the thought zapper as painful punishment, you are advised to not employ this technique. It would be counterproductive and actually cause more self-sabotage. (Go back to Step 2 and try to work on being nonjudgmental with yourself and others. This will help you move on.)

Step 4: Neutralizing the negative. Now that you have zapped, replace the negative intruder with a neutral thought, such as:

• “He probably gets lots of calls. That means timing is everything. I will be the first to call him today.”
• “Even if she is working with someone else, she may be looking for a second opinion on that new tax law, and I can provide potentially valuable information prior to her filing income tax returns.”
• “As well-networked as some people are, they can be open to meeting new people who have something interesting to present.”

The more you zap the habitual thoughts that trigger negative feelings about prospecting influential or wealthy people, the more you’ll break the hard-wiring in your brain and replace it with new neural networks.

Step 5: Change your behavior. When you do eventually make the call, remember that many high-net-worth people employ assistants, or gate openers. Notice my choice of terms: gate openers. Many salespeople think of these assistants as “gatekeepers” and get into defense mode prior to making their prospecting calls.

Instead, think of them as gate openersand treat them just as you would treat the high-net-worth client. Tell them exactly who you are and the purpose of your call, using an engaging statement that piques their interest. Don’t go off on an internal campaign about receptionists and administrative assistants and how rude they are to salespeople. This is a great time to practice treating everyone with respect and noticing their value.

When you attend events of any kind, seek out the people in the spotlight, introduce yourself, and initiate a conversation. You do not need to think of yourself as prospecting at this point. You are simply conditioning yourself to meet the people who used to intimidate you. And you just may find out that they are pretty cool people who are more open -- and more human -- than you thought!

Be patient

There is no overnight fix for social self-consciousness. After all, it didn’t develop overnight. It has been with you a long time. But the sooner you start with these types and techniques -- all of which have been proven to break the logjam of call reluctance -- the more quickly you will start to feel comfortable with all types of people, regardless of their wealth or social standing.

As Rudyard Kipling reminds us in his famous poem “if”:

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings‑nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none to much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And which is more‑you’ll be a Man, my son!


Connie Kadansky is a certified coach, professional speaker, and trainer specializing in Overcoming Sales Call Reluctance®. She offers effective tools and training to diagnose Sales Call Reluctance and assists salespeople and financial advisors in highly profitable prospecting. Connie facilitates the Fear-Free Prospecting and Self Promotion Workshops® in the United States and Canada. For additional information, contact Connie at (602) 997-1101 or email her at connie@exceptionalsales.com

Sales Call Reluctance is a registered trademark of Behavioral Sciences Research Press.

Start earning what you’re worth. Solve your Sales Call Reluctance challenges today!

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PS If you’re not sure whether or not Sales Call Reluctance is affecting your bottom line, we’ll help you evaluate your unique situation. Call Connie at (602) 997-1101 to talk about your current sales prospecting program, today!