to fix. One thing that is easy to fix is someone who overprepares. Another one is hesitation when asking for referrals. There’s a hierarchy of how difficult each one is to remove or fix. If you Google “sales call reluctance,” there are a ton of resources. RM: What about the people who are in the top 20 percent in sales, as opposed to the people who are always complaining or the bottom 20 percent? LF: For the top 20 percent, they know what they’re doing. So, our job as managers is to give them what they want. At that point, you’re basically their assistant. If you’re a manager, you know he knows what he needs to do. He’ll go out on the hunt. The manager just makes sure he’s well-fed. At the bottom level, you need to talk to human resources. They are in a bad place, or there is too much noise in the system, or they’re in the wrong game. Maybe they don’t even want to be in sales. They think it’s beneath them, so they complain. Some sales call reluctance, like a doomsayer, is hard to fix. Everything is gloomy and impossible and annoying. It’s negativity on steroids. Well, obviously, if you’re in sales, that’s an issue. That’s the value of sales call reluctance. It’s concrete. By the way, sales call reluctance is tied to the amygdala, which is the fear response, our reptile brain. RM: What makes your work unique? LF: There is CliftonStrengths, neuroscience and sales call reluctance. Those are big areas of investigation as they relate to productivity. My contribution to the conversation is a way to triangulate these three knowledge areas in a skilled way. But it requires a certain level of familiarity with the three tools. People will ask how they can access this. “Can I do this myself, or do I have to talk to Lon?” You can do both. My success in helping you is going to be limited by the way you’re wired. It might be that you can do it yourself. You don’t need any strategic infrastructure that Lon can give, right? So, the question is, “What’s my entry point? What’s my portal? Can I start, do it myself first?” Yes, absolutely. People can call me directly, and I can ask about their setup and determine if this is a good tool for them. Then it’s purely at the level of a cost-benefit analysis. At the end of the day, it depends on the person’s risk profile and a person’s appetite for frameworks like this. Additional Resources Lon Fuentes, an executive coach and strategy consultant, recommends several resources that can help with understanding how people can reach peak performance: • CliftonStrengths by Gallup: Gallup.com; • Andrew D. Huberman, a professor of neuroscience at Stanford University: Numerous videos are available on YouTube. Search for his name and title; • Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results: A book by James Clear; and • Search for the phrase “sales call reluctance” in your browser to find numerous resources. Nurturing Your Talents continued from page 29 30 REVERSE MORTGAGE / MARCH–APRIL 2023
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