Procrastination

Have you been there? Finally, you have time to dedicate to that important project you have been longing to start for so long, but instead of getting on the phone and call your prospects you – get hungry and have to eat! Or – you have an important call back to a client you know is interested in your product/service, but every time you are about to call them you – just have to do some research before, or ask a colleague for some information or maybe you even get – sleepy!

Procrastination is not something new. We have all been procrastinating, putting off the weekly house cleaning to the day after, or going to the post office another day because it is raining. In these cases the reason for procrastinating has nothing to do with fear. There can be a lot of reasons that create this gap between intentions and actions. There isn’t only one type of procrastinator, but several general impressions have emerged over many years of research. Some procrastinators have perpetual problems finishing tasks, while situational ones delay based on the task itself. A perfect storm of procrastination occurs when an unpleasant task meets a person who’s high in impulsivity and low in self-discipline. However, procrastinating is often a symptom of fear. It can be fear of failure as well as fear of success.

One of the authors I truly enjoy following is Robin Sharma, and I find his explanation regarding the reason for procrastinating very interesting. In this video, he explains how we are taught to be as everybody else since our childhood and how it becomes scary when we actually are about to touch success. When we are about to reach the goal, we tend to start distracting ourselves being our own self -saboteurs. We pick up our mobile phones and start reading our e-mails, we just want to check the latest “news” in our Facebook feed or we just need a little break to think something over…

Procrastination sounds worse than it is, but I think it is important to bring it up. I often get the question if procrastination is a consequence of Sales Reluctance. It does affect all types of Sales Call Reluctance. Indecisive Yielders procrastinate, Over-preparers put off Sales task in order to dedicate to research and other tasks instead. Yet, procrastination is their symptom, not their problem.The real problem is the fear of prospecting. They fear one or more activities that it takes to contact buyers. They suffer from – ISCIS – inhibited social contact initiation syndrome.

Today, there are proven countermeasures to do get rid of our Sales Call Reluctance. They can simultaneously reduce procrastination in call reluctant Sales people who decide to rescue themselves from the constraints of their fears.