SPQ* Gold is the only psychometric application for diagnosis of sales call reluctance® in the world.

Welcome to Fear Of Cold Calling.

James was waiting for this moment. A moment of reckoning he looked forward to. Was he in awe of his task ahead? He looked at prospects and felt confident, fear of cold calling having waned for sure. Yet this was not so when he first landed the job. That was really tough, he thought. For a moment his mind drifted off to his earlier stints.

James was a colorful person having donned many roles with aplomb. When the sales job came his way, he knew he would not be found wanting. Reality however turned out to be different. Fear of cold calling prevented him to make any call. Initially, it was just that – a simple enough reluctance to make cold calls. Or so he thought. But that was not to be.

As time passed, James found his fear of cold calling gradually enveloping him bit by bit. Try as he might, he just could not pass around or overtake fear of cold calling. He would mimic his invisible client, try second-guessing what his client’s response would be, do everything he could to keep his fear at bay. None succeeded. Until finally he heard about the SPQ* Gold Test. There at last he hoped he might overcome his fear of cold calling.

SPQ, an acronym that stood for Sales Preference Questionnaire, was an attitude cum activity based questionnaire, which when filled in, objectively measured important personal parameters, such as an individual’s reluctance to call, avoidance to effect a sale, lack of self-promotion, and above all a willingness to close a deal.

According to behavioral scientists George W. Dudley and Shannon L. Goodson, who founded Behavioral Sciences Research Press, Inc., the fear of cold calling resulted from what they termed ‘Inhibited Social Contact Initiation Syndrome’ or ISCIS. With 30 years of research behind them, Dudley and Goodson authored widely-acclaimed SPQ* Gold, that was a very effective psychometric application for diagnosis of sales call reluctance and had more than 300,000 applications worldwide.

A great help to outdo fear of cold calling, SPQ* Gold could be tested on anyone involved in contact-dependent work, including but not limited to, veteran salespeople, new salespeople, prospective salespeople, sales managers, trainers, supervisors, outside consultants, psychologists and human resources practitioners. It would also benefit individuals manning senior management, who were either in sales or in a position to influence attitudes and behaviors of those who were in sales.

James was lucky to have come across SPQ* Gold, which helped him unearth his perceptible weakness to encounter fear of cold calling. He surveyed the scene ahead and smiled. For once, he felt positive and ready to take the plunge. James had conquered his fear of cold calling. His day had finally come.

Learn more about Fear of Cold Calling

Lack of urgency and direction marks the traits of low-goal salespeople. They drift aimlessly in their careers, unable to come to terms, having difficulty to cope with demands for making sales and are therefore a drag on company’s resources. Yet it might as well be that some of them are indeed brilliant communicator and have proved their mettle in the past.

As an employer, it is incumbent on you to weed out unproductive salespeople, retrain and relocate them as necessary. SPQ*Gold’s sales call reluctance testing lets you accurately evaluate competence level of your sales force, so that you can make it lean, trim and hungry for action at all times. Sales call reluctance testing opens the door for scientific analysis of sales performance and judgmental actions thereof.

Analyzing salespersons’ incompetence without proper assessment does not fetch desired results. Sales call reluctance testing, done properly on suspected salespersons, brings forth a clear indication on 3 main attributes:

Many a time, an entire sales force is afflicted by low goal-connectedness. Mismanaged sales careers, deferring urgent actions, wastage of time, lack of immediacy, etc. are typical of such happenings. This results in less prospecting and even less selling. Sales managers, unable to allot reasons, see them as lazy and motivationally challenged. All this culminates in plunging financial results, putting company in dire straits.

To effectively solve such situations, the most objective instrument is the sales call reluctance testing from SPQ*GOLD. SPQ*Gold’s sales call reluctance testing and other procedures have generated an extensive body of research results which have established good concurrent validity in a variety of disparate organizational settings, correlating significantly with objective outcome data, measured in dollars.

What this translates on ground is the unequivocal ability of SPQ*Gold’s sales call reluctance testing to significantly reduce downtime arising out of erratic sales behavior on part of few salespersons or a sales group as a whole.

Lack of urgency and direction marks the traits of low-goal salespeople. They drift aimlessly in their careers, unable to come to terms, having difficulty to cope with demands for making sales and are therefore a drag on company’s resources. Yet it might as well be that some of them are indeed brilliant communicator and have proved their mettle in the past.

As an employer, it is incumbent on you to weed out unproductive salespeople, retrain and relocate them as necessary. SPQ*Gold’s fear of cold calling testing lets you accurately evaluate competence level of your sales force, so that you can make it lean, trim and hungry for action at all times. Fear of cold calling testing opens the door for scientific analysis of sales performance and judgmental actions thereof.

Analyzing salespersons’ incompetence without proper assessment does not fetch desired results. Fear of cold calling testing, done properly on suspected salespersons, brings forth a clear indication on 3 main attributes:

Many a time, an entire sales force is afflicted by low goal-connectedness. Mismanaged sales careers, deferring urgent actions, wastage of time, lack of immediacy, etc. are typical of such happenings. This results in less prospecting and even less selling. Sales managers, unable to allot reasons, see them as lazy and motivationally challenged. All this culminates in plunging financial results, putting company in dire straits.

To effectively solve such situations, the most objective instrument is the fear of cold calling testing from SPQ*GOLD. SPQ*Gold’s fear of cold calling testing and other procedures have generated an extensive body of research results which have established good concurrent validity in a variety of disparate organizational settings, correlating significantly with objective outcome data, measured in dollars.

What this translates on ground is the unequivocal ability of SPQ*Gold’s fear of cold calling testing to significantly reduce downtime arising out of erratic sales behavior on part of few salespersons or a sales group as a whole.