Do you have telephonophobia? (And have I spelt it correctly?)
The fear of making and receiving phone calls is real. Despite 98% of the global population owning a mobile phone, the very thing many of us now see as an additional limb, also terrifies some of us in it’s original form - that of a telephone.
First things first - telephonophobia is a genuine phobia and I’m in no way looking to downplay the affect a phobia can have on someone’s day to day life. Imagine someone with arachnophobia carrying a spider around in their pocket 24/7 which could present itself at any time! Next time you see someone at an Ed Sheeran concert inadvertently holding a tarantula in the air and swaying it left to right during a ballad, stop and think how hard that must be for that person………..
But there are some differences in the levels of fear of phone calls. At the top of the tree (apologies vertigo sufferers) there is acute telephonophobia - this could be that someone is all but terrified of anything phone related - a condition which would need medical help to address rather than a whimsical blog post with weird spider jokes.
Eddie’s favourite Ed Sheeran song is “Even My Dad Does Sometimes” despite Eddie’s dad being tragically eaten by his mum shortly after his conception.
The next level down is where many more of us seem to now fall - that of a milder form of telephonophobia, generally speaking this is an anxiety induced by the very thought of making or receiving actual phone calls to or from another human.
And the lower level (welcome back vertigoers!) is that of call reluctance which we’ll come to. But there is one common thing that applies to them all…………….Ed Sheeran! No, sorry………..fear.
How telephonophobia is holding your business activities back
If you took away a spanner from a mechanic would they be more successful or less successful in fixing your car? I have no idea either, but lets assume they would be, so that this point stacks up.
If you took oven gloves away from a baker would that matter? Again, I need to work on my examples as I’m not sure, but lets assume it would mean they’d fall short of taking the pies out of the oven, their premises would burn down and none of us would ever be able to eat bread again.
And this is EXACTLY the same as not utilising a telephone more in our business…………..bear with me.
If you stick around on a YouTube comment thread long enough, someone is going to call someone a nazi for disagreeing with them - even on those toy opening videos that toddlers like watching, trust me. And if I mention that I run a sales consultancy, if you stick around long enough someone will eventually say the following cliché……….. “people buy from people”. Once I’ve cleared the vomit from the back of my own throat I’m begrudgingly inclined to agree. Notwithstanding the behemoth in the room - Amazon, for the majority of the rest of the world, this is true and it is always true if you’re selling a service. So where am I going with this?
Name two long distance relationships you know to have worked long term
I’m assuming you can’t, as they don’t. And the reason they don’t is largely down to an inability to maintain a connection. Albeit, Zoom et al may have increased the odds somewhat, text, emails, letters and WhatsApp conversations aren’t going to cut it in the long term. Real conversations are required. Face to face meet ups, online calls and yes, phone calls. And this is the same for business relationships too.
But aren’t you simply out of touch with the current generation’s preferred methods of communication?
To a degree yes. I don’t use Snapchat. But I’m no luddite either. I’m a big subscriber of “horses for courses” and also a big believer in a multi-channel approach when it comes to communicating with clients and prospects. But if you want to establish and grow a real business relationship eventually you’re going to have to exit the emoji zone and pick up the phone. And it is easy to level the increase in “telephonophobia” on Generation Z - but they have something in common with most of us - they need more practice to be more comfortable making phone calls. The more they do it, the less scary it will be.
You are pre-programmed to be able to cope with unpredictable conversations. You haven’t forgotten how to do this, you’re merely out of practice.
Before you’re born you’re exposed to the way conversations work. You’re in the womb listening to Charlie Brown’s teacher speaking to your mum and your mum replying to them. They both stutter, pause, stumble on their words, make mistakes and sometimes get lost for words - all normal conversational stuff. Some months later you arrive in the world and you continue your conversational master class. When you’re a toddler, one of your favourite pastimes is to pretend to speak to someone on a toy phone (or a shoe).
Then other societal pressures slowly begin to ebb away at this confidence. You see that many around you mainly use the phone with their fingers and thumbs and if the phone makes a ringing sound they often wait for it to finish before looking at it, holding it to their ear and then using their fingers and thumbs again. This becomes the new normal. But rest assured, you’re not alone and this can be reversed…….
A note on the sanitisation of communication
Let’s face it, emails and SMS are largely safe methods of communicating. You can draft, spell check and proof read them before you press send. And whilst this doesn’t prevent the occasional inappropriate message being sent to a relative, in large it means that you can breathe easily, content that you have stripped all the spontaneity from your well crafted message and it is almost guaranteed to garner at least a yellow thumbs up. But this isn’t real human behaviour - remember, we’re equipped to do better than this. It is okay to make mistakes (apart from on Twitter/X - for god’s sake don’t make a mistake on that platform as you risk unleashing the holy hell that is an army of pedants). This brings us back to the “f-word” - fear.
Being on the phone makes us vulnerable
It does. I’m a seasoned professional on the phone but sometimes I forget my own name making a cold call or end up asking to speak to myself. Or saying that I’m calling from the company that I’m calling in to. But you know what - it shows that I’m human and usually ends up with an instant connection. Remember the “people buy from people” cliché? It is a cliché because it is true.
Not working from a script makes us personable and believe it or not, it will usually put the person on the other end of the call at ease. It is a bit like being one of the first people to go on the dance floor - assuming it isn’t John Travolta, or a much more contemporary example that I don’t know, if you see me dancing first, you know you can’t fail.
But I’m not advocating being unprepared
Being prepared to be human and not working from a script isn’t the same as not preparing of course. If you don’t prepare for a call you are more likely to entrench your telephonophobia than cure it. There are some easy tips on how to prepare well for a call, but I’m not giving that IP away on a blog post - okay, I’ll give you one…..
Never make a cold telephone call without a name of a person you’re trying to call. Nothing in the world will set you up to sound more salesey than anyone ever did than going for a “I’m looking to speak with the person who deals with x” approach. You’ll get shutdown quicker than a rave in the Vatican.
We’re not only talking cold calls
I get it - cold calling is probably the toughest of all B2B calls to master (and a brutal, soul-destroying minefield in the world of B2C). But there are also calls to existing clients, suppliers, partners and colleagues that shouldn’t be avoided either. These relationships are all vital to your success too - and the same approach can be taken for all of them - embracing your vulnerability and acknowledging your pre-birth and early years informal training mean that you can’t fail.
Remember - most conversations are littered with “errrrmms”, “aaaaahs”, stutters, long silences and people accidently interrupting one another. All completely normal.
A word on voicemails
It is correct that some people don’t listen to their voicemails. But this is less the case in the B2B world - remember that the person you’re calling is paid to deal with people like you - if they don’t listen to their voicemails they are neglecting their duties. Whilst they might not reply, you might be surprised at how many people do listen to them.
We ALWAYS leave voicemails. And you' might be pleasantly surprised at how many people either respond to them and/or refer to them when you finally connect. There is an art to leaving a compelling voicemail message - something else we help with in our sales training. So please don’t be too hasty in jumping on the “people don’t respond to voicemails” bandwagon - in our experience this is not universally true - it is more of a private call reality blurring the truth in the professional world.
Think about the last time you spoke to a friend or family member unexpectedly on the phone
This may have been an accident if your telephonophobia is strong - you might have accidently hit the “accept call” icon instead of “send to voicemail”. Or you might have accidently butt-dialed a cousin or old friend who has the audacity to answer. But then you had a conversation. An unscripted, impromptu conversation - perhaps it was only a few minutes, or maybe it turned into a half and hour catch up where you laughed, cried and laughed some more. But one thing I’d be willing to bet 10p of my own money on - you survived it and if you’re 100% honest, you actually felt good after it. Why? You connected - in a way that a text is pretty much incapable of doing.
Where does telephonophobia end and call reluctance begin?
Honestly, I don’t know - but I think it lies somewhere near to the common excuses I hear from business owners and sales people when asked why they choose not to make more calls. Here are some of them, which you might recognise:-
“Our clients prefer emails”
“Nobody answers the phone”
“I’ve tried cold calling before and it didn’t work”
“Our data is bad/out of date”
“I don’t like receiving calls so why would they?”
“I feel like everyone in the office is listening to me when I’m on the phone”
“I don’t know what to say to the client”
“I feel like I’m bothering people”
“I’m worried that I might say something wrong”
“My manager/colleague is constantly suggesting things during the call which is off-putting”
“I’ve never been trained on how to make calls”
“My manager often gives me instant critique after a call which makes me very self conscious”
The common denominator here? You guessed it - fear. Every single one of the above can be addressed relatively easily and quickly. But for some reason, a “silent sales office” has been allowed to become normalised in some organisations and it will be costing you business. With help from Silent Sales we can help you and your team to be as confident as a toddler talking into a shoe.
Simon is the Owner of Silent Sales and has trained hundreds of telephonophobics to hold their spiders aloft and speak confidently into their shoes. Contact him today to see how he can help you.
