The phone rings, they pick up, and before you've said a single word, you've already decided how this call is going to go.
In this solo episode, I break down a pattern I see constantly in sales reps, including myself in the past. We walk into calls expecting rejection, and that expectation changes our behavior enough to actually cause it.
The Prospect Isn't Reacting to Your Offer; They're Reacting to You
- Sociologist Robert K. Merton gave this phenomenon a name, "the self-fulfilling prophecy," a false belief that causes the exact behavior that makes the belief come true.
- Your expectation shapes how you act, and the other person responds to how you act, not to your actual intention or your offer.
- When a rep assumes a prospect is annoyed or uninterested based on nothing more than a hunch, that assumption changes their tone, their pace, and their confidence, and the prospect picks up on all of it.
Where This Shows Up Most in a Sales Call
- Pricing is a major one. A rep starts offering a discount before the buyer has said a word about cost, which quietly signals the product isn't worth the full price in the first place.
- Email openers are another. Starting with "sorry to bother you" or "I know you're busy" trains the prospect to treat you like an interruption instead of someone trying to solve a real problem for them.
- Discovery calls suffer the same way. Reps skip the deeper questions because they assume the buyer won't want to answer them, and those deeper questions are usually exactly where the real insight lives.
Follow-Up and Demos Take the Hit Too
- Some reps don't even book the follow-up call because they've already decided the prospect is going to ghost them, which kills the deal before it ever had a real chance.
- During demos, the same fear shows up as rushing through slides because a rep assumes the buyer is bored, when in most cases that assumption is just wrong.
- I had this happen recently on a client call. I assumed the prospects weren't engaged, but they were actually just muting themselves out of courtesy while discussing something privately on their end.
Why We Do This to Ourselves
- Predicting rejection in advance is a defense mechanism. It hurts less when the rejection actually happens because some part of you already expected it.
- A bad call or two can quietly overgeneralize onto every prospect after it, even when the next person has nothing to do with what happened before.
- A lack of preparation makes this worse. Showing up to a call without enough research or practice leaves a rep feeling shaky, and that shakiness gets mistaken for a sign the call is doomed.
How to Break the Pattern
- Separate the data from the story. Ask yourself what the prospect has actually said or done so far, and if the honest answer is "nothing yet," you're reacting to a story you made up, not to reality.
- If a prospect sounds off on the call, don't assume the worst. You can simply ask whether now is a bad time and offer a short version of your pitch instead, which hands control of the conversation back to you.
- Slow down on purpose. A calm opener earns far more attention than a rushed one, because rushing signals inexperience, while a steady pace signals quiet confidence.
Prepare Like the Outcome Depends on It, Because It Does
- Know your opener and your first two questions so well that nerves never get the chance to take over, and practice them out loud until they feel automatic.
- Walk into every call expecting the best-case scenario instead of the worst, treating each prospect like they could become your best client, because that energy is genuinely palpable through the phone.
- Your prospect will often meet you at your own level of confidence, so the energy you bring into the call tends to come right back at you.
The Five-Call Challenge
- On your next five calls, write down the negative outcome you're expecting before you dial, then write down what actually happens afterward.
- Most reps who try this find the gap between what they feared and what actually happened is much bigger than they expected.
- Once you can see that gap clearly, it gets a lot harder to keep walking into calls assuming the worst.
"Stop writing the rejection, and start writing the progress." — Donald C. Kelly
Resources
Have a story about catching yourself in this pattern? Send me a message on LinkedIn and let me know how it worked out.
Want coaching on building a repeatable opener and call process? Check out our Sales Mastermind.
Sponsorship Offers
- This episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.
With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.
- This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.
Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse.
- This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation.
Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the salesevangelist.com/linkedin.
Credits
As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and produced by Brightseed and Hill.
