I have been looking at going to the Outbound 2026 Conference in November and came across one of the speakers, Colleen Stanley, author of Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success. Here’s an Executive Summary from one of her articles called Buyer Resistance is at an All-Time High.
Two forces are converging to make buyers more resistant than any previous generation of salespeople has faced.
The first is economic uncertainty. Budgets are tighter, decision cycles are longer, and buyers are under pressure to justify every dollar they spend. Caution is the default setting for most purchasing decisions right now.
The second is the explosion of AI-generated outreach. Buyers are drowning in messages, and a growing number of them are low-quality, templated, and impersonal. Colleen put it plainly during our conversation: “When I look at anything, I’m starting to wonder, is it real? Is it valuable?” That skepticism is now baked into how buyers engage with salespeople across every industry and channel.
Pushing through buyer resistance is less about technique and more about what is happening internally for a salesperson before they ever engage with a buyer.
Two EQ competencies separate the sellers who break through from the ones who back down.
Delayed gratification is the willingness to invest time before results show up. Pre-call planning. Consistent pursuit of accounts over weeks and months. Practicing your approach so that when you finally get in front of a buyer, you come across as competent and confident rather than rushed or reactive.
- Sellers who lack this competency give up too soon. They interpret early resistance as a final answer and move on before the relationship has had a chance to develop. Buyer resistance requires patience as much as it requires skill.
Internal locus of control is the belief that your outcomes are determined by your actions, decisions, and behaviors rather than by external circumstances. Colleen described it as a mantra that top performers carry with them: “If it is to be, it’s up to me.”
- In practice, this looks like owning your prospecting activity without excuses. Seeking out mentors and coaches to get sharper. Running win/loss analyses to understand why deals close and why they fall apart, then changing your behavior based on what you learn. Salespeople with a high internal locus of control are relentless, and they are relentless because they genuinely believe their effort connects directly to their results.
Hope this helps. For me, the challenge is not giving up too soon. I have seen the fruits of hanging on and need to be reminded often.
