The "Nice" Trap

I spent the week in Dallas, TX last week....talking to existing and prospective clients about how to grow their home care, home health, and hospice businesses. There were some great interactions and I hope they walked away with some ideas of the things they should be doing every day to increase their referral and admissions. One thing I pointed out, and got confirmation of from every person that was struggling with sales:

They were spending way too much time with people who were "nice".

So much so that I wound up coining the phrase "Nice is a trap" because I wound up saying it all week. What does "Nice is a trap" mean?

"Nice is a trap"

It means, in a challenging selling environment such as we have in the senior care industry, it's easy to be trapped into making multiple sales calls on people who are simply "nice". Facing rejection day after day, human beings will naturally revert to environments of acceptance so that they can feel better. It's a simple human survival skill. We are programmed to seek out our kind....those that welcome and accept us. It's no wonder that being surrounded by the stress of rejection and non acceptance, so many reps fall into the "like trap".

Being liked is great, fine, spectacular....but being liked and NOT being referred to is not any of those things.. If you are drawn to people that welcome you in because of your innate human behavioral programming, but they either don't or can't refer, you are trapped. It takes a strong person to break free from this trap.

But those that do, are the ones that succeed in our industry.

Examine your call patterns. Examine how many times you visit particular accounts because they welcome you, yet they refer rarely or not at all. Examine how many times you willingly walk into offices where you are not known, or perhaps not even liked, but you know there is opportunity.

Nice is a trap you don't have to live with. The first step is realizing you are trapped, the second step is breaking free from the trap, and the third step is putting measures into place so you don't wind up being trapped again.

Break free...

Good Selling!

Michael Giudicissi