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The Hatching and Pollinating Trap

Two sales people I often meet are the hatchers and pollinators, they’re almost polar opposites in regards to their behavior but their motivation is often them same. Neither of them likes rejection, actually they avoid it like the plague.

The Hatcher likes to try and hatch their group of prospects. They often have a short prospect list and are sitting on their leads, warming them up and waiting for them to hatch. They’re very focused on relationship development for the sake of relationship development, but also because it’s easier and more comfortable to sit and hope than go out and lay some new eggs! Prospects can smell the desperation on the hatcher, like one can smell a bad egg.

The sad thing is no chicken would sit on an egg and try to hatch it long after its died and rotted in the nest, but the hatcher sales person often is nursing a finite number of dead leads hoping for a miracle. This often results in downward spiral where fewer sales and outgoing calls begets more fear and even fewer calls, confidence also spirals downward and stress builds. Their weekly call sheet often has the same amount of activity on it that most people would cover in a day.

Now before we talk about how to avoid this spiral, rebuild our list, and our personal motivation and momentum lets talk about the Pollinator. The Pollinator resembles the busy bee. They have no problem meeting daily call quotas and appointments, but they rarely visit the same place twice. What they’re looking for is the quick hit, the low lying fruit, the prospect that wants what they have now! A straight up “NO!” or even a couple of tough objections will send the Pollinator running to the next prospect looking for two things:

1. An easy sale.

2. Someone who doesn’t reject them or question them.

The challenge with this strategy is most clients are going to ask tough questions, and the ones who buy often need to be called upon 5 to 12 times before they make an initial purchase. The Pollinator leaves money on the table everyday by not following up and being un-focused.

Some quick tips on how to stop Pollinating and Hatching and create some momentum in you sales funnel:

For the Hatcher:

1. Go through your list of clients and prospects weekly, get brutally honest about the potential of the prospect, you don’t necessarily have to stop calling on tough to close prospects, just reduce your frequency of contact to make time for new fresh leads.

2. Get into the habit of contacting new prospects everyday, as you add more prospective clients to your list your confidence in dealing people will grow. If you ask for the business from the client when you have a big list, and they say no it’s not as demotivating. Just say “NEXT!”

3. Move on completely! Maybe you need to put your list in a drawer and start fresh, get so busy with your new prospects that they old ones need to book a meeting in advance. People want to do business with people who are succeeding.

For the Pollinator:

1. Start setting frequency goals for each contact. Meet, call, and e-mail them at least five times. (In Chapter 3.4 we will address this in more detail).

2. Shorten your list of prospects and focus on completing the sales process with a few select clients.

3. Realize that “NO, maybe” or even a strong objection isn’t a personal attack, furthermore what they’re really saying is “I’m not convinced yet.” Visit them a few more times and see what happens once they get to know you.

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