Door to Door Sales Journey

[Ankerstein17]

Hey guys,

Like many people, alot get started in door to door sales. For confidentiality purposes I will not state who the company is or any details

I know the Fastlane community it littered with hundreds if not thousands of great sales people. I will keep this really simple.

For you people, that have done door to door sales, what is the major lesson or tip you can give some one like myself, who is starting within the next couple of days?!

 

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[Denim Chicken]

You'll get a lot of people who are hostile when you go door to door, done it since I was a kid. Door to door isn't consultative at all, it's a very short sales cycle and the deal size isnt big but it will teach you persistence, thick skin, and all the other stuff that is needed as a baseline for ANY sales position.

If you have someone is remotely interested, FOLLOW UP. I cannot tell you how many coworkers of mine do not follow up merely because they are either lazy, or forget, or have such a terrible organization system that they just organize their contacts and leads on sticky pads.

Use an ipad or a mobile laptop/netbook to book calendar appointments RIGHT THEN and there so you don't forget. Send it to the customer also, you can do this easily in Google calendar.

If you say you will come or call, then do it. Nothing worse than a salesperson who makes an appointment and doesn't keep it. If it's out of your hands and goes to a closer, then well I guess that's not your fault and lets hope your comp structure pays you for the appointment, not if the account executive shows up.

Systematize everything. In the beginning esp if this is your first sales job, you won't have a clue how to start or where to go. Have a plan, a map since you're on foot. Hit X # of houses and have a goal every single morning what you will get done, whether or not someone's home. Eventually this turns into data and you can see your close rate, how many houses you can hit, how many knocks and answers will lead to an appointment, how many appointments lead to a sale, and how many $ an average sale is. From there you can improve based on your metrics.

People do not like when you go to their home. I don't either. It's a lot more intrusive than email or calling. So you have about 5 seconds to say something that will buy you the next 30 seconds. And use those next 30 seconds to buy the next 2 minutes and let's hope they are interested enough to keep talking.

Your objective isn't to sell them anything. Despite door to door not being a highly consultative or value priced service, (it could be consultative) you trying to sell on the first call or first meeting is like trying to sleep with a girl in the first 5 minutes.
They are baby steps. As stated above, try to win the first 30 seconds. Try to win the first 2 minutes. Then an appointment. Then the sale.

Be considerate of the customer/prospect's time. This is an universal truth. You knocked on my door, don't talk about you. Get to the point about who you are, why you are knocking and give me something interesting to let you keep talking.

Never ask an open ended question when you are bidding for their time. If you knock and say "Hi I'm James, how are you today?"
They will answer "Good, thanks not interested". Never ask a question in the beginning.
A better way to do it would be to push through at least 1 sentence, that's easy to understand and hopefully piques their interest in your services.
"Hi I'm James, I work for Rainbow Gutters and I noticed you guys don't have gutters on your home. We're currently having a special in this entire zip code and your 2 neighbors down the street just signed with us. Are you interested in hearing more?"

Then if they are actually interested, they will ask a question. How much, whats the special, why do I need gutters, etc. That is where you can answer their concerns.

If at this point they say Let me think about, try to at least get their phone # or some form of contact so you don't have to come knocking again. Not that knocking again is a bad idea but people are a lot more receptive to email and calls. Esp since they already met you.
At this point the follow up would include sending them the following potential links/documents: A RFP or quote with a professional business card, a FAQ or some form of info and pitch on why your services are important, a link to your 5 star yelp review page, and if it were me, an email with multiple calendar openings for an appointment using a free email calendar tool.

I personally would invest in getting some good, well written and tested marketing material such as a brochure or a flyer and put it on the door if the person is not home. If you are going to make the effort to go door-to-door, you might as well flyer while you're at it.

Real estate agents that have their shit together do this well. Some guys just post their face with a stupid magnet and notepad thingy on the door. Great, I'll never remember to call you even though I have your magnet on my fridge.
The good ones use case studies, they have flyers of the houses that they sold for top dollar in the past 12 months in your zip code. Now, do you want to sell? Call me for a free consult.

Numbers game. Door to door is a numbers game. You can increase your chances by doing what I said like flyering with great marketing material which is inbound to a degree. But for the most part, you have to understand the basic concept of sales. A certain # of calls/knocks will lead to a certain # of appointments. And of those, a certain # of appointments will lead to a # of sales. Figure out if it takes you 50 knocks to get 1 appointment, and 3 appointments for a sale, then you know you need roughly 150 knocks to get a sale. You know that you can get X knocks down per day.
This is called pipeline management and without it, you will have a whole bunch of sales one day and then you'll have a dry spell for a while.
Maybe not as drastic in door to door but in products and services with a long sales cycle, this means you not getting paid or making quota because you didn't manage your pipeline a month/months ago.

I would try to do it for a little bit as it will teach you some personality traits and characteristics need in salespeople like persistence and grind, but I'd continue to try and get a B2B entry level sales job, esp inside sales in tech. Make more money, not as physically tiring, and making money over the phone remotely is a powerful skill to learn.

 

[Ankerstein17]

You'll get a lot of people who are hostile when you go door to door, done it since I was a kid. Door to door isn't consultative at all, it's a very short sales cycle and the deal size isnt big but it will teach you persistence, thick skin, and all the other stuff that is needed as a baseline for ANY sales position.

If you have someone is remotely interested, FOLLOW UP. I cannot tell you how many coworkers of mine do not follow up merely because they are either lazy, or forget, or have such a terrible organization system that they just organize their contacts and leads on sticky pads.

Use an ipad or a mobile laptop/netbook to book calendar appointments RIGHT THEN and there so you don't forget. Send it to the customer also, you can do this easily in Google calendar.

If you say you will come or call, then do it. Nothing worse than a salesperson who makes an appointment and doesn't keep it. If it's out of your hands and goes to a closer, then well I guess that's not your fault and lets hope your comp structure pays you for the appointment, not if the account executive shows up.

Systematize everything. In the beginning esp if this is your first sales job, you won't have a clue how to start or where to go. Have a plan, a map since you're on foot. Hit X # of houses and have a goal every single morning what you will get done, whether or not someone's home. Eventually this turns into data and you can see your close rate, how many houses you can hit, how many knocks and answers will lead to an appointment, how many appointments lead to a sale, and how many $ an average sale is. From there you can improve based on your metrics.

People do not like when you go to their home. I don't either. It's a lot more intrusive than email or calling. So you have about 5 seconds to say something that will buy you the next 30 seconds. And use those next 30 seconds to buy the next 2 minutes and let's hope they are interested enough to keep talking.

Your objective isn't to sell them anything. Despite door to door not being a highly consultative or value priced service, (it could be consultative) you trying to sell on the first call or first meeting is like trying to sleep with a girl in the first 5 minutes.
They are baby steps. As stated above, try to win the first 30 seconds. Try to win the first 2 minutes. Then an appointment. Then the sale.

Be considerate of the customer/prospect's time. This is an universal truth. You knocked on my door, don't talk about you. Get to the point about who you are, why you are knocking and give me something interesting to let you keep talking.

Never ask an open ended question when you are bidding for their time. If you knock and say "Hi I'm James, how are you today?"
They will answer "Good, thanks not interested". Never ask a question in the beginning.
A better way to do it would be to push through at least 1 sentence, that's easy to understand and hopefully piques their interest in your services.
"Hi I'm James, I work for Rainbow Gutters and I noticed you guys don't have gutters on your home. We're currently having a special in this entire zip code and your 2 neighbors down the street just signed with us. Are you interested in hearing more?"

Then if they are actually interested, they will ask a question. How much, whats the special, why do I need gutters, etc. That is where you can answer their concerns.

If at this point they say Let me think about, try to at least get their phone # or some form of contact so you don't have to come knocking again. Not that knocking again is a bad idea but people are a lot more receptive to email and calls. Esp since they already met you.
At this point the follow up would include sending them the following potential links/documents: A RFP or quote with a professional business card, a FAQ or some form of info and pitch on why your services are important, a link to your 5 star yelp review page, and if it were me, an email with multiple calendar openings for an appointment using a free email calendar tool.

I personally would invest in getting some good, well written and tested marketing material such as a brochure or a flyer and put it on the door if the person is not home. If you are going to make the effort to go door-to-door, you might as well flyer while you're at it.

Real estate agents that have their shit together do this well. Some guys just post their face with a stupid magnet and notepad thingy on the door. Great, I'll never remember to call you even though I have your magnet on my fridge.
The good ones use case studies, they have flyers of the houses that they sold for top dollar in the past 12 months in your zip code. Now, do you want to sell? Call me for a free consult.

Numbers game. Door to door is a numbers game. You can increase your chances by doing what I said like flyering with great marketing material which is inbound to a degree. But for the most part, you have to understand the basic concept of sales. A certain # of calls/knocks will lead to a certain # of appointments. And of those, a certain # of appointments will lead to a # of sales. Figure out if it takes you 50 knocks to get 1 appointment, and 3 appointments for a sale, then you know you need roughly 150 knocks to get a sale. You know that you can get X knocks down per day.
This is called pipeline management and without it, you will have a whole bunch of sales one day and then you'll have a dry spell for a while.
Maybe not as drastic in door to door but in products and services with a long sales cycle, this means you not getting paid or making quota because you didn't manage your pipeline a month/months ago.

I would try to do it for a little bit as it will teach you some personality traits and characteristics need in salespeople like persistence and grind, but I'd continue to try and get a B2B entry level sales job, esp inside sales in tech. Make more money, not as physically tiring, and making money over the phone remotely is a powerful skill to learn.

Hey man, first I want to say thanks to replying to my forum thread. The reason I posted this is because I started a door to door sales job obviously. I started on Monday, and it actually surprises me the lack of 'training' in the job. Which is fine, because you have to gain experience and learn what you are doing and what you need to do differently.

Its kind of funny, because I am really good with people. Like as I went through college, I am a natural extrovert, it just takes me time to adjust when I am starting some thing and find my 'groove'.

It's funny how you mention the follow ups.... I totally agree with you, like Mr. G.C says.... (Grant Cardone)... "The money is in the follow up." I have always been following up with my customers, and coming back.

The problem I find with my job is they push for same day sales. I work for an alarm company, so because we are in the area for same day installs, I find it really deters customers. I can understand exactly why to. People don't like to be pushed to make decisions they like to be pulled to make decisions. They want to be pulled into the store, where they feel comfortable and everything. So I try different sales tactics to help the customer make the decisions.

But the real problem...

So how it works is every one gets whats a 'turf' an area where you can sell into. So I go through the turf strategically, and talk to customers that are home during the day during the day. No point knocking doors that look empty. So I typically will have a turf for 2-3 days if I do things right. So If I gain follow ups on the first day on turf, I follow up on the second. If I gain follow ups on the second, and don't have many doors left I have to sell on the same day..... If I don't, and there is no point in coming back to that turf, because I actually can't service that turf If I get a new area.... There's no point in coming back if I have no potential leads... Which to me doesn't make any sense. I would gain a new turf, and I would be maybe on the other side of town.... But that shouldn't mean I can't sell back into that turf I had before hand... To me that seems backwards.

I get it we want to push for same day installs as the customer sees the value in doing such.

So it's essentially, I have to build a strategy around that.... Which I have been doing but haven't been getting results. Which is fine, considering I just started! I am making progress though, which I am happy about.

Any advice on that?

Secondly, why do you suggest go into B2B sales afterwards??? Just curiosity? I had that same train of thought as maybe it would allow me to feel more relaxed and more 'myself' while still being an extrovert. Just wanted to know your train of thought...

Thank for the help thus far