What You Can Learn From My Experience

[Mike Kavanagh]

In door-to-door sales.

When I was 15 I responded to a flyer on a telephone post. It was a job offer in door to door sales.
When I met the guy, he explained the process. How we'd get paid, what to expect, etc...

I was thrilled to start but then I realized how hard cold sales are.

The first day I started it was raining. Not too hard, just a drizzle.
It was a relatively low-income apartments that we were servicing that day with some decent single family homes near-by.

I'd never knocked on anyone's door before like that. I was terribly nervous.
I was given a script to memorize before I started.

It didn't matter when they answered the door. I fumbled with my words. I sucked something fierce.
Oddly I made 2 sales that day.

I didn't realize it but with each house, approaching got easier. I loosened up a bit.

I quit this job 3 months later after my team leader, another team's associate, and myself got jumped during the day, on a Saturday by 10 or so people. They took our cash, our phones, my team leaders shoes.
I was tired of getting guns pointed at me from knocking on people's doors anyway.

My takeaways were:

• Not everyone wants what you got but some do
  
• People get indignant if you interrupt 3 major things - dinner, sex and TV time(don't knock after 8:30pm)
  
• Sales are easily the hardest job if you are impatient to learning and criticism
  
• If the script isn't about the customer, ditch it - ours went something like "help us get a bond for college" no wonder we only got 10-15 sales/week (other teams using their own script were in the 100's/week)
  
• Use competition to make yourself work faster and do stuff better, the other guy might be your best friend but if he gets a sale on the same street, he stole from you
  
• Sliding scale payout formats make people work harder to get to the next tier or can work against them if they do sell good
• Burn through your early no's. Ignore them. Use that to make your next approach. Most sales came 2 hours into the night (out for 5 hours)

Thanks for reading
Mike

P.S. I was selling newspaper subscriptions for $20/3 Months

 

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[vinylawesome]

In door-to-door sales.

When I was 15 I responded to a flyer on a telephone post. It was a job offer in door to door sales.
When I met the guy, he explained the process. How we'd get paid, what to expect, etc...

I was thrilled to start but then I realized how hard cold sales are.

The first day I started it was raining. Not too hard, just a drizzle.
It was a relatively low-income apartments that we were servicing that day with some decent single family homes near-by.

I'd never knocked on anyone's door before like that. I was terribly nervous.
I was given a script to memorize before I started.

It didn't matter when they answered the door. I fumbled with my words. I sucked something fierce.
Oddly I made 2 sales that day.

I didn't realize it but with each house, approaching got easier. I loosened up a bit.

I quit this job 3 months later after my team leader, another team's associate, and myself got jumped during the day, on a Saturday by 10 or so people. They took our cash, our phones, my team leaders shoes.
I was tired of getting guns pointed at me from knocking on people's doors anyway.

My takeaways were:

• Not everyone wants what you got but some do
  
• People get indignant if you interrupt 3 major things - dinner, sex and TV time(don't knock after 8:30pm)
  
• Sales are easily the hardest job if you are impatient to learning and criticism
  
• If the script isn't about the customer, ditch it - ours went something like "help us get a bond for college" no wonder we only got 10-15 sales/week (other teams using their own script were in the 100's/week)
  
• Use competition to make yourself work faster and do stuff better, the other guy might be your best friend but if he gets a sale on the same street, he stole from you
  
• Sliding scale payout formats make people work harder to get to the next tier or can work against them if they do sell good
• Burn through your early no's. Ignore them. Use that to make your next approach. Most sales came 2 hours into the night (out for 5 hours)

Thanks for reading
Mike

P.S. I was selling newspaper subscriptions for $20/3 Months

Your story reminded me of the newspaper sales pitch scene from Boiler Room..