If door-to-door B2C prospecting makes your knees start knocking, you’re not alone. It’s like a telephone cold call on steroids. Everything is somehow bigger: your fear of rejection and the reaction at the door alike. As you stand at the door, your fear battles with a need to keep the lights on. You can make all of this go away, however, if you have a daily plan.
Monday: Case the Place
You should have a good idea of the types of neighborhoods that represent the income bracket you’re most likely to be successful with. If you’re not sure, find the sales superstar in your department and ask. Next, choose a neighborhood to work.
Your first day of work is going to be very easy. This is a day for getting organized. Walk the neighborhood with a notebook. Write down each address until you’ve got a full list. Now, go back to the office and do a search for those addresses in the company records. Anyone on your list who has bought from your company within the past year gets eliminated. The house could have a new occupant, but with that kind of time frame it’s less likely. You do this because knocking the door of an existing customer is embarrassing. Why add unnecessary discomfort to the process?
Once you’ve finished your research, you’re done for the day. Tomorrow you’re going to go back out there, armed with your list, your day planner, your sales kit, and your pen.
Tuesday: Set Appointments
Most people are not going to want your sales pitch right away. That’s okay. Today is prospecting day, not selling day. Commit to working your entire list today, staying out as long as it takes. Focus your efforts on the times when people are most likely to be there. 11:00 am to 1:00 pm is good because you catch people coming home from lunch. 4:00 pm to 9:00 pm is good because everyone’s home from work.
You’ll drive between blocks of six to eight houses, parking your car each time. Once you’re done with that block, move your car up a bit. You want your car nearby because your sales kit stays in your car. That way, you’re ready if someone actually invites you in on the spot, but you are neither stomping around with a heavy sales kit nor intimidating customers with it. Remember: they’re more afraid of you than you are of them.
Knock on each door. Deliver a very short what’s-in-it-for-them speech. Lead off with an apology to diffuse any irritation or fear the prospect may have because you’ve knocked on their door.
“I apologize for disturbing you. I’m _____ with ____. I’m in your neighborhood today to let people know how they can get a free DVR with our satellite company. Do you have DVR right now?”
You can swap out the benefit in that speech with whatever is applicable to your company. If you’re selling alarm systems then you can offer a security consultation. If you’re selling water softeners then you can offer a free water test. Whatever you do today, don’t sell unless you are invited in! Just set appointments.
Don’t let the existence of a competitor’s service stop you. You can ask a few questions to determine how happy the prospect is with their service and then point out where your company is doing better if you can do it in two sentences or less. Then you launch right into the second part of the speech.
“I’d be happy to set an appointment with you. Do you prefer Wednesday or Thursday, and is morning or afternoon better?”
You have four appointment days, but choose only two when you’re setting appointments. Don’t overwhelm your prospect with choices. If Saturday is a better day, the prospect will say so. Record all of the appointment information in your planner: name, address, and phone number.
You should be aware of how many appointments the most successful representative in your company sets every week. Ten one hour appointments a week is usually pretty reasonable. Of those ten appointments, one or two are always going to be no-shows. That leaves you eight people to try to close, people who will actually be expecting you and are ready to listen. Even if you have a relatively weak closing ratio of 50%, you’re still making four sales a week. Hopefully your closing ratio is even better than that, but many people can easily meet their quotas on four sales weekly. Adjust your goals if your quota is higher or your appointment times are lower.
When you’re done at a door, stop and mark up your notebook. You can simply write “SA” for “set appointment,” NI for “not interested,” NH for “not home,” and V for “vacant.” If you want to be able to see the neighborhood at a glance, pick four highlighter colors and use those instead.
Try to keep Tuesday free of appointments wherever possible. Sometimes it’s unavoidable –Tuesday is the day the prospect has off and that’s that – and if that happens just prospect around your Tuesday appointment.
Wednesday through Saturday: Run Appointments
The next three or four days are appointment days. Walk in with the confidence that you’ve been invited and deliver your very best sales presentation! Be sure to mark the results of each appointment in your notebook: sale, no sale, or no show.
Between appointments, check for cars in the driveways of anyone who wasn’t home on Tuesday. Knock those doors and set more appointments. You can also call your no shows in a single attempt to re-set the missed appointment, just in case the prospect was merely forgetful. Don’t waste your time doing that more than once, however: if they miss two appointments mark them off as “not interested” and forget about them.
By the end of the week you’ll have been to the neighborhood at a variety of times. If someone has been consistently “not home” the whole week, don’t worry about them. Start again with a new neighborhood next week.
Last Day of the Month: Make a Return Visit
At the end of each month, make it a point to drive around each of the four neighborhoods you’ve visited. If it looks like someone has finally moved into one of those vacant properties, go ahead and knock the door to set the appointment. Service-based door-to-door salespeople (those selling alarms, television service, or phone service) will gain a real advantage if they can catch someone shortly after a move-in, because typically the new residents haven’t turned these services on yet and might well sign up simply because you were the first person to see them.
The Danger of Door Hangers
Door hangers with an ad, a phone number, and your business card are dangerous. They are dangerous because it is all too tempting to walk around putting hangers on doors, instead of prospecting. They’re good tools, but only if they don’t become a distraction. Bring your door hangers on Saturday, and tag all of the people who haven’t been home all week. Do this only after you have run your very last appointment of the day. You might get a phone call and an additional appointment out of it, but it’s nothing you should focus on. Leave the hangers at the office for the rest of the week. If you tag a house, make sure to mark it in your notebook.
The Final Word
Organization like this keeps you disciplined and focused. It keeps you in practice, week after week, until you are confident and thick-skinned if you happen to run into someone who is nastier than usual. You will be making the best use of your time and you will have mastered the numbers game to the point where you can predict your end of the month numbers with eerie precision, simply based on the number of appointments you’ve managed to set.
