Door Knocking: A Bold Approach

Posted by David Chism | Tue, Aug 30, 2011

 Door Knocking: A Bold Approach
Twice in the last week I’ve had young men knock­ing at my front door, try­ing to sign me up for a free esti­mate for roof­ing, sid­ing and/​or win­dows. Over­all, I was impressed with both guys that came to the door. They were pro­fes­sion­al, and not too pushy. Hav­ing just moved into a home that was already in good shape, and since my broth­er-in-law is a pro­fes­sion­al roofer, I declined the offer, at this time. Before the young man left, I want­ed to encour­age him a lit­tle. I wished him all the best in his efforts, and I asked how the work was going: Not too great…got 2 leads so far today.” And this was at 5:30 in the evening! If I were the mar­ket­ing man­ag­er of this com­pa­ny, there are a cou­ple of tweaks I would make to try to improve the image and clos­ing prospects of these canvassers. 
  1. Dress Code The young man who came to my door was prob­a­bly a col­lege stu­dent. He was dressed in shorts and a polo shirt – not too shab­by. How­ev­er, he did not have any com­pa­ny appar­el. As a home­own­er, I’d like to know this is a legit­i­mate com­pa­ny. He told me the name of his com­pa­ny but when we were done talk­ing, I for­got the name. Tip: Don’t go cheap if you have peo­ple walk­ing the neigh­bor­hoods! Make sure they present your com­pa­ny well.
  2. Leave Behind Mate­r­i­al: I was not inter­est­ed in their ser­vice right then and there. Plus I was in the mid­dle of wrap­ping up work…so it was not a good time. How­ev­er, I was impressed with the can­vass­er. He was good, yet he did not leave me his card or a brochure. Tip If some­one is busy or in a hur­ry, at least leave them with your infor­ma­tion. With your busi­ness card or brochure in their home, you nev­er know when a home­own­er will run across it again and call you or look you up online (hope­ful­ly they will be impressed with your online image too).
  3. Bet­ter Orga­ni­za­tion: The two guys that came to my door were from the same com­pa­ny with­in days of each oth­er. Tip When doing can­vass­ing, make sure you have a good road map for your sales team. I did­n’t like explain­ing twice we did­n’t need their ser­vice, espe­cial­ly at din­ner time.
  4. Use Your Own Peo­ple More: Hir­ing can­vassers can be a good idea if you hire the right peo­ple who are per­son­al and closers.” Those folks are hard to find. Some­times just using your own peo­ple is the best way to can­vass a neigh­bor­hood. Tip Bet­ter yet, use the employ­ees who are tru­ly doing the work in the neigh­bor­hood. These guys are not born sales­man, mean­ing they don’t have sales train­ing. While home­own­ers are often put-off” by a typ­i­cal sales­per­son, a painter in his whites or a car­pen­ter with his red wing boots and saw-dust­ed hat is very approach­able. He can take a break from his project and can­vass 5 – 10 (or more) homes and actu­al­ly point out where he is work­ing. He can ask the home­own­er if he or she would like an esti­mate while his com­pa­ny is work­ing near­by. This approach is the way to go, because home­own­ers can look out­side their front door and see that work is tru­ly being done at their neigh­bor’s home.
Do you have any tips on can­vass­ing neigh­bor­hoods? What has worked for you?

About David Chism

David Chism started his business out of a passion for helping small contracting businesses grow, be more profitable and become better known to their target clients. One lifelong hobby of David is using techie gadgets. So this blog is a place where he writes about technology, marketing ideas, just for fun (humor), personal thoughts on small business and more.

     
   
       

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