[Paul Phillips]

All,

have been doing leaflets for past two months with very low response.
I'm now going to do som actual knocking of doors to compare the response.

As I see it, knocking on a door and asking a few questions then answering a few and leaving a few sheets of information and a card will have more of a result than a leaflet that will end in the bin (99% of the time)

Anyone out there got a few pointers as to what and what NOT to say?
I know all about the keep it positive etc, smart appearance and walk away at negative feelings.

Have put together a two side A4 info pack and have a load of business cards, next thing is just to get out there.

I think 40 houses (that answer door) will turn out more jobs than approx 1,000 leaflets - plus it's free apart from my time - which leaflets use anway!

Paul

[eco freindly. peoples champion ron .sherlock]

door knocking needs a strong constitution, were as leaflets dont. if you are a strong knocker results are good and can be very good. but if you dont offer the magic words customers want to hear. price price price. then you will be thinking leaflets are very good. which they are and give correctly done a good 1% response rate. if you waffle on the door to much about things the cust dont really understand. you will get demoralised quickly. it is far better to cut you spiel to fast .and very short sentances coupled with special offer info as the customer otherwise will be bored within 20-30seconds. get in get out.others will tell you different.I HAVE KNOCKED. I DO NO WHAT HAPPENS.WAIT TO SEE OTHERS ADVICE. and ill tell you now 99^% of them will have never knocked in there lives. but they will relive some incredible feats, whilst doing it. MAYBE THEY HAVE A SIXTH SENSE.good luck :

[Paul Phillips]

Ron,

Some of what you say I agree with, some I don't.
In and out fast is OK as long as the message gets across. Although don't speak fast as words will come out wrong!

Yes offer alot, but don't offer to drop prices etc.

I don't intend trying to get jobs on door, more to put my face in. Figure that I will go around once a month. This builds trust and a also at a time when the guy is not home! The ladies in the world need trust and respect from any tradesman!

Give them this and you have won half the battle.
Then leave them with information and a card. I have done sales in Telecomms industry and although making a sale to a VP or CEO is a different kettle of fish, you syill have to win them over!

Why am I doing Carpets now? Telecomms is saturated and the salaries are going down with the workloads up. OK if you own a company, not work for one!

Paul

[eco freindly. peoples champion ron .sherlock]

paul you are an experienced direct salesman it make 100% difference. you wont have a problem on the knock. but i will tell you that it depends how you want to make your money ie by spieling and hoping to gain respect and occasionaly nailing a deal. or by my way and certainly getting deals. lets be aware at one time people did not move often therefor custs relationships built. today different no only do they move more but they move to different parts of the country more. to see this . and to prove this point go to a site that will give you the figures for any st you want to check how many houses changed hand in the last 3 years, you will be amazed many are 2x in a year.LUCKY DEVILS. I WISH I COULD. CAN YOU

[Paul Phillips]

Ron, totally agree with you.
But does depend on the type of residence you hit.
I live near Cheltenham so have easy access to many of the smaller villages in the cotswolds, of which very few change hands due to the price.

This area also has something in vast abundance - MONEY!

This is also an area that I could not hit with a leaflet cost effectively.
Door knocking in these areas enables me to build trust AND charge a high premium to busy people who want the hassle taken away.

Cost for these people is not an issue. Trust and quality are!
I'll let you know how I get on!

Now where is that suit, need to shake the mothballs off.

Paul

[eco freindly. peoples champion ron .sherlock]

suit wear a pair of overalls, flat cap,roll up. and best if you have a tatoo on forearm with tonto riding a horse on it. get results fast. ron : the mention of vast amounts of money , im licking my lips and getting my horse ready. see you soon.

[Prestige1]

If you intend knocking on doors why not try this out, construct a survey form for carpets. 10 questions max, things like
How old is your carpet?
How often do you have it cleaned?
And so on.
When the owner opens the door just ask the following,
“WE ARE CARRYING OUT A SURVEY ON DOMESTIC CARPETS IN THE AREA, COULD I JUST TAKE 5 MINS TO ANSWEAR 10 QUESTIONS PLEASE?" and then launch into your survey.
Your last 2 questions needs to open him/her up for a quote, like" Are you considering having them cleaned for the summer? Followed up by "And if you wanted your carpets cleaned who would you call? Chances are he won't know anyone, then introduce yourself and your company and ask him if he/she would like a quote. If not you have broken the ice, left your card and hopefully when he/she needs a carpet cleaner you may be first on the list. I used to sell a membership to a club in the high street by using this type of system it allows you in without appearing to threatening once you have made them at ease it is far easy to use you direct selling skills and securing a sale. Always remember people buy from people the product or service comes second. Hope this helps.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

How much is it worth to you to get a customer to talk to you at THEIR door?

If you have a good closing rate is it £1? or £5? or £10?

Why not when they open the door give them a £1 in 10p's and then say will you please answer a few quesions regarding carpet cleaning?

then tell them you are a carpet cleaner and would they like a FREE quote?

Give them something first and then they'll listen, if you can do 50 a night that's only £50 but if you can get 2 or 3 jobs and get £150 out of them then that's money well spent.

You could have spent £50 on some leaflets and delivered them yourself for a week and only had the same reply!

Shaun

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys,

When I first started we did door knocking after ' work' 4 nights a week and  Sat mornings.

We also organised leaflet drops.

Initially I would say door knocking is more cost effective but it reaches a critical mass , whereby you cannot be cleaning and knocking( no jokes please!).

Where leaflets score is that while you are working  , jobs still keep coming in until , ultimately you do not need to advertise.

Cheers,

Doug

[Ian Gourlay]

Shaun,

Thats a good idea.


As I have said in a previous post, I do door knocking and leafting with up to three people, but I do find I need to be with them, to acheive results, and that takes time.

[Paul Phillips]

All,

Right, here we go with results of day one.
Houses knocked (with someone home to answer) - approx 50

Of the 50, approx 25 declined to discuss or had no time - those with no time, left information and a card.

Of 25 that answered question, 22 wanted to know MORE.
Of the 22, had requests to quote for 15!!!!!

Now previously I have turned approx 70-80% of quotes into jobs.
ALL households were in small villages, approx house price £300-650K.
So I know there is 'some' money there!

Even if I hit slightly lower than quotes-to-jobs ration of say 66%, that will mean about 10 jobs.

In my opinion, knocking on a door and asking a few simple quesions before leading to the 'sale' of my company far out strips anything a leaflet could achieve.
I did have quite a long chat with one lady who said she would never consider calling a number on a leaflet as she would not know who or what was on the other end. And by the very fact I had knocked on her door and looked presentable, able to converse and honest about service and possible results basically meant she could trust my company and would use us in the future. She pointed out a small red wine stain in her lounge that was approx 1 year old. I told her I 'may' be able to improve it, but could not guarantee complete removal. This she said sold to her that we can be trusted.

So I say bin the leaflets and spend an hour or two knocking on doors!
Say two jobs a day at approx £150-£250 each is enough for me, to get that I think on average knocking on 10 doors should suffice. That is less than one hour of effort.....!

Of course, some days may be better than others, but if I can get 15 quotes the first time I go out, then it can only get better with fine tuning the patter!

Paul

[Doug Holloway]

Paul,

Well done and as I said in my previous reply a good way to start up.

However , you will come  to the problem of too busy working to go knocking , so business drys up.

That's where balanced adertising comes in.

Cheers,

Doug

[eco freindly. peoples champion ron .sherlock]

paul first class still ,you have to get the jobs booked and cleaned and paid. but the major hurdle is over. getting in . you may well find that there will be a dropout rate via phone cancelling your visitation. that should be expected and should happen. thats how it works.but i can see you no how to do what you are doing. and as said before i am on my way well now, IVE GOT MY SPURS ON AND GETTING RED RUM SADDLED UP SEE YOU SOON.ron

[Martin S]

Paul,

Sounds like you did really well. 

How did you go about your spiel?  Did you go via the survey/questionaire route?  Or did you just introduce yourself and your company and take it from there?

Good luck.

Regards

[Paul Phillips]

Martin,

A bit of both, introduced myself so as not to make out I was doing 'research' then asked a series of questions and took responses to monitor.

The last two questions lead to the sale.

I found by asking questions, this leads to the prospect wanting more information. I also had prepared a double sided A4 size facts and info sheet that I left with the prospect. Simple stuff that the layman can understand and is easy to read...... but again leads to the owner questioning how clean their carpets actually are.

My whole point of doing this is I want to sell the idea of me and me alone looking after their carpets and upholstery. Build a rapport and bring in the neighbours so I 'own' naighbourhoods!

Found the most important part is that the prospect doesn't actually care what the 'product' is, it is me they will be buying from. This is the same the world over, no matter what the industry. People buy from people!

paul

[Martin S]

Paul,

Sounds like you've done your homework.  Going to try something on similar lines myself in the next few weeks.  Similar in my area.  Lots of money around. 

All the best.

[jcbdfa]

spot on with this approach. and what a result. but as doug says balance your advertising esp later on. i will try the survey approach as my general technique is to inform emphasing my local position. general chat maybe about carpets. then offer a free stain removal demo. my area is definitely not so wealthy. people will often want you to quote their and then. this is a very practical and useful thread. ron i feel you emphasise price to much many people have never had their carpets cleaned and are not at all price aware. at these quote success rates(15 from 50) i definitely would not work bargain basement.

[eco freindly. peoples champion ron .sherlock]

jcbdfa i have to say at that rate of knocks to reply it looks good, but you still have to convert quote to job to pay. only then can you say at what price level you can be in. my work is at the lower end and thats were i pitch at. and get plenty of work.i remain stable all year at my pitch level. sure it may be more jobs to have to work.but thats a choice of how you run your business. i view it differently from most on here, it does not mean im doing it better.but i work.goodwill to all ron

[Ian Gourlay]

Paul,

We tend to do the Qoutes on Door Knocks as we go.

Although it has the disadvantage some times of the Prospect not being prepared for us and not always getting a full House Survey

Maybee I will revise my method and just book appointments,This then give me Time to send out Marketing Stuff selling our service.

Thanks Paul

[Paul Phillips]

Ian,

I went out with the attitude that I could do quotes as I went round, but after only one or two chats, decided this would not work due to the time I was knocking. Then later considered trying to squeeze in a quote at all to be not worthwhile. The idea for me was to make the intro, show myself, then offer to go back - at a time convenient to the prospect - to do the quote. This I feel helps build more trust as when I go for the quote, I turn up, smart, prepared and on time. Again, this helps build the trust as I do what I said I would do.
I mostly feel that price is not really a concern to the quotes I have pencilled in, so I intend quoting based on a job that I will take time over, hence will be more expensive than a 2 bed terrace house quote in town!