I went out today for the first time doing door to door residential sales. Overall, a good experience. We (my wife and I) only knocked 7 doors, but within the first 5 we gave 1 estimate. I realize the demographic overview is extremely limited due to there only being 7 houses, but it was interesting to see that the only estimate we handed out was also the only elderly woman resident.
My wife decided to bring a secret weapon along with us: our 1 year old, super adorable son. He was an immediate conversation starter for the first door she knocked with him, and that was the house that received an estimate. I’m thinking I’ll take advantage of this in the future!
I was pleasantly surprised at how people reacted to our knocking, with 6/7 being very kind, and the last one being somewhat… apathetic, I suppose. Tired, perhaps. I think I will be focusing primarily on this for building my business.
It’s a numbers game. Get some door hangers or flyers and saturate an entire neighborhood or two and you should get a few phone calls. Good on you though.
Unprofessional? Perhaps. Successful? Yeah. Nobody can be rude to a cute baby. Besides, he’s got his own uniform shirt!
I already have the marketing blueprint. Sure, I can send a day passing out 200 flyers for maybe 1 call if I’m lucky… Or I can knock on doors for 30 minutes and get 1-2, maybe more on a good day.
Okay, your call. Not all days will give such results - most anyone here can attest to that. Perhaps if you dropped 200 instead of 7 your numbers might have improved.
Sooner or later, I’m sure someone will realize how much time they are wasting and they will likely change their tactics. Giving a single estimate out of 7 is ok, but it isn’t a booked job (yet or maybe at all).
In my experience, door knocking and face-to-face selling is the only way to get work RIGHT NOW if you haven’t got anything on the books. It’s typically a storefront tactic, but can be applied to residential work.
Good on you for trying. Shame on you for stopping after just 7 doors.
I’ve passed out well over 200 total. To targeted neighborhoods with the professional designs from the WCRA. No calls. The fact is, in the kind of market I’m in, door to door is simply more efficient.
Giving 1 estimate out of 20 minutes spent knocking doors is, in fact, an outstanding response rate and extremely efficient. Every time I clean a home I will knock the nearest 5 doors as well.
The one estimate isn’t a job yet, but neither would a call from a flyer be, either. Hire 5 guys to pass out flyers for 8 hours. Now hire 5 guys to knock doors for 8 hours. Guess who will get the most business? The knockers, hands down.
Fred, if you are asking my opinion? 200 is a neighborhood. 2,000 - now we’re getting started. It takes time to get your presence known. I used to think 200-300 was a LOT. It isn’t. In my experience you have to get thousands out there - over and over again.
Why do you think McDonalds and Pizza Hut advertise over and over and over again? Because if they just did it little here, and a little there, someone else would get their share of the market.
Think and act like the big boys. The most successful out there are always letting the customer base know that they are here and ready to serve. Always.
Ultimately, the deciding factor in this was the efficiency and cost of doing it. I have neither the time or the funds to spend on hundreds of flyers that will take days to distribute and weeks or months to get a 0.5% response, if I’m lucky. Even then, they will still only be estimate requests, not jobs.
Maybe I’ll change tactics in the future, but so far I see door to door sales being plainly superior in every way.
Advertising over and over and over is for awareness, not sales. If I was in a city of 200,000 with potentially hundreds of thousands more around, looking to grow a $1,000,000+ per year business, you would be absolutely right. In a region of scattered small towns with tight-knit, primarily elderly residents? Word of mouth is the way in, baby. These small towns? No mcdonald’s or pizza huts to be seen.
Also, you’re the one who said 200 flyers would give better results. My numbers say otherwise. How about this, you spend 8 hours solo passing out flyers. I’ll spend 8 hours knocking doors solo. We’ll compare results afterwards.
I completely agree with your statements regarding letting the customers know I am here for them. I just think there are better ways to do that then personally delivering a notification to every single one of them.
Time constraints kept me from knocking more doors than just 7. Had to get my feet wet first! We’ll see how it goes next time.
@Fredled you seem a little defensive. Most people here are just trying to help. Many have tried what you are doing and are sharing their experience with you. Don’t fall into the trap of learning the hard way… use other people’s decades of experience to your advantage.
You win.
Advertising over and over is awareness, as it is advertising. Ringing 7 doorbells once is awareness as it is advertising. Choose your delivery method and show us how it’s done.
I was just trying to offer a wee bit of guidance, because 7 people or 200 people who are aware of you even being in business is like not even being in business; those numbers just don’t do it.
Would love to hear how well things are going come first of the year.
