Door Knocking 101

KennMacMoragh

I really hope I never have to sink this low because I hate door to door solicitors. It makes me want to pull out a shot gun when they come around. I suppose if it worked then I would do anything, just don't want to.

pcplumber

do like to have salesmen knock on our doors. We like door salesmen when it is convenient for us and we don't like them when we don't want to be bothered. There is a happy medium.

Ten years ago, just after I met my 3rd wife (don't ask me why I've had three), a pots and pan salesman knocked on my door. I saw his company's name on his box of pots and pans, and before the salesman said one word, I said, "come in and write me up an order". The salesman thought I was joking until I explained, I bought the same pots and pans for my first two wives, and I was actually looking for a set for my new wife, and I was very happy that he came to my door.

I also had a house painter come to my door and I had wanted to have my house painted for a long time, but never made the effort to look for a painter. I was going to paint my house myself and was very happy when the painter knocked on my door.

It is all about whether or not you need the product or service that is being offered. Some people are very happy we knocked on their foor because they needed our service.

Our door knocking is going very slow. A few weeks ago, we hired a 2nd door knocker and it did not work out. Today, we finally got a 2nd person on our team. This was his first day and he got 3 leads. I am fairly positive one of his leads is going to sign a $20,000 contract tomorrow. The customer who owns this home has not spent one penny for repairs in 50 years and he is primed and ready to spend a wad of cash. Door knocking is just a numbers thing. Knock on enough doors and you will find find some terrific customers.

If you ask me whether or not I get depressed, I will tell you that I do. There are periods when nothing goes right for several days. I pay my salesman $200 a day. He works 6 days a week for two weeks. I pay him $2400 and we get nothing, but after being patient, in one good day we will sell $40,000, and the next few days we will have a few more sales. There is often some 'feast or famine' but with patience we win and stay within our 10% advertising budget. I don't think we are good at door knocking and there are some pretty good and powerful knockers out there who can probably do 10 times better. So, my numbers are probably very low.

And....I hate to knock on doors. That is why I hired someone who loves to.

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Mr. Mike

I love it, that is a great little ditty.

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nlgutters

I will say that if i had a painter knock on my door right now and he looked professional i would hire him to finish my house. I want it done just never get around to calling anyone.

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Mr. Mike

Oh my, I am chomping at the but now for sure. 2 people in a row said something good about having a painter knock on the door.

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pcplumber

he gets one $7,000 to $10,000 job every day. So he says....

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Framer53

MR. Plumber....
Years ago I got into the home impovement business with a crew doing door knocking. It is interesting to me how well it is working for you now a day. I would have thought it might have been harder.
I have over the years done door knocking when thingas were slow, it always worked!
I have suggested this to people that are complaining about being slow on work or not having money to do a complete advertising campaign. Most have responded, not me.
I like the fact that it is working for you!

nEighter

bull biscuits on that claim... AND I have been doing door hangers this year, I spoke with a guy today that should end up being about a $1500.00 siding replacement job. Just walked up to him while he was working in his garage and said "you mind me leaving you one of my cards?" "he said sure!" I go to walk away and he calls me back and asks if I replace siding.. :sneaky: you bet your ass I do! Showed me 6 pieces that need replaced. It can be the right place at the right time. BTW I am seeing call backs 1 in 200 or so door hangers. I am just getting literally beat down by the price though. I want to do a quality job, and I think these people just want "color" on their homes, or think the repair work should just be "part of the paint job.." as in not cost a thing

pcplumber

The owner of this paint company has 10 painters. As all of his 10 painters are gang-banging a house the owner bangs on doors all day. He said he has a job every day (or almost). I offered him a job painting 66 apartment units and he turned me down because he said $7,000 per day is what he needs to make money with ten employees. I think the exterior of the average 1400 to 1800 sq ft house in California gets painted for about $8500 to $10,000. I'm positive 6 to 10 painters can do an entire house in one day.

I've seen many contractors go out of business because they could not find a good market niche. Earl Scheib found his by painting any car for $19.95 and he made millions after selling additional services. I can't remember whether or not people called Earl Scheib a rip-off for upgrading to a more expensive paint job.

We have to make choices. Give every customer the type of paint job that we would like to do and we reduce the number of leads to near zero, or listen to what every customer wants, try to fulfill their orders, and we increase our leads to every person who sees our ads. This lowers our advertising budget. We can do five $15,000 job, = $75,000, net 30%, and we make a profit of $22,500, or we do 20 $8,0000 jobs = $160,000, net 30%, and we make $48,000. For my family, I like the $48,000 better even if I have to work harder.

The $15,000 jobs are more difficult to get than the $8,000 jobs. Almost every time we get a job over $10,000 the amount of extra time necessary to complete the larger job is not proportional. Smal jobs are completed faster. They have less of everything and the overall profits is usually higher. You will always get more jobs with lower prices and the larger amount of gross sales makes your advertising budget lower.

My point. Find a market niche and give the customer what they want. If they want less-expensive this does not mean you have to be a slop artist, but your don't have to sand their house so it is as smooth as a $50,000 piano.

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nEighter

Great points. It is something to keep in mind for sure.

maiana

Well, we just had a door-knocker this past weekend for yard services and I wanted to smack him upside his head. I'm not sure if his demeanor had been better I would've been less annoyed but he rang the doorbell and then after about 5 seconds he knocked very sharply on my door and that pi**ed me off - when you ring somebody's door, wait about 30 seconds before you knock. I'm not super-old (or super-young) but it takes me a minute to put my laptop aside, pause the DVR, and get up off the couch. You're not going to get any jobs from me by being impatient and rude.

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Mr. Mike

I mean that is a great story, but even better is is great that you took the time to post this. Thanks a million!

I have been planning a great door knocking go at it, I have been busy with 2 new companies lately and have not had time to plan a day for this yet. I have been training up but I do know this at one time I was a painter and then became a business owner and then became a salesman and next on the list after I master sales is door knocking. I think I'm ready especially after that post PcPlumber. Oh I hope it will be O'k if I save and maybe even post that up one day of course I will credit you and Wow what a great motivational post.

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Mr. Mike

Did you like it? I seen part of it on a trial.

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Ed the Roofer

Mr. Mike,

I just re-read all of the posts on the second page of theis thread and do not recall seeing that comment on the first page.

What Knocking 101 Disc are you referring to and do you have a link?

Ed

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pcplumber

I changed my mind and decided to delete my post and be quiet.

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Mr. Mike

it is still there. http://www.r2rassoc.com/home-services-surveys.php somewhere there.

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astor

Wow..I would not spend 249 bucks for it..I have an excellent tool from PCPlumber "Business Manual"..thanks Best plumbing

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Guerilla

Canvassing is really a profitable and easy to use marketing tool. It should just be one of the channels you use though.

Try a simple straightforward approach.

I got this from a course on marketingforcontractors.com a few years back.

Real simple. (extend doorhanger with name so they can read it)
My name is____________ and I work for_______(point to badge)
We are doing some work for the ______ family over on ________________ and I couldn't help but notice:

That you have chipping and cracking stucco here and here.
The the paint on your house is beginning to peel here and here.
That you still have the original single pane windows.
That your home has a composite shingle roof
Or whatever problem your product will solve.

(This may draw them into a conversation about their house. Talk about the problems you can see - [alot of homes in this area seem to have the exact same condition and...] then close)

I am setting appointments for free no obligation inspections and I do still have a few openings tomorrow. Would both you and your spouse be available around this time tomorrow or would something a little later be better?

The KISS method works. Don't try to trick them with surveys and don't waste their time. Home owners are not stupid. They know you are selling something if you are at their door.

Tell them who you are, let them know you are doing work nearby, point out the problem you can solve and let them know you would like to give them a free estimate.

If they say no, be nice, give them a door hanger or a nice color flier with photos of your work and move on to the next door.

All it takes is one customer in a neighborhood to make it worth while for most of us. I have a crew of 4 that pounds the streets after I start a job and then again when I finish one. We generally will get a job for every 500 houses we knock on. That is a full day for my crew.

handyhands

We did it in the past,...netted a couple nice siding jobs..and have just recently began to canvass again,...

Key is, having the right people. Not too much information, an attractive a flier or door hanger and just as powerful as anything, is to bring up the fact that there is now a $1500.00 tax credit very much worthy of taking advantage of in regards to doing certain projects.

I personally don't like to knock on doors as there's a small part of me that feels I'm somewhat intruding on people's "down time"--but the bottom line is,...it's effective.

Just my 2 cents.

IllinoisBuilder

One quick question: Have you ever heard anyone say that they loved the fact that some stranger knocked on their door and tried to sell them something that they never asked for? I know I haven't.

"Canvassing" "Door Knocking" Telemarketing," etc..... They're all the same in regard to being effective based on them being a numbers game. If you call enough people, knock on enough doors or scream from enough street corners, someone is eventually going to listen.

The real question should be; are these tactics worth the time, money and most importantly the message they're sending to my market place? Look, you may knock on 100 doors and get 2 jobs (great), but have you asked yourself, how many potential clients did I just Piss-Off?

Microsoft Sales has a 7 to 1 rule that states, every customer you make happy will tell only 1 person of their experience. But customers that are angry and dissatisfied will take the time to tell 7 people of their bad experience.

So ask yourself, are you really getting two new jobs or are you creating an environment that's allowing homeowners to be displeased with your company's name and tactics?