Domestic cold calling

[Newchodge]

What do they teach the poor little s**s they send out to knock on doors?

Knock on my door this afternoon. I checked the spyhole and saw no-one, but I know delivery drivers often knock then go back to their van, so I opened the door.

Well-dressed young man ran back from 3 doors down. He had a badge round his neck which I could see stated money expert. Went like this:

Hello, I'm Darren, how are you?

What do you want?

We're calling to follow up a letter we sent you last wee...

No.

That's very rude.

So is disturbing my day.

I have a job to do.

Door closed.

I have not go the faintest idea what he was trying to sell.

He had 10 seconds to engage my interest, and 'how are you' does not engage anyone.

Poor little soul was probably disheartened. he is probably employed by an exploitative company that requires he gets so many sales (of whatever) to earn any money.

Surely there is a better way that does not infuriate potential customers or exploit young people.

 

[Ashley_Price]

Well, at least he was well dressed and, from the sounds of it, polite. He was probably just trying to pay his way through uni.

The script he was following was probably taught to him by the firm. Of course, there are better ways to do door-to-door, but I think a lot of these firms don't allow their sellers to be individual. There's probably even a clause in the small print of their agreement that if they don't follow the training exactly they won't get paid (even if it gets them sales).

Having spent a year and a half trying (and failing) to do cold calling for my own business, I now have a new respect for cold callers and door-to-door sales people.

 

[The Byre]

Our drive is 500 yards long, so by the time the usual motley collection of Jehovah's Witnesses, money 'experts', frozen fish salesmen, aerial video sales, insurance, whatever gets to the front door, they are already fairly demotivated.

Once I have established that they are not delivering goods or a software upgrade for 'Jokey-Jock, the Talking Athletic Support' ("Strap it on and it tells jokes!") I usually let them discuss their pitch with our external security experts, Samuel Augustus Vincent van-Dog III, ably supported by his number two, Maxwell-Georgio le-Woof.

These two able-bodied employees are also responsible for seeing off people trying to 'scrump' apples and mushrooms from out woods and fields in the warmer months. Watching two fat ladies trying to leg it over a barbed-wire fence, with a couple of Great Danes at their heels, is just one of life's little pleasures here at Byre Towers!

 

[Jason Mageehan]

I have a problem with door to door chuggers.

I did the maths with one of them, and worked out that with my £2 per month donation it would take about 18 months for the 'charity' to start getting any benefit from my money, I'd just be paying his commission and for the company he works for - and that doesn't even cover the postage of the dross they send every month.

After a 35 minute maths lesson, I was never bothered again.

Unfortunately the JW's beat me.

After the 6th visit in a month or so, I was about to open the door at 10am on a saturday with a raging tirade of insults....when they'd given the responsibility of dealing with me over to a cute 7 year old girl who gave me a magazine.

I might be a 6ft 1 brute, but I do have a heart....well done JW's....well done.

 

[London Gary]

Spot on.

I built a career round cold-calling - one of the easiest, most lucrative activities any sales person can ever engage in. I too am staggered by the clumsiness of the people who call on me (telephone, usually). They're often flogging cable tv services - a commodity, admittedly - but even then they make an almighty hash of it every single time.

How difficult can it be?

"Good evening sir, I'm John Smith from Acme Cable TV, we supply tv and movies to householders like yourself. We've got a bumper season of new movies on the way - may I ask which type of film you like most - action? horror? kids' cartoons?"

In 100 calls 20 people will actually answer the question - so now you have a conversation. Have a couple of ready-made follow-ups, make your offer and accept the answer.

If you've a unique selling point use it:

"Good evening sir, I'm John Smith from Acme Cable TV, we supply tv and movies to householders like yourself. We add 50 new movies per month to our movies website - more than any other firm - so there are hundreds of top-class movies that you have not yet seen available for you right now. If you were in the mood to watch a film this evening sir/madam what would it be?"

At any one time 10% of the market is looking to change because they're bored/hacked off with their current supplier. So work your way politely but quickly through your calls, skipping daintily past the 90% and working hard for the 10%.

It really is that @£!&ing easy.

I feel angry at their employers for setting these poor souls loose on the public without even basic cold-call training. Never be rude to the cold-caller - it's rarely his/her fault.

Gary

 

[MBE2017]

Doesn't sound like the D2D caller did anything too much wrong apart from taking your response personally. Yes, it might have been rude, but he was never going to get a deal by pointing it out.

I used to sell D2D, and made a very good living at the game, and contrary to most people's expectations, from memory I can count the number of rude responses on a single hand from several years of daily work.

I am just a bit too old for it these days, and have adjusted my approach accordingly. As an inquiry and sales generation method, few others beat the direct approach IMHO.

 

[Newchodge]

I don't understand why they don't say - 'hello I am from XYZ company and I'm here to see if you are interested in ABC.'

I can then, happily say 'thank you but no' 'OK, goodbye' 'goodbye'.

As for what he did wrong:

He walked away from the door without waiting for it to be answered.

He failed to engage with me in any meaningful way as soon as he spoke to me, instead going into a faux 'I am interested in you as a person' nonsense.

He then failed, when I asked him to get to the point, to get to the point.

He then pouted that I was being rude and he was only doing his job.

Apart from that, he was spot on!

 

[MBE2017]

End of the day, there is no single method which works for everyone, junk mail, spam, etc all get criticised.

He will be working almost certainly on a commission type reward scheme, one reason so many good salespeople come from the doors, the rewards can be very good for decent salespeople. Bad salespeople tend to lose heart very quickly in the trade when their pay packet reflects poor results, D2D salespeople get rewarded for results, not effort.

 

[Ashley_Price]

I don't understand why they don't say - 'hello I am from XYZ company and I'm here to see if you are interested in ABC.'

Because that's not in their script. If they are new to the job, then they are going to follow exactly what they're trained to do.

Have you contacted the firm he was selling for and said how they could improve their scripts?

 

[The Byre]

Have you contacted the firm he was selling for and said how they could improve their scripts?

I cannot speak for Her Cyndyness (or should that be Her Cynajesty?) but my days are filled with things that either interest me or effect my business directly or indirectly. I have no desire, need, or inclination to help Jehovah's Witnesses, insurance companies, double-glazing sales or anybody else (who is probably not going to want to listen anyway).

This forum is filled with people who ask for advice and then ignore all the advice given and beetle off and do whatever they should not have done anyway - and those are the ones who have made the effort to actually ask - now let's deal with some unsolicited advice and see what happens!

 

[Newchodge]

Because that's not in their script. If they are new to the job, then they are going to follow exactly what they're trained to do.

Have you contacted the firm he was selling for and said how they could improve their scripts?

No, I'm not interested enough!

 

[Ashley_Price]

No, I'm not interested enough!

But that's kind of my point. You're putting on here what he should have done better or shouldn't have done, yet, you're not interested enough to tell the company itself.

 

[micheal1981]

I don't understand why they don't say - 'hello I am from XYZ company and I'm here to see if you are interested in ABC.'

I can then, happily say 'thank you but no' 'OK, goodbye' 'goodbye'.

As for what he did wrong:

He walked away from the door without waiting for it to be answered.

He failed to engage with me in any meaningful way as soon as he spoke to me, instead going into a faux 'I am interested in you as a person' nonsense.

He then failed, when I asked him to get to the point, to get to the point.

He then pouted that I was being rude and he was only doing his job.

Apart from that, he was spot on!

Sounds like a seasoned pro!!!

 

[lloydsolutions]

I built my career from a basis of cold calling. It can be very tough and not for the easily offended. After about a year it was all repeat business and referrals from existing clients so I didn't need to do that any more. As for the Jehovah's Witness experience I have had that also with the 7 year old child. However I did not take the leaflet in order to discourage this as it made me think of child exploitation.

 

[Mr D]

As I am slow on my feet and work from home I tend to get the door to door people walking back up the driveway to me when door is opened. They start a spiel, 99 times out of a hundred I tell them I am not interested and have work to do - and most then try persuading me.
Bad move. I want to get back to work before I lose what I am doing, they want me to sign up / agree to get a quote / make appointment / pay for gardening to be done or whatever.

Signs saying no cold calling tend to get ignored. A few times I have contacted companies to complain, does not appear to do any good.

I answer the door when working because sometimes there is a problem that needs me.