Over the past several articles I’ve been discussing management of your canvassing department and the different levels within the department. I’ve been drawing correlation on our business and that of the US Marine Corps. In this article I’m going to take a break from that discussion because I think it’s important to emphasize the importance of training, more specifically the canvasser training.
The first couple weeks with a new canvasser is one on one training and guidance. This is a challenge for a lot of companies because of the size or number of people within a canvassing department. However, without the correct training a canvasser can be doomed to failure from the start. Your canvassing department’s objective is to produce leads for the sales team, not a revolving door for canvassing recruits.
If canvassers don’t experience success early and figure out how to be successful, the odds of them sticking around are low. You spend too much money and time on recruiting, interviewing and hiring to overlook how you’re doing your training. And you can’t allow excuses and obstacles to get in the way of providing that training. You really have to look to yourself and ask if you’re actually giving the tools to canvassers to be successful.
The origination for this article was sparked from work I’m doing for a private client in Atlanta, Georgia, G-Vac, a gutter cleaning company with a proprietary gutter vacuum system. Blake Ivie is the company’s operations manager and I’m working with Blake and G-Vac in adapting my 5-Step Canvassing system specifically for their system and presentation, which also includes being able to quote a homeowner during the canvassing call. This is in different to what I’ve written about and taught that in canvassing our job is not to sell the product, but get the lead or set and appointment.
We’ve made big successes in adapting my system and it proves that my system works and is adaptable; I’ve yet to find a company or system it doesn’t work in.
A large part of our conversation (with Blake) has been about the new canvasser training and we’ve talked a lot about the field trainer position and how critical this position is for the success of the department.
Blake has experience in canvassing and selling however he, like a lot of canvassing managers are weighed down with training new canvassers as well as all the other aspects of running the department. We spent a lot of time in advance preparing to recruit before we ever get the people in.
In a conversation I asked Blake, “What’s the most time consuming part of your responsibility?” The training aspect is the most consuming. It was interesting to hear Blake’s perspective and he voiced something I’ve heard from a lot of managers. Often times starting out you’re the manager and the trainee at the same. You’re turning yourself into that field trainer. For Blake it can occupy as much as 3-4 months; and I find this to be common running the daily operations of the department. They’re many tasks of advertising for and recruiting canvassers, training, motivating, reporting and keeping your eye on production. How can you do all this and dedicate 3-4 months in training on each canvasser? It’s an impossible task and one of the reasons canvass managers can get burned out fast (and why many private clients hire me to find the right canvass manager and train them – but not for discussion here).
The answer is filling the role of an effective field trainer. Create a field trainer position and then actively look for the candidate from within your canvassers for the person who can fill the role. There are 4 aspects for effectively training a field trainer, which then trickles down to the canvassers.
Let me step back for a moment and address what you’re thinking right now. Yes, I said it could take 3-4 months to train each canvasser and yes it can take you that much to train a field trainer. The difference is what I refer to is the trickle-down effect. Once trained it’s your field trainer’s responsibility to invest 3-4 months in each canvasser’s training while canvassing at the same time. For you, it’s delegation and multiplication. You’re delegating the training responsibility while at the same time multiplying your efforts and expertise. Based on my own experience you’ll need to do this only a couple times, once you identify the right people for the field trainer position. In reality, they reveal themselves to you; you just need to be on the lookout for them.
There are 4 parts to the training:
- Getting your and the canvasser’s head right
- The system
- Practice, practice and more practice
- Being flexible
As experienced canvassers and managers we expect new people to know and do what you can do within hours of being on the job.