Last month I touched on a few of the non-traditional scenarios and objections you can encounter canvassing.
The specific situations I address in this month’s article come from specific questions on my most recent Silver Level Telecoaching call. This is unique from previous calls because it’s driven by specific situations my members are dealing with on a daily basis.
The first question comes from Brian with Guardian Home Exteriors. Brian’s been canvassing only 3 weeks and he’s asking how to handle the do-it-yourselfer or I have a relative/friend in the business that does that work objection. He usually gets it at the beginning of his presentation during the introduction.
A standard response is to begin questioning the homeowner about their time or offering an alternative to them doing the work themselves; or deflecting to something else they want to do, but don’t want to tackle themselves. They’ll reference a ‘bigger’ project.
Regardless whether they have a friend or are in the business themselves you need to stick to your objective that brought you to the door in the first place. You want to get them to make a commitment on which project they want to do. You can’t cover the objective without getting a commitment. It’s like climbing a set of steps and trying to skip some of the steps on the way up the flight. You risk tripping and falling, which is what happens when you don’t get a commitment first.
As humans, we’re twice more motivated to avoid pain than to get pleasure. The key motivator is establishing need. You’re not asking them to commit to doing the work only what they’d consider doing. Once you’ve identified the need you transition to the next step in the presentation. This is a step that can’t be skipped.
This objection doesn’t have a high turnaround, but it is possible to overcome. My recommendations for new canvassers, as I teach newbies, don’t try to get through the entire presentation early on. It’s best to master each of the steps before moving on to the next steps. It’s all part of mastering the process.
The next question came from LouAnn. She came across a couple who was just arriving home and getting out of their car. LouAnn knows her presentation, however this couple threw her off her game because they rushed the process trying to usher her off the driveway. First understand this is an unusual situation in the first place, catching them off guard as soon as they arrive at home.
Typically when someone is arriving or leaving their home their mind is focused on their task at that moment and totally not expecting you to be there. Your first step is to acknowledge the situation. In this case they were arriving home. It also could be a homeowner leaving, cutting their lawn, talking with others, working in their garage, etc. Acknowledging the obvious establishes a connection and makes the homeowner aware you’re there.
Arrisa has encountered getting the objection where the homeowner tells her they’re in the process of moving. Similar to the do-it-yourselfer objection, this can be a challenging one to handle, but you can when you follow the steps. In my system it’s step 2, the transition question that motivates them to make a commitment. Not a commitment on a particular product or service, rather a commitment to a yes or no. They have or haven’t had an estimate on the product or service.
Once you know which customer they are, one who knows they have the need or one that hasn’t recognized the need, you add the value of getting the work done before selling with benefits.
Next, Nick expressed his experience with knocking or ringing the doorbell and the homeowner doesn’t respond, when you know they’re in the house. There’s a couple of issues with this. First, I always knock on the door and I knock repeatedly to make sure I’m heard. Many canvassers are surprised to see how many times I knock on the door. Here’s a tip with regard to knocking. If you’re canvassing in the Midwest or East where homes have storm doors, knock on the hinge side of the door. It’s more stable and resonates better.
Secondly, if you see them in the home, but they don’t approach the door and ignore you then you have to obligate them to come to the door. There’s 2 ways to obligate the homeowner. The first is to make eye contact. The second is when you make eye contact to raise a hand and wave while saying hello loud enough they hear you. Interestingly, when the homeowner makes eye contact and you acknowledge them saying hi acting warm and friendly they feel obligated to respond to you. It takes a pretty hardened homeowner to ignore you after doing this.
You need to apply every tool you can to get the homeowner to respond in a way that helps you toward your goal.
My final question came from Devon who sells alternate energy systems, specifically solar technology. I’ve been in canvassing for a long time and not found an objection that cannot be overcome by sticking to your system, including Devon’s. He indicated that when calling on seniors he’s heard, “I won’t be around long enough to pay off the system”, which is their way of saying the payments would outlive them.
Based on role-playing Devon’s presentation to see how he’s handling the situation (which is very valuable for you to hear) it appears he goes on defense in responding to the homeowner’s objections. The challenge is you shouldn’t defend your position. To score you have to be on offense. You need to be direct and matter of fact with people and take control of the conversation. For example, when people try to put you off simply ask the transition question to buy yourself more time to establish value.
I encourage you to listen to the call from this article. If you’re not a member go to www.canvassking.com/SilverProgram.html and sign up and get this call and all the ones going forward. You’ll find that each of the canvassers this month for the most part are handling the situations correctly and many are using the right words, however those words are applied incorrectly. They’re not using the tonality and proper inferences in their application. Take the hour to go back and listen to the recording and how I dissect each of the situations and specifics on applying the tools they already know in the proper way. Your scripts and steps are tools. When they’re properly applied they’ll get the job done easily. Consider a hammer. In the hands of the right craftsman he or she can drive a nail into a board in one or two swings of the hammer never damaging the nail or board. Used improperly and that same hammer can bend the nail and damage the wood. The tool is the same, but it’s the application of the tool that makes the difference.
I handle each of these situations with actual video demonstrations in my Canvassing In The New Economy home study course. If you haven’t seen the program you can find out more about it on my website at www.canvassking.com/CanvassingNewEconomy.html
If you have questions about the technique for handling cut-offs and how they apply to your specific business or canvassing system send your question to me at www.AskTheCanvassKing.com.