When you look at the people who have succeeded in canvassing you’ll see that the tactical things they know about canvassing are only a small portion of what can be attributed to their success. If you look at every successful person regardless of their profession you’ll find that it’s their mindset and the view they hold about themselves that contribute to the level of their success.
In this article I’ll identify 10 individual areas with regard to the psychological aspects of canvassing and how you can apply them to yourself and others. In a series of articles I wrote in the fall of 2013 I referenced the US Marine Corps and how they recruit and train Marines. A large part of their training is rooted in psychological conditioning and programming. At the core is the fundamental understanding that every Marine knows and can recite. The Marine Corps exists to win American battles. You’ll notice I didn’t say to ‘fight’ American battles, no, to WIN. That’s an important designation. It speaks clearly to and for the objective. There’s no gray area. Another example is Disney; every cast member working for Disney understands their purpose regardless of their job. If you ask a cast member (their terminology for employee, which is a key psychological lesson in itself) what their job is and they will tell you, “To make people happy”, that’s their job. They may be a ride operator or a floor sweep, but that’s their task; their job however is to make people happy.
For the Marines it’s about winning battles, for Disney it’s about making people happy and only when they accomplish these objectives can they say they achieved their objective. The goals are pretty simple, but they’re clearly defined and easily understood.
Canvassing is clearly not an easy job. It’s not one you can do by hiding behind a desk. In very short order you’ll know if you’re successful or not. It’s largely about mental preparedness.
I’ve described it before, but it warrants stating again. Think about the job of a canvasser. You’re required to knock on a door and get the attention of a person (stranger) who wasn’t expecting you, wasn’t thinking about you, and wasn’t thinking about the product or service you’re there to talk about. It’s probably not a priority on their agenda and you have to get their attention, steer them to thinking of considering what you are offering to be of value and importance to them at that moment in time and then make a decision to give you their contact information, or better yet, set an appointment for a salesperson to come to them and make a sales presentation … that requires massive COURAGE. Even the most seasoned veteran, marine or canvasser, will experience fear when thrust into what may be a confrontational situation. Here are 10 psychological components I apply when training on my entire canvassing system.
1st is learn and do things in increments. When you take on too much to learn and comprehend at one time you’re likely to fail. Another approach to learning is to conduct it in groups. Canvassing is an acquired skill and no one is born with it.
Make it mandatory on how much you’re going to accomplish. For example if you’re going to canvass 50 homes in a shift among the crew then you don’t stop until you get all your door numbers, no matter what it takes, “Failure isn’t an option!”
Courage is a virtue and not enough companies recognize it for what it is. If you’re a canvasser and you have this kind of courage you’re to be commended. You do what so many people aren’t willing to do.
2nd you should be studying the past. Understand the history of the trade. We’re too obsessed with technology. Don’t get me wrong, it makes the job easier. Today we can capture leads with an iPad and an app. When I started canvassing the only way to contact a prospect was by a home telephone number. There were no cell phone numbers, no email addresses, and no texting, none of these conveniences. Sure, it’d be inconvenient, but if you didn’t have the iPad you could still take a lead with a pen and paper.
3rd is creating the sense of mission. Another way to think about it is as purpose. I can tell how someone walks in the neighborhoods whether they’re on a mission or have a purpose behind what they’re doing. There’s an important psychological impact this will have on yourself and the prospect. When the prospect comes to the door and you deliver the introduction it has to be done with purpose. You can’t just babble it out. The person you’re talking to have to feel your conviction. They can sense it in your voice and tone. I can give you the best scripts, but unless you deliver it with mission, purpose and pride the words won’t mean anything.
4th is goals; I’ve written about this in the past, but most set themselves up for failure. The goals are important to guide you, but you can’t control a lot of things. You should focus only on that which you can control. Approach you goals with a strategic and realistic approach. You can control your mental attitude about yourself, your training and how you’ll approach every door. I sound like a broken record, but if you fix your head everything else will take care of itself. Winning is a habit. It goes back to my first point, incremental learning creates incremental success and incremental success develops a winning attitude and habit.
5th is culture. You’re the frontline warriors. You dictate the direction of the culture despite what anyone else in the company thinks. The key is very simple, first create the right mindset, next develop the right skill set and then get off your asset. Need I say any more?
6th is a philosophy followed by the Marine Corps. They don’t believe there’s ever a peace-time. The Marine’s saying is that the more you sweat in peace time the less you bleed in war. It’s easy to get lazy when you’re doing well, but that’s the time you’re most vulnerable to fail.
7th you better know you’re competition. Are there other companies offering the same products and services as you and how successful are they? Keeping informed about what your competitors are doing will keep that competitive drive alive, plus you can learn from their successes and failures.
8th the residual benefit of creating and taking control of your own mental game you’re setting yourself up as a leader. Even a new canvasser is the leader of themselves and preparing to lead others. People need someone to follow as an example, they need leaders and leaders aren’t born, they’re created, often self-created or mentored. Vince Lombardi didn’t wake up one morning and decide to become a leader. He became a leader first and then others followed. True leadership is about responsibility and your first responsibility is to yourself.
9th I would ask you if your mindset is biased toward victory or failure. Which do you think about most, victory or failure? Everyone wants to be the person at the top of the mountain. If you want to be at the top of the canvassing mountain you must do whatever it takes to win. It’s a mentality! If you don’t have it then the scripts I have that others use to succeed will be useless in your hands.
10th the ultimate psychological component, that despite what happens to you, no matter what happened at the last door you knocked you will not fail. You’re mentally drawing a line in the sand; you’re stacking your flag that you will not allow failure to set you back; you won’t let doubt, uncertainty, fear, or adversity to hold you back. Yes, you’ll have all these things, but you’ll control your response to them. Not every battle is going to be won, but when you have the right mental attitude under no circumstances will you fail.
In review:
1. Incremental training
2. Understand the past situations
3. Complete sense of mission
4. Goals are taken in strategic and realistic steps
5. The culture is embedded
6. Don’t believe your hype and don’t let your ego get in the way
7. Keep your competitive juices flowing
8. Take leadership upon myself
9. Be completely biased toward victory
10. You must not fail
These are the 10 psychological mindset components of a successful canvasser. Napoleon Hill defined the 13 success principles in his book “Think and Grow Rich”, I’ve now defined for you the 10 psychological success components of a canvasser. What you do with them from here will determine the level of canvassing success you’ll achieve.
To receive a recording of my silver level telecoaching call discussing these 10 psychological mindset components. Call my office call my office at (216) 588-1337. These recordings are great resources for your canvassing training.