For many years I have been watching, listening and reading about successful people. The common denominator of success simply put is; the habits of doing things others refuse to do. Studying the dynamics of success regardless of any position in life comes down to your actions. A great quote by Andrew Carnegie sums it best “As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”
This is more than personal development. You can read and learn, but unless you get off your assets and take action, success can never happen. You must take your education from the classroom and apply it. Then the successful results of your actions will create habits.
Another important principle used by successful people is outlined in Napoleon Hill’s book, “Think and Grow Rich”, the mastermind principal. Masterminding is people gathering together to learn from one another, helping each other overcome their obstacles and learn from other’s strengths and weaknesses.
You’ve read about my 3-legged stool approach to coaching canvassing and event marketing:
1. Gain the skill set
2. Gain the mind set
3. Get off your assets
You have to work on the mind set, goal setting, and the motivation. The interesting thing about motivation is that you can provide the motivation for others but you can’t motivate them. Motivation is found within.
I’ll give you the secret to why show and event people don’t get enough leads. It’s the same reason canvassers don’t get enough leads. Show and event people don’t approach and engage with enough people; canvassers don’t get their door numbers in. They don’t take action. Action is nothing more than activity. And taking action is the ability to apply what you’ve learned and know. This goes back to my 3-legged stool. You can know the skills and you can believe in the system, but the lack of belief in yourself to apply those skills limits your ability to be successful. It’s not my intent to simplify the challenges you have, but it really is that simple.
There’s an event marketer I worked with recently named Tom. There are marketers who may be more skilled than Tom, but Tom consistently outperforms them all because he approaches every person consistently… he takes action. It’s a numbers game. The more people you approach the more practiced and skilled you become in executing your presentation.
Action is the ability to fight through the fear and execute the presentation.
Think about learning how to snow ski. A ski instructor can verbally explain and show you the techniques to ski, but until you actually go down the hill, the ski instructions are useless. You have to execute the instructions given to you by the ski instructor.
The more you do direct face-to-face marketing the easier it will be.
“Everything that you do easily now was once difficult to do. From fear to confident, from difficult to easy, from incompetent to competent. This is a movement you repeat throughout your life.” – Dan Kennedy
So how do you create action? You have to set your goals. What’s important to you? What’s the burning desire for you to achieve? What’s going to inspire and give you purpose to achieve those goals? This is under the umbrella of “mind set”.
Tony Robins says, “You don’t have to have it all figured out. The important thing is that as soon as you set your goals create momentum toward them immediately.”
Tennis pro, Arthur Ash said, “Start where you are, use what you have and do what you can.”
It’s easy to look at experienced marketers and want the skills they have, but remember their experience is the accumulation of practice.
Another aspect of motivation is in understanding why you’re doing what you’re doing. I work with window companies, roofing companies, siding, renovation, an accounting firm and gutter companies, even funeral pre-planning services. None of these are sexy subjects, especially planning your death, but know that knowing the why people want these and how they benefit the prospect creates purpose and mission for yourself, the thing that drives you to talk to every prospect; that’s how Tom approaches the job. He knows that every prospect he approaches will benefit from what he has to present to them. He sees it as his mission to show every person the value of what he has and doesn’t worry about any negative responses and allow it to influence how or who he’ll talk to. Why are you out there doing this? You have to continually remind yourself of your mission and the passion and purpose will reveal itself. You’re helping people, not there to sell them crap.
I remember almost seventeen years ago when I sold home improvements first meeting Ed Pope at his front door to present windows. He originally turned down the canvasser for a sales appointment, but we got him to an install to see work we were doing in the neighborhood. I finally got the chance to make a presentation to him about my windows and he decided he only wanted to replace a large front window and a few smaller front windows. His house was immaculate and the windows he picked were terribly inefficient, but I remember being out on the install and we were standing in the front yard and I saw Ed shaking his head no, and I thought something was wrong. Quite the contrary, Ed told me, “I should have done these years ago.” His purpose for replacing the windows was because it was getting harder for him clean them at his age. Had I not understood the value of what my windows could provide him I would have never kept following up with Ed, he may have gotten the windows from a competitor and gotten far worse service and care than he deserved.
You have stories like this for your products and services and you should share them with others you work with. That’s the power of masterminding, being able to learn from one another, getting charged up from other’s success and stories. Stories motivate you far better than anything else you can do.
Lastly, value. Not just the value in the product or service you provide, but the added value you bring to people. What else do you offer that you take for granted?
Think about all that you provide to the prospect in preparing and customizing your product or service to them. For example a home remodeling company, you coordinate the styles and colors to fit their specific needs. That makes you a design consultant. What about construction and installation? Think about the extent you discuss the material choices and installation techniques; making you a construction/installation expert. How will they afford your product or service? You customize a package and quote that fits their specific needs and situation; you’re an advisor. You offer them payment options… you’re a financing expert.
You do all this for free. What would it cost a prospect to hire an expert in each of these areas individually? Is it of value? Absolutely!
When you understand all this, nothing will stop you from stepping out to talk to the next person walking by at the show or event. You won’t hesitate to approach the next door with a confident swagger in your step.
On this month’s Silver Telecoaching call, members heard from 3 key people from Belden Roofing/ LeafGuard Company, who were guests on the call with me. At the start of the call we went around the table and Megan, Dave and Alex discussed how they keep themselves and others they manage motivated in this challenging world of event marketing and canvassing. You can go to www.canvassking.com to register to become part of these calls to become part of the only a mastermind group for direct marketers and learn from others.
I’ll leave you with the key behind how I train canvassers to be successful. Follow an incremental approach to training. Especially with new hires, teach the steps of the presentation in increments and then ask them to perfect each step incrementally. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Committed to your canvassing success,
Chris Thompson – The Canvass King