Canvassing, knocking on doors, meeting and greeting people and direct sales is a major drain on anyone’s energy level.
If you study successful people like I do you would understand they know keeping their energy level up is critical to their success. It’s kind of a catch-22 situation. You were probably attracted to this job because of the high-level of performance and ability to control your destiny and success. You were probably attracted by the go-go-go speed of the business, but may not have imagined how much energy the ‘grind’ of the job can take out of you.
I get to work with a lot of top performers who’s will power is their most powerful form of energy. They’re able to push through adversity and obstacles on sheer will power alone. However, I also see where the same top-performers squander this power and/or get it robbed from them by energy-takers. These energy-takers come in all different forms. In this article I will focus only on the mental and emotional energy-takers.
Awareness
Awareness is defined as having the knowledge or perception of a situation or fact. I state the obvious because it’s one of our most valuable and rare states. Sometimes we can get so busy and distracted by things we become unaware of what’s actually going on. Think about it, there are days that you have so much energy that you seem unstoppable. Then there are other days you just can’t get anything rolling in the right direction.
Energy, like time, is something each of us has only a limited amount of. But what can you do to make sure you have the energy you need when you need it?
I’d suggest an exercise to you. On a sheet of paper create 4 lists:
- The things that stress you out in life and/or business
- The things incomplete in your life
- The things you multi-task
- Identify the things and/or people that rob you of time and energy
You’ll find this exercise to be very helpful. It’s called “Clear the mental clutter.” Identifying these negative things in your life will help you identify the things that are robbing you of energy.
Once you develop these lists you should be able to identify how the Perato Principle comes into play. Perato is the law of the vital few or the principle of factor scarcity. You may recognize it more as the 80/20 rule. 80% of your income is generated by 20% of your effort. It’s inarguable, but for many events in your life roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. What are the 20% of things and/or people that rob you of 80% of your energy?
The starting point for productivity is awareness. You’ve just gone through the exercises of listing things that rob you of energy. You’re now more aware of what they are. If you haven’t, do so now, before you continue.
You’ve listed what robs you. What many don’t understand is that your will power, your powerful energy gets squandered on these things not because you’re doing them, but because you are resisting doing the tough things you should do. You hold back emotions, multi-task and avoid making tough decisions… and it has a toll on you. Will power is largely an emotional & mental energy.
Create conditions that avoid and/or overcome these obstacles or energy-takers.
Habits Can Add or Take Away Your Energy
You may be asking yourself, what does all this have to do with me being a more successful marketer? Your personal and internal success comes before your business and external success. You can’t be successful externally until you’ve become successful internally. The lists I asked you to make all are internal issues; unique to you and your situation. You have to face them; you have to become aware of them consciously (internally) before you can overcome them externally. Now that you’re aware you can take intentional steps to create a new habit of how you do things. I often use sports analogies and here I would liken the forming of a new habit to the sport of golf. If you’ve not played golf it may come as a surprise to know the game is more a mental game rather than a physical one. That’s not to say that golfers are not athletes… they are. However, much of a professional golfer’s practice is in developing the right mental states. More specifically the success of a golfer’s stroke or swing is dependent on doing the same thing exactly the same on each swing. He or she has to develop muscle memory. The method of performing unconsciously without thought. The mind and body simply perform without thinking.
The things you put on the lists above are the things you’re doing unconsciously right now. You do them without thought. The energy drain comes in because you’re aware that you’re not as successful as you think you should be. You stress over it and it robs you of energy. When you identify the ‘takers’ you can focus on developing new habits. Ones that are more congruent with the direction and successes you want to achieve. When you replace the factors causing you stress with drivers, your will power and energy becomes focused on doing the things that lead you and guide you in the right direction. I spoke of it earlier. You’ve experienced it. It’s those days when everything you do turns up golden.
Finally, get your new method ‘in habit’. If you don’t have it in habit, you don’t have it!
To get you on the path of getting your new direction in habit you should only be doing 2 things:
First, do what you’re great at! When you do you’re creating maximum value, for yourself and others. Second, when you’re not doing what you’re great at, unplug! You need to disconnect from the things that are sucking up your energy. The mental, physical, and emotional things. You only have so much energy. When the tank is empty, you need to refuel it. Just like an automobile, you can’t go unless there’s fuel in the tank.
The same is true in changing your work habits. Work on 1 thing at a time.
I’ll leave you with one canvassing specific related idea. I think I’ve made a clear point in this article that you need to take the pressure off of yourself in order to change the results and outcomes in your life. It’s not any different than what you’ve already learned from me in my canvassing system.
The old-school way of approaching a prospect at their door is to offer them an appointment. Doing it so early in the relationship with that prospect puts too much pressure on them. The threshold is too high and they instinctively respond with resistance and put both of you in a negative position. My approach eliminates the stress by offering them something entirely different. I ultimately get the prospect to an appointment, but it’s not where I start.
It’s difficult to adopt and learn a new method because it’s foreign to you. You rob yourself of energy by resisting to learn the new system. You stress about it, you get anxious and look for ways to escape this uncomfortable, new approach. You waste that energy on the wrong thing. Instead, eliminate the stress, accept that it’s a new way of doing things, accept you don’t know it and aren’t comfortable with it now, but also accept that you’re willing to learn it. Make your first habit to accept and then understand rather than reject and refuse it.
If you’re a manager or owner, you want to dedicate 10-minutes a day with your marketers to role play the process. Only 10-minutes a day will make you and the people you role play with better.
Dedicating 10-minutes on this one thing you and your marketers become more focused. You create the positive energy to carry you through the shift. Your positive energy elevates because your experience with the ‘new’ thing is positive. You develop the ‘muscle memory’ for canvassing by continually practicing. The repetition creates the habit.
Next, when you head out into the neighborhoods to call on prospects, eliminate the thoughts that cripple every canvasser. I hear it regularly when I walk and train canvassers. I hear them verbalize, “I hope there are people home”, or “I hope people will be nicer today”, or “I hope I meet people who will need my product or service”. This is mental clutter; it’s debilitating. These are distractions that zap your energy. You can’t control those things. What you can control is knowing and delivering your presentation, knocking on doors and greeting people. The only difference between role playing your presentation in the office and delivering it to a prospect is geography. If you have 50 doors to knock on, then that’s your job. The residual effect is you get leads and set appointments. Your energy is focused on the right things, your job. This is how I get consistent results day in and day out. I canvass when I’m on site with a private client, but I don’t canvass anywhere near as many doors as the people I train, but I can out-perform most of them. Not because I’m necessarily a better canvasser than they, but I have a better view and approach to the job.
I know this can be a little challenging to grasp. If you struggle with the concepts I laid out here I’ll be happy to discuss it with you further. You can reach out to me at cthompson@canvassking.com or call my office at (216) 588-1337.
I remain committed to your canvassing success.
Chris Thompson
The Canvass King