Last month I discussed the transition question which will qualify the homeowner for you and give you the direction for your presentation. If you recall, the transition question “Have you ever had an estimate?” will get you either a “Yes” or “No” response… nothing else. Their answer tells you a lot about them. They’ve either had an estimate (yes) or they haven’t (no).
The majority of the time you ask this question you’re going to get a no (they haven’t had an estimate on your product or service before).
As an interesting side note, the number of the people who respond no to the transition question reveals the enormity of your market with canvassing. If there’s an opportunity for your product or service and you effectively establish the need and want for it (refer to my article in July 2011 “You Can’t Bring Down a Brick Wall without a Direction around the Wall”) you will have an endless supply of leads.
These are prime prospects for what you’re offering; because they haven’t inquired with anyone else. This means you are not competing against anything or anyone else. In my mind, it’s the very motivation why you should have outbound marketing as part of your lead generation mix. You’re going out after prime leads while you’re waiting for leads to come in from your newspaper, direct mail, radio and TV ads.
To be effective your presentation has to be spot on and must be scripted and well rehearsed so that it rolls off your tongue.
Because you’ll get the “No” response more often than a yes I’m going to focus on the no response. In fact, I’ll spend the next 3 month’s articles breaking down the steps.
Let’s get started. To help you better understand the steps I’m going to rely on video excerpts from my new video training program, “Canvassing in the New Economy.”
Here’s the transition question that sets up the yes or no response from the homeowner. (In this excerpt I use replacement windows as the product, but you can substitute any product or service)
As you can see the homeowner answered “no” to my question. That tells me they haven’t looked into getting replacement windows for their home. At this point I need to establish the need and want for my product. There are a number of ways I could do that at this point in the presentation. The inexperienced canvasser would start into feature/benefit explanation of the product, but doing so feels too much like a sales presentation. Remember, we’re not there to sell the product, only the opportunity to consider the product through an appointment.
Because they haven’t looked into replacement windows I need something that doesn’t sound like a sales presentation and is congruent with why I’m on their front porch to begin with… delivering a notification that we’re doing work in the area and that they might hear some noise going on.
The most powerful fact is that you’ve already talked with their neighbors about the problem. And if their neighbors are having the problem so are they. If you put a big spotlight on the problem their neighbors have told you about then you’re just passing along the facts you’ve heard from their neighbors and you aren’t pointing this out from your position… it’s coming from their neighbors.
Let’s take a look at how that sounds…
The script lets you be indirectly direct! You’re pointing out all the problems their neighbors have told you about their old windows (the PAIN!) and why they should consider replacement windows (in this example).
In next month’s article I’ll discuss using the pain to establish the need and want for your product or service.
If you have questions about how this can be applied to your situation, write me at www.AskTheCanvassKing.com. If you would like to learn more about my entire 5-Step Canvassing System in one complete training program, check out www.canvassking.com/training to see a 16-minute video that details my Canvassing in the New Economy training program.