In my last article I laid out the 3-Pillars of Communication, or translated, the 3 areas for grading a canvasser on performance:
- Performance
- Attendance
- Behavior
This month I’ll discuss the grading period.
You’ll notice the language I’m using, “grading period.” When we were in school we had grading periods. They were a period of time the teacher used to determine where you stood at a specific point in time. Teachers evaluated your progress against the minimal acceptable aptitude to determine if you were ready to move on to the next lesson, class or grade based on your progress or performance on a test.
This model worked for you in school and it can work for you as a manager or owner. The key is to establish the time period and communicate with canvassers your expectation for their progress at the end of that period. Rarely do I see canvass managers defining the time period.
I found 4-weeks to be sufficient for a canvasser to prove themselves. It’s enough time to get a feel for the person and their performance. You can measure it weekly, and it often follows a sales cycle within the company. It can be longer, but not so long that the evaluation is so far “down the road” that their progress gets lost in the system … that’s to say you get caught up in your work and other responsibilities that you lose track of this person.
If you’ve been following my system you’ll see a pattern for effectively managing your people. The best approach to managing the people is to give them attention. No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. If you don’t care about them, they won’t care about you and your goals for the company.
The 4-week grading period doesn’t start until a new hire is out of training. I figure a new hire will be in training for 5-day (1 week). They should come in early (1 to 2 hours) each day to learn your scripts and to practice role playing. Every day they walk with an experienced canvasser or field trainer; observing the first day and then gradually starting to knock on doors more and more each day. By day 5 they should be canvassing entirely on their own. Now their grading period starts. You can stretch training to 2-weeks, but 5-days is plenty for a new hire to learn the ropes.
Once they’re out of training you track them each week based on:
- Performance
- Attendance
- Behavior
After 4-weeks you’ll have their results and numbers. Your evaluation and conversation with them is based entirely on that, not all the emotional stuff and excuses that can cloud the issue.
When you clearly define the evaluation criteria, establish a grading period and communicate it with your canvassers from the moment they’re hired you’re setting the ground rules.
Managing canvassers isn’t any different than managing a class of 2nd graders. Unless you establish your criteria and expectations they’ll test your boundaries … and your patience.
This isn’t to say the drama isn’t going to happen, but by establishing the ground rules for your minimum accepted level of performance you remove yourself from the drama and keep focused on the results, which is what I mean when I say, “manage the system.”
4-weeks is a fair evaluation period and enough time for your canvassers to attain at least a minimal level of performance.
What then is the minimum level of acceptable performance? What performance level constitutes promotion? That’s the subject of next month’s article.
If you have questions about this month’s article or have another question, 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.