We thought our door script was bad. It was long winded and boring, and gave the potential customer no opportunity to respond for nearly 90 seconds. When we visited a sales guru in Orlando, he confirmed that the script was bad. Based on what he told me (or actually just confirmed for me; he didn’t tell me much I didn’t already know but he did offer a few tidbits that were very helpful.)
My new door script began: “Hi my name is Rick and I’m with the XYZ Security Company. We’re in your neighborhood to let people know we have a special offer JUST for homeowners. Are you the homeowner here?” If the answer was “no,” I was done at that house and could move on to greener pastures. If the answer was “yes,” I knew I had a good prospect, AND I had gotten them to say the word “yes.” Sales experts will tell you that asking a series of questions that will be answered “yes” increases the likelihood they will say “yes” when you ask them to sign on the dotted line.
The next portion of my pitch went as follows. “We have teamed up with GE Home Security. You’ve heard of GE, right?” Again, another question that would be answered yes. If they had never heard of GE, they probably wouldn’t be smart enough to have amassed 2 cents, and again, I could probably move on. Also, an important tip from the Orlando sales guru came into play. When asking the question, I nodded my head affirmatively. The guru referred to that as “physiology,” and studies have shown it works.
The pitch continued at the door. Basically that GE is a leader in home security, etc etc etc, and then another question… “Would you be interested in having your home and family protected by a GE Home security system? Again, the answer would be either yes or no. If yes, I would start to wipe my feet as though preparing to enter (more physiology) and ask if I could step in and begin with the design plan (which was actually part 2 of the sales pitch.)
It seemed that the new pitch worked better. The people standing in their doorways, didn’t end up with a glazed look in their eyes and an expression that suggested I was boring the hell out of them. But I still wasn’t making sales.
Next we would have to work on rebuttals. More often than not, when people said “no” to my final question it was because they felt they didn’t NEED one. Common reasons were: I have a dog, I have a gun, my neighbor is a cop, etc. My stock joke on the van ride back to the office became: “I don’t need an alarm. My dog has a gun.” In actuality, all of the excuses boiled down to “I don’t WANT one.” Our primary objective became practicing our rebuttals to the objections. None were very difficult to logically rebut. If the prospect still wasn’t interested, we would move on. It wasn’t until later we learned that the owner of the company wasn’t happy with that process. He wanted us to hard sell. But that came later. Let me continue with my chronological story.
The next thing I learned about the sales guru was that he wasn’t making many sales to new alarm customers. He was converting the customers of OTHER alarm companies. That too confirmed one of my suspicions: most people that truly WANTED an alarm system already HAD one. We began to work on scripts for converting other companies’ clients to our own.
I also began working on another avenue. I wasn’t having a lot of luck in calling on people one at a time. So how about I find a target market and find a way to get them to come to me, preferably in large groups.
A couple of bad ideas came to me, and I didn’t have to get too far into my research before I saw the flaws in my thinking. Then it came to me… Senior Citizens. PERFECT. They come in 2 categories. Assuming they have made good money in their lives and are comfortably retired; they are either, (a) in good health and traveling a lot, or (b) their health is failing and they need security. Our system featured 2 way voice communication right through the control console and worked in the same way as the Medic Alert systems we see on tv… and cost less money.
They WERE the perfect target market, AND they have their own clubs, groups, recreation centers, etc. I set to work locating senior citizens groups and meetings, while continuing my residential door knocking and practicing my conversion sales pitch.
Some of the groups I found required one to buy advertising to be able to address the group, others did not. One in particular was actually anxious to have venders come in to their monthly meetings. My sales manager and I prepared some materials and a display and went to the meeting. I was able to set an appointment for the next day with one of the seniors. It was not what I had hoped for, but it was better than nothing. And, I learned from one of the other vendors that for our first time there, we actually did well. She assured me that after they got used to seeing me/us, there would be many more and word would spread like wildfire.
We went to the appointment, and closed the deal. Things were looking up. Then the bottom fell out. The conclusion of my story in the next installment.
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