Does "Door to Door" Work Anymore?

[Delta76]

I know a guy from college who wasn't at all motivated, barely graduated, and had know idea what to do. By default he was introduced to an Allstate agent and went to work. He grew up in a Spanish speaking home and knows the language. Long story short: this friend of mine is making a killing in the Hispanic market in Minneapolis.

 

[HomeService]

It has worked for me in the past but mainly in lower or middle income neighborhoods. The success rate is very low when compared with phone calling, though. So the discouragement factor can get in the way. Call reluctance, or, knock reluctance. I would say you have to knock like 30-50 doors to do any good on one possible prospect. So, I think the door hanger thing may work, at least you leave 50 of those things around.... so many folks are not home or will not come to the door, so leaving a calling card is not bad.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

When I hired my best agent was a 46 year old lady -former ad rep. For the last 6 years she did nothing but BtoB selling ad space for a local paper.

She went BtoB all day Monday, all day Tuesday and set appointments - then ran them Wed - Friday and did extremely well. While my other agents were getting murdered buying leads and trying to sell online she was putting apps in the system.

However - it doesn't work long term. After 6 or so months of it she found herself driving farther out until it become ineffective.

Ironically when it got to the point where she was driving over 45 minutes each way to new territory she decided to buy leads and sell online. She quit 2 weeks later after zero deals in the system.

Maybe there's something to be said for agents like her to just drive the 45 minutes and continue to do what's working.

 

[Delta76]

I still do B2B, but I don't make a special session out of it. I simply stop in the neighboring businesses after my meetings and introduce myself. My biggest group was written this way. It can be effective if you leverage your prospect or current client from the meeting.

"Do you know Bob next door? Is he a good guy? Would you mind if I mention we do business together/are looking at health insurance options?"

Almost everyone will say yes. This isn't a strong referral, but it's at least a level above a complete cold call.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I'm more tame - but I'll leave early for appointments and stop off at a few plaza's on the way to just leave flyers with whoever happens to be behind the counter.

This gets me about 1 to 2 extra deals per month for basically nothing. I can slap flyers out in the average plaza in about 5 minutes - maybe 10.

A buddy of mine is getting calls from "stealth flyer marketing" - going into small office buildings early in the morning and slipping the flyers under the office doors. Very ingenious.

When I did nothing but BtoB when I was new I never missed 15K a week in volume for about 15 hours of BtoB per week. I won't lie and say it doesn't get old, but there's something to be said for almost zero expenses (minus gas and flyers) and making $2,000+ per week with very little headaches.

 

[Ahnuld]

When I hired my best agent was a 46 year old lady -former ad rep. For the last 6 years she did nothing but BtoB selling ad space for a local paper.

She went BtoB all day Monday, all day Tuesday and set appointments - then ran them Wed - Friday and did extremely well. While my other agents were getting murdered buying leads and trying to sell online she was putting apps in the system.

However - it doesn't work long term. After 6 or so months of it she found herself driving farther out until it become ineffective.

Ironically when it got to the point where she was driving over 45 minutes each way to new territory she decided to buy leads and sell online. She quit 2 weeks later after zero deals in the system.

Maybe there's something to be said for agents like her to just drive the 45 minutes and continue to do what's working.

Boy does this sound familiar. This sounds like you are talking about me...except for not being 46-years old and not being an ad rep. and I am certainly no lady. But other than that, the experience is identical. Once you leave your ZIP Code, you are toast.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

You burn up a lot of territory going BtoB - only able to hit small businesses and if your area is sparse it's a lot of driving around.

I'm lucky in my area. We have huge business areas where I can park and put out flyers for hours without moving my car. However, as weeks turn into months I was indeed driving farther and farther out.

Hitting small office buildings is one trick. They don't have security and the atmosphere is more laid back then a large buildings. I can go into these two to five story places and hit 50 businesses in 30 minutes.

"flyering" is par for the course for small businesses. My wife works for a Jackson Hewitt - them, along with H&R and Liberty Tax plaster their areas with flyers.

About 3 weeks ago someone comes in with a pizza flyer - new sub/pizza shop in the area. Guess where they got lunch that day.

I posted this a long time ago but if I could figure out a way to get flyers and doorhangers up without doing it myself you could stick a fork in me.

It's been tried. I've hired kids before to put them out and it's always gone downhill quickly. The first week or two it's great - they slam out flyers or doorhangers. But they have the life span of the Tse Tse's fly and you constantly have to replace them.

 

[Delta76]

In reality, if one is in a metro area I can't ever see running out of businesses. After you run out, it's easy to recycle through again. Most won't remember and if they do it's not a big deal, just wanted to stop back and see if anything has changed since last year. You could always change products and approaches if you decide to. I know that cold canvassing works, but like I said earlier, I think it's best to mix in when you are already out on meetings for maximum efficiency.

 

[gudhealth]

door to door works if:

you are 62 and need a job
wal-mart just isnt hiring right now!
and you have a flashlight and a sack lunch!

LMAO .... seriously ....different day and age and the life products and commisions ive seen just dont justfy the time envolved....not to mention gas.

 

[insuremojo]

Unless you're working from home gas really shouldn't be that big a deal, because you're not gonna drive from house to house or street to street unless you're really lazy in which case you should not be doing this type of marketing.

Park your car and walk the entire neighborhood and don't quit after one hour, you have to be able to put about 3 hours into it for it to be effective.

Look if you can pull down 2-4 ok's to quote an hour doing cold calling and I could pull down 2-4 ok's to quote doing door to door prospecting for auto and home then it's just basically up to the individual agent. I enjoy eye balling people and being face to face with potential prospects.

Not to mention staying in shape for me is important...maybe not to the older, more round agents.

Maybe "better use of time" for other agents is parking their butts behind a desk and cold calling for 3 hours a day is right for those agents and maybe getting out into the community and having people recognize you when you go to the store or are out at dinner and asking for your services or advice later on is more important to other agents.

In the end, it's what's important to the individual agent and how motivated they are, personally myself I'm the type of person who goes crazy being in the office all day. I have to get out and meet people, expand my business by being active in the community.

I think that most people that have "tried" this type of marketing and failed probably didn't give it too much of a chance because they had a bad day, got too tired, and probably quit after 15 minutes of nobody answering the door. Always leave a flyer with your card attached whether they answer the door or not! I have picked up business from people I had never even met!

My two cents.

Joseph