You are paying $600 or more for the 20 leads.. How much do you figure your time is worth? If $60, that is 10 hours of knocking doors.. The question is can you develop 10 solid prospects in 10 hours of knocking? If you can, you are paying no more than you are paying for leads.. The advantage is you have more control over whom you choose to do business with. You can pass by the really trashy, bug ridden homes. Either way you go, there is a cost involved.
The Door Knock Life
- Thread starter DayTimer
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Who knows why? The fact is they do. Why, would a business owner, most of whom are middle class, listen to a complete stranger who walks in unannounced off the street? Have no idea but they do. We make a mistake by pigeon holing people and saying things cannot be done, especially when there are people doing it.
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- #193
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You are right, but I already told you that - and still you want to argue the point lol ... You call that reality. Others would call it "stinking thinking."
"The American psychologist Albert Ellis is credited with coining the phrase 'stinking thinking' to describe the human tendency to persistently engage with thoughts that do not serve us.
Maybe you know what Ellis was describing. Perhaps you've experienced that moment of awareness when you fully comprehend the direction and meaning of your thoughts. Or perhaps not...
I can attest to the stealth and power of stinking thinking. For a long time I believed the world was crap ..."
https://magicallearning.com/stinking-thinking/
You do not understand: I am laser focused on helping the average American citizen take back control of their money and financial futures from the government, the bankers, and the Wall Street brokers so that they can live debt free and truly wealthy, including being able some day to enjoy the retirement of their dreams where they can afford to do the things they want without fear of running out of money. I use a few tools such as whole life, fixed annuities, covertible term. My focus is very clear to me. What is different is each prospect: What stage of life are they and what if anything have they done already to plan and prepare.
I am hardly into "this and that." I'd venture to say that my customers understand my why far better than you understand yours.
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- #195
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Claude Whitacre, author of several very short but very good sales books, who has been interviewed several times by our own @Rearden has often said that in spite of his making his living selling, first life insurance for Monumental Life, and then vacuum cleaners door to door for over forty years, he himself has never bought from a door to door salesman at home. He just isn't the type to let strangers into his home.
His parents, on the other hand, were - he laughs when he tells how his parents bought from every door to door guy who ever showed up. Claude did by a large whole life policy form an insurance agent who cold called him at his retail store, but if the same guy had showed up at his home, Whitacre would not even have answered the door after looking out to see it was someone whom he didn't know.
So there are many people, no doubt, who won't buy from door to door guys. I have only done it once - last week. I've been wanting to get a new pest control service for our home after firing the last company. I had been doing it myself using the Home Depot stuff with ok results. But I have a lot of respect for Aptive Enviromental, and I told myself if an Aptive kid ever knocks on my door, I'm buying. So last weekend, I had just gotten home from a day of knocking myself (usually do 10 to 2 on Saturday but today it is pouring buckets so I am taking a three day with it being Memorial day). This college kid knocks on my door and I look out and I recognize that he is wearing an Aptive polo. So I opened the door, and let him work his magic. He was actually quite good. I mean, I was already sold, but even if I hadn't been, I might have been by the time he was done. My point here is that in spite of being a long time cold knocker, I myse;lf am like Claude: I do not usually answer the door if it is a sales guy. I occassionally will open the window to my home office, which is on the second floor, and I'll tell the door to door guy thanks bu no thanks I don't need solar or pest control or lawn service or whatever. But more often than not when someone knocks our door and it is a salesperson I do not answer.
But, here is what matters: While there are many people like Claude and myself who won't answer the door, there are a surpsingly many who will answer the door and say "May I help you?"
God bless those folks! Why, yes, I am hoping you can help me. You see, all I want to do is help you, and if you let me help you, you will be helping me. May I explain?
They all say "yes." everyone of them.
And this is what guys like DonP don't or won't get: for everyone who thinks like he does there are 2 who think quite differently.
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- #196
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But just listen to your tone here. If that is why you do it then why do we not know it? What we know about you is that you complain a lot, you tell us you are the best there has ever been, and the the end of the world for the indi agent is upon us.
That's great that you are helping people get that $148.50 back on their part B. I din't know that was possible until I had been in FE for a few years. Frankly, if an FE agent isn't doing that (even if the agent is not selling medicare or medicare advantage they can help folks apply for extra help, etc). then the agent is leaing money on the table. A lot of money. It is easy to sell an $83/month FE premium when you just got them the money to pay for it with $$ left to spare.
That is no different than what I am doing - just a different market and different products.
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We all have our ways of "skinning the cat". I really don't get why some people feel the need to declare that the way somebody else skins theirs is wrong, especially when it's clearly working.
And, that is commendable but that market is not everyone's cup of tea. Back when I sold Medicare supplement, I sold strictly middle class folks and my prospecting methods were referrals and door knocking. I had never bought a lead before I found this forum and then I only bought because I had lead credit from SNL.. I went along with the idea that they were a crutch for agents who would not prospect. (I no longer believe that)
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- #200
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I could see him getting all riled up if I were taking the position that "buying leads suck and are a waste of money." But my response was that clearly buying leads is the exact right strategy for many agents.
Yet he insists that what I am doing doesn't work. Now, imagine sitting here trying to figure out how to respond to someone who basically just said that you do not exist lol ... befuddling.
I could see if I were claiming to sit and sell everyone who answered the door, and yet I said that yesterday I only managed to get meetings with 5 out of 21 folks. That means 21 folks responded just as Don would say they would. What frustrates Don is the fact that the other five did not act as he says they should have acted.
I could see it if I said I was doing all this in four hours a day. But I have tried to be clear: I cold knock for four hours six days a week, and the rest of the time I am running first and second meetings, doing admin, following up with underwriting requirements etc.
This is a lot of work. It is not, imo, hard work. It is actually quite enjoyable. But it is a lot of work and a lot of hours. I am building a book that will make it a lot less hours in the future, but for now, it is a lot of hours. I am not trying to "sugar coat" anything here.
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