Ok, so if you plan on going door-to-door, what time of the day/week should you do it? Some of you guys aren’t going to even talk to people but instead just leave the card/flier and keep moving. For the rest of us who want to ring the bell and talk face-to-face, when is the best time to see as many people as we can? Plus, what about receptiveness? Are potential clients more receptive on certain days of the week to window cleaning? -Thanks!
P.S. For residential homes…
I don’t go door to door.I have in the past pasted out flyers mailbox to mailbox but never had i went and knocked on the door. I dont know though it might work just seems like it would take way to long.
Yea, I’m not sure myself but right now it’s my best bet since I still don’t really have enough money up front to do mail outs or anything. Last week I spent about 3 hours driving around a really nice area where each home had it’s own private drive and some others were just straight up nice! I talked to about 1 out of every 6th home owner and got 1 job scheduled from it. 650 dollar job next week…
So 3 hours, about 10 miles in gas and and maybe 50 business cards later…It’s not a killing but it wasn’t a waste, I suppose. The main problem was that I just didn’t get to talk to many people
D2D is probably a tough one since some residential home owners do not like to be bothered.But if i had to pick i would have to say on a Saturday mid morning. You go to early people get a little upset.
I think if you mixed in putting out fliers / door hangers and talking to home owners you could get a pretty good response from that.
D2D sales can be pretty hard.A great sales guy that i know told me 15 years ago for every NO you get means you are getting closer to that yes.
I was in the FIRE EXTINGUISHER BUSINESS for 15 years and i strictly did cold calling on new businesses.Some days i was on fire and some days it was like pulling teeth to get one account. It is like the real estate slogan
LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION … Well here it is PERSISTANCE PERSISTANCE PERSISTANCE.
I also net worked the window cleaning into the fire extingusiher business.
I sold all of my customers to a fire extinguisher company along to a window cleaning company.
You have to think outside of the box.
I ran across a guy that did tile / grout cleaning and we talked and worked with one another on getting accounts. He was always in homes and so was i.
I would get him more jobs than he could keep up with that he had to hire another person and he did the same for me.
get in touch with painters/carpet cleaners/tile & grout cleaniners / handy man services etc. Those guys / women are already in homes and can really help you out as long as you are helping them out.
Just thought i would share my 2 cents.
If you look on here you can find some really good flyers all you have to do is put your info on them. You could cover so much more ground in lees time by passing out flyers. In the spring I passed out 1,100 flyers in one day and got 6 calls and 4 jobs. I focused on neighborhoods that had 2 storys or more and that had a view (lake, overlook,ect.)
Lakeview…Absolutely! We have table rock lake and tanycoma around here. 3 of those 4 homes had views of the lake. So yes, I am certainly targeting lakeside communities.
I’ve got a pretty good flyer right now that I am working on…Just tweaking now via feedback.
You’ve got a pretty good flier you are working on? How do you know? You
do not decide how good it is (your link is not working by the way)
I would not go door to door ever. That said, if you don’t have a problem
doing it and you are trying to get some money to get things going, why not?
Most door to door around here is done after 5pm Mon-Wed. I don’t know why
but they must have their reasons.
I would do it on a Saturday around 12pm
I would suggest going out d2d with your toolbelt on and offering them a cleaning of their favorite first floor window. That’s a good way to demonstrate your service, get their followup info (assuming they don’t want you to clean them all right then), give them an estimate in-person, and generally introduce yourself.
Just remember the followup info, that is the one condition of your “free sample.” Without the followup info, it’s a waste of time.
Like Clate Mask says, “you have to be the master of the moment.” This is done through followup. People aren’t ready to buy your service when you want them to, they are ready to buy when they want to. But you need to be the master whenever that moment arrives.
But before you do this, read the book called “Influence” by Robert B Cialdini and you’ll see why this practice is based off principles that have been very powerful for thousands of years.
When I get slow in the winter, this is the only active advertising that I do.
I’ve done both flyer work and knocking on doors. Go when they are home, but before it’s too dark. I would say from 3 to when it is almost dark.
Flyer work is great, but passive. So you won’t get as high of a ratio of calls per flyer as you do calls per one-on-one contact. But the fact that you can hit so much more doors with flyers than you can if you knock and wait makes flyering a great option early in the day…
What do you mean by follow up information? Do you get their name, phone, email and contact them after the fact.
Mark Heffey
Cascadia Window Cleaning
Vancouver
Follow up info is exactly that. What good is it to just make one impression. You’ll be surprised how many people will buy from you just because you followed up. It raises their trust that you’re not a fly-by-nighter…
Good for you going Door to Door! That’s how I first built my business. Flyers and doorhangers are great, if you’ve got time to wait. When you first start out in business, it’s all about bringing home the bacon right away.
Most people start out in this business without a lot of start up capital. Every job counts. Sometimes getting that next job is literally the deal breaker on whether your business continues or not.
Door to door is the best way to get paying jobs right now. In the beginning, when my partner and I didn’t have a job for the day, we would knock until we got one, no matter how long it took.
That said, I think weekends are the best for getting people to the door. Any day will work, but weekends get your the most bang for your time. I would go out both Saturday and Sunday in the mornings and evenings. Mornings from 9-11am. After that everyone is out doing what they’re doing for the day. Evenings - plan about 2-3 hrs before dark. That allows for the most people being home and is the coolest part of the day if you’re in a warm climate.
Door knocking is actually very tiring so make sure you concentrate your efforts around the times you’ll get the most people. Don’t waste your time walking around in the hot 12 noon sun knocking on empty houses.
Good luck with the door knocking, I love it! Let me know if you need any door knocking help, I’ve done plenty of it.
Thanks alot guys! I really appreciate the input. Just for now I think I’ll continue going door to door until I have more capital to do mail outs, etc. I understand what everyone is saying about how fliers, networking, mail outs, etc. are more efficient. But like Clean King said, without very much start-up capital you just have to do what you gotta do! =) That being said, everyone is welcome to head over to my flier thread critique and see what I’ll be passing out. Thanks so much!
My expericence in sales is that the weekends are the best time for door to door prospecting …
Folks are home, working outside in their yards and most don’t seem to mind you stopping bye, if your providing to them
a service their unable to perform themselves.
I like the free sample idea. I personally dont do d2d. I’ll pass out flyers/postcards house to house but dont knock on doors. I have no problem talking to anyone, but feel like I’d be bothering people by knocking on their door…jmo. If youre good at it and it works I say go for it!!
