3 Things You Can Learn From a Door to Door Salesperson

We recently had a door-to-door sales person named Dan pull up our driveway and ask us if we’d like our roof painted.

We have a 200 year-old home with a metal roof and it was showing wear and rust.

This undone project had been nagging at us for quite some time.

Painting the roof had been on my husband’s mile long to-do list, but he just hadn’t gotten around to it.

Dan explained to my husband that his crew was between jobs and looking to fill in their down time. Were we interested?

Yes, we were interested but extremely skeptical.

We didn’t know this guy, his crew, his work quality or pricing.

Dan handled the sales pitch beautifully and in the end we hired him to paint the roof of our house, both barns and two stone outhouses.

I never asked him, but my hunch is that Dan probably doesn’t think of himself as a salesperson.

He probably thinks of himself as a painter.

Which is fine but I’m here to tell you, we can all learn some sales lessons from Door-to-Door Salesman, Painter Dan.

Go Out and Get Your Own Leads

While his crew was between jobs, Dan didn’t just wait around for leads to come to him, he went out and got his own sales.

Often in sales, we wait for the leads to come to us. We rely on our marketing departments and websites to drive our traffic and in the meantime, we wait.

Why are we waiting?

Maximize your time and sales by getting out there and finding people who could better their lives with your goods and/or services even if they aren’t actively seeking you out.

Be of Service

Once you get someone in front of you the conversation must be about solving their problems not scoring yourself an additional sale.

Dan spent time chatting with my husband about our home and property.

He complimented my husband on the work he was already doing.

Then he commiserated on how difficult it is to get big projects completed.

Finally he went in for the close.

The “sale” was not all about the details of painting the roof or his price to do so, but how his guys could come and in a few days knock this out so my husband could focus his time elsewhere.

“Would that help you?” he asked my husband.

Um, yeah it would!

The Power of References

I had mentioned that we were intrigued yet very skeptical of Dan and his crew at the beginning.

I mean who hires a guy off the street to work on your historic home?

But our reluctance dissipated when Dan sealed the deal by giving us an impressive reference.

His guys had just recoated the roof of the milling company around the corner from us where we get all of our hay. He encouraged us to drive by and take a look at their work and even speak with the owner if we would like.

This immediately put us at ease.

I mean, if they trusted Dave why shouldn’t we?

Providing powerful references to your prospects utilizes the Law of Social Proof which says that people do what people like them are inclined to do.

Make buying easy for your leads by showing them how others just like them made the decision and were pleased with the results.

Trust me, buyers won’t take your word for it that you offer a quality product at a fair price, but they will follow right along the buying path behind others they deem as their peers.

You don’t encounter many door to door salespeople anymore.

They are the last of a dying breed, but they possess some of the best selling skills I’ve seen.

So take a page from Painter Dan’s playbook and go change the world!


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About the Author: Amy O'Connor

As one of the most in-demand sales training consultants in North America today, Amy O’Connor brings a decade’s worth of industry experience and knowledge, along with a fresh female perspective on leadership, to her impactful and enlightening seminars.