How I found A Secret To Cold Calling

Guys; I hope I haven't told this story before. I was just thinking about it this morning.

Around 1976 I was working for a Kirby vacuum cleaner distributor. I was his top salesperson, It was my first year in vacuum sales, and I had been doing pretty well. Maybe 8 months in.

The way we got paid was commission, and bonuses on the 16th sale of the month, and bonuses if you did (If I remember) 30 presentations.
Well, it was the last day of the month. I had 15 sales, and 29 presentations.

So I needed a sale, and I needed it now.

We had no appointments at all to run. There was a violent thunderstorm coming. I knew I had maybe an hour to get in someone's home..and make a sale. I needed that sale.

So I started running from door to door. I said something like the following...

"Hi. I sell Kirby vacuum cleaners. I need to show my machine to someone in the next hour. Not only that, but I need a sale. So I can only show it to someone who is ready to buy...if they like what they see. I'll give you this set of cutlery if you'll take a look. But remember, I need a sale too."

I must have talked to 15 or 20 people. It started to rain, and thunder was drowning out my voice. I began to panic.

Finally, one nice guy said "Well, we have been looking for a new vacuum cleaner. Sure, if we like it, we would go ahead and buy it today."

Of course they bought, or this would be a terrible story.

And at the time, I wasn't smart enough to learn from the experience. But months (maybe a couple years) later...I was thinking about that day.

It was the first time I realized that I was selecting, not trying to sell. But finding that one receptive person that day.

And speed was important. How fast could I get to that one ideal prospect?

And why didn't I canvas like this again? It worked so well when it was an emergency...why not do it all the time?

I changed my approach (I wasn't comfortable using the same story when it wasn't true), but I still went quickly from door to door. I didn't try to convince them to let me in (Like I was before). I didn't try to convince them to take a look at my product (Like I did before)....

I was just finding the one person I wanted to talk to. Not caring if this guy or that guy will talk to you..lifts a huge weight off your shoulders.

And I started only showing my product to qualified prospects. Interested prospects.

You see, I was taught to show my machine to anyone willing to listen. And a presentation may take 2 or even 3 hours. That was a huge waste of time.

But it only took a couple of minutes to disqualify someone at the door.
And the qualified prospects bought far more often.

So my sales per month skyrocketed. Distributors from other areas wanted to spend the day working with me to find out my "secret".

They thought I must know some super secret close...or I was misrepresenting somehow. I remember 3 distributors that would get angry, because I'd leave a home where they were willing to let us in, but they didn't qualify somehow....

"That was a perfectly good lead! Why did you walk away?"
And I might say "No. she just started her job, and she was arguing with her boyfriend. I'll find someone I like". And I always did.

For a three year period (I only tracked this for three years), I never went an eight hour period of working, without a sale. Three years.

After awhile I had these qualifications, before I would show my vacuum cleaner. See if you can tell me why each helped;

I would see a referral, but only if they had a full time job, lived on their own (Not with parents, friends), 21 or over, and the referrer bought from me.

I would only see a cold prospect if; They had bought from an in home salesperson before, they had a vacuum cleaner that was in need of repair, or a door to door model over 3 years old (They almost always bought),.
No people with new jobs. And they had to tell me that they could afford it before I'd show it to them.

Now, I was giving a gift for each presentation. If they let me in the door, they got the gift...whether I decided to proceed or not. So I may give 10 gifts and end up with 4 presentations, and three sales.

Had I not qualified so strictly, I would (out of 10 willing prospects) sell maybe 4 people. But I would have had to make all ten presentations. And it's the presentations that take the time, not the prospecting.

So my average sales per week hovered around four. These are personal sales where I did everything. I wouldn't even run appointments generated by the office. I would create maybe 12 appointments, show maybe 5, sell four.

Later, when I had an office and group of salespeople on my own...I tried to teach them this method of over qualifying. But it really didn't work. They couldn't tell the difference between a superstition, and a real reason not to proceed with the presentation. So their appointments all had to be run (assuming minimally qualified), but I only went on appointments I knew had a high likelihood of buying.

Eventually I trained 2 reps to do what I did. Both made more money.

It's not how much you make per appointment, or per sale..it's how much you make per week.

I hope this was helpful to someone.

Added a tad later; A Distributor friend of mine (selling a different vacuum cleaner) worked with me for a couple of weeks. We were friends, and she wanted to see how I sold. I would watch her sell, she would watch me. After a couple of weeks she told me....

"Claude, you know what the difference is between you and me? I'll make ten presentations in a week, sell two, and be happy with the two sales. You'll work half as much, make three presentations..sell two, and then spend the rest of the time figuring out why you missed that third sale"

She was right.