Is there a higher turnover job than a 100% commission sales person?
The answer is YES and it is a 100% commission door to door sales person. Most companies have turnover higher than 100%. Enough to keep the HR Department shuffling paperwork to stack 10 feet high on a monthly basis.
Turnover is a KILLER! Of all things time, energy, moral and even the will to live. Maybe not the will to live but no one can deny that a reduction in turnover is most of the time a very positive thing.
How much time is spent on training reps that last only a few weeks or less? This is valuable time spent away from helping your current team, generating personal sales or recruiting.
Are you stuck having to hire experienced reps because you have no way to train new to the business ones? Or you can’t bring a good sales rep from another industry over because you don’t have time to explain “how things work here.”
Is your turnover high because your reps aren’t making enough money? Or not seeing money quick enough?
A well defined sales process can help with all of these pains and more.
Here’s why:
Imagine hiring 5 new canvassers. They have no industry experience but do have a ton of energy, what seems like a good work ethic and the ability to learn.
On their first day you hand them a document that goes through what to say at the door, the most common rebuttals, how to set the appointment and then what to do from there.
You then have the canvassers practice the opener until they have it memorized then roll play for 30 minutes. All they need to know for today is the opener because you are pairing them each up with existing canvassers to go work with. They are going to do the opener and the experienced canvasser can take it from there.
On the next day they come back knowing the opener and their homework was to memorize the rest of the process. Now they roll play with the other canvassers and go out for the day doing everything from beginning to end by themselves with the experienced canvasser watching along.
After each attempt the experienced canvasser gives some feedback, pointers and they have a good, comfortable time working together.
By day 3, the canvassers are pretty much ready to go out on their own. You have them do roll playing before the shift each day while you watch on to make sure the script is being followed and the process run right.
Because you track every door that they knock you know what their Lead Rate is and what it should be. If the Ratios are off on day 4 then you know some more training needs to occur. You look at their Contact Rate first then work back to how many doors they knocked etc, etc. It is easy to see where the individual needs improvement.
Additional training is done on Day 5 and BAM they are rocking and rolling.
All of this done IN THE FIRST WEEK!
Now put yourself in the shoes of the canvasser for a minute.
They got a job doing something they had no idea what it is but you promised them they had an opportunity to make great money. They got on the job training in a structured environment where they ramped up quickly and started to earn their own money on Day 3.
Their manager has identified some areas that need improvement on Day 5 and were able to correct them for the Saturday Blitz where the canvasser set 3 appointments and made $75 in a few hours.
Don’t you think they would tell their friends and refer people to the job? I do.
Unless you have a documented Sales Process at some point you will be unable to grow as a company. You just can’t do it all.
One of the best books on this is called, “The E-Myth.” If you want to stop working IN your business and start working ON your business I highly suggest reading it.
At a previous company I was a partner in we actually paid to go through their course where we were forced to create a repeatable process for everything in our business. Not only sales but things like, “how is the phone answered” and “When exactly are invoices sent out.”
While it might be a little overboard for most the principals allowed us to go from $1million in sales to $18million in 3 years by being able to hire and train the sales positions very quickly.
We found that the reps that were willing to put in the work saw results FAST and the ones that weren’t were weeded out in the first or second week.
We stopped wasting time on those that weren’t in it to win it.
Especially in door to door sales, you have to get them knocking on doors fast. That is the part that separates the wheat from the chaff. If you can’t knock on doors then you don’t need to have the job.
If you have no new hire training and just hand a new rep a stack of flyers and say, “go get em tiger!” Do you really expect them to succeed? Maybe, but highly unlikely. This situation is doomed for a ridiculous turnover rate.
Unfortunately, this happens all the time because owners and managers just don’t want to “waste” their time on a rep that won’t last. More like they just don’t want to put in the effort up front to create an environment where a new hire has the highest chance of success.
I am working on a ebook right now that is going to go through the exact steps to create a repeatable sales process for SPOTIO customers. It should be available in the coming months and if you have ever registered with SPOTIO then you will be sent a copy.
In the meantime, an easy place to start is to Document the opener that is being used at the door. What is your top rep saying vs. your last rep? Write down what should be said and the “call flow” of the back and forth between the rep and prospect. From there, move on to the objections and rebuttals.
You might be thinking, “I don’t want my reps to sound scripted at the door.” Don’t worry about that now, we will cover that in a later post. A scripted sounding rep that hits their numbers every week and loves their job is better than a non scripted sounding rep that leaves after three weeks.
Just do it.
Now that you have the opener documented, try to poke holes in it to make it better. Have a new idea? Give it a try! But to prove what works and what doesn’t work you need to track the results like an accountant on speed.
Don’t just use the “gut feeling” test because that can be inaccurate and thus costly. Know for a FACT what is working and what isn’t by tracking every door that is being knocked.
Not only that but go in the field with your reps and listen to them pitch. If you don’t want to be right there with them have them turn on their phone and put it in their pocket so you can hear what is being said. Inspect what you expect!
_______
SPOTIO is the #1 sales engagement and territory management app to increase your revenue, maximize your profitability, and increase your team’s productivity in just 2 weeks.
Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.
