Lessons from the World’s Greatest Door-to-Door Seller
You might not think of spending your 10-year-old summer trudging behind an optimistic door-to-door newspaper seller as inspiring to a career. If you think that, you’d be wrong.
My dad’s brother Gary is something of a local legend in the Chicago streets. He’s spent over three decades selling door-to-door making millions. He loves his job.
He’s had multiple years being the top rep out of sometimes +3,000 sales reps at companies like Comcast selling internet subscriptions, a newspaper company, and now selling windows and doors. Most people doing this job don’t last more than a month.
Gary took me out one summer to learn the ways of selling and has been available to me throughout my career for ‘pick-me-up’ calls when things get tough. These are the top three things I’ve learned from him along the way.
It’s Not the Turf
Gary sees every door as an opportunity. He once was managing a group of sales reps, and one of the reps had drastically slowed down the number of doors he was visiting. He was a recent college grad who was buttoned up and ready for his new career.
“The turf is bad, Gary. These condos never buy cable. I’ve talked to them, and they always say the same thing, my spouse isn’t here I can’t make that decision.” The rep told my uncle.
“Where’s the turf? Let’s try it out. Let’s do this caul de sac. There are four townhomes, if I can’t sell more than one, I’ll owe you $100.” Gary told him confidently.
“Gary, that’s impossible. These condos will not buy. They’re exactly the profile that won’t work, but since I have nothing to lose, fine.”
Gary went in with confidence and closed the first house in just a few minutes, smiling the whole time. The second house wasn’t home. Then, he closed the third and fourth house as well. He walked back to the rep, a little miffed at the reps pessimism and said, “It’s not the turf.”
This story taught me about the value of confidence and optimism. Obviously, my uncle had years of experience and talent the young rep didn’t have, but the only way to get better is to practice.
There are problems with every sales job the territory, the product specs, the competitors, the time of fiscal year, etc. Every salesperson can have an excuse at any time, but when we focus on the excuse, we automatically lose our confidence and slow our output. The job of a salesperson is to transmit enthusiasm for a product and the problem it solves to the customer.
“It’s not the turf” is a reminder to me of my constant need to bring optimism and energy to my client interactions. It’s important to be smart and methodical, but when it comes down to action, I always need to bring the belief that I will sell the deal.
When Gary and I would go out selling, I would get fatigued quite quickly. The constant rejection was exhausting, and people weren’t thrilled to see us. (I also wasn’t getting paid since I was such a small kid haha)
After a long few hours of selling, I begged Gary to take me to get some food. He was on a cold streak and hadn’t sold anything in a number of houses.
“Lets do one more house” he told me. That house bought the biggest deal of his month.
Sales is exhausting. Client outreach is the fuel of sales, and it’s so easy to stop when we get tired. The best reps, just like the best athletes, are the ones that do one more door when they have nothing left.
When we’ve confirmed in our minds we have absolutely nothing left, the amateur goes home and the professional does one more door.
The “Process” Isn’t Always Right for the Customer
9pm at night, I’m watching Monday Night Football Bears versus Packers with Uncle Gary when his phone rings.
“They haven’t shown up yet??” He yelled into the phone. “Okay, hold on I’m calling them right now. We will get them there tonight. I’ll stay on with you until we talk to someone. This is unacceptable.”
Comcast had not shown up to his customer’s service appointment that was scheduled for that day. Unlike the other Comcast sales reps, Gary always gave his customers his personal cell phone number when he closed a deal to ensure that installation happened exactly how it should. Nobody did this except for Gary. He knew his customer referrals were his lifeblood.
Gary stayed on the phone with the customer for an hour until they got a truck to their house while I watched the Packers destroy my Bears. A few weeks later, the customer wrote a handwritten letter to the corporate office blasting Comcast and their horrible customer service but also said they would never leave Comcast because of Gary Ballantine.
Gary made more money on referrals than actual door-to-door sales. Imagine referring your door-to-door salesperson to your family member?? That’s the kind of trust Gary built because of his maniacal focus on his customers.
Its easy at a big company like Comcast or Oracle to simply follow the process. The standard process does not require providing your cell phone number, but it was the extra step Gary was willing to take that provided him thousands of referrals over his career and millions of dollars of commission.
The ‘official’ company process may be to hand the customer over to an account management team and never speak to them again when a deal is closed. The process may be to let collections deal with all billing issues. The process may be to let product team deal with escalations. The ‘official’ company process isn’t always right for the customer.
Having a mentor and uncle like Gary was priceless. He taught me to never blame my turf, do one more door when I’ve hit rock bottom, and to create the right process for the customer not the company.
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Joshua Ballantine 