[cozy]

It helps if you have the right attitude. We all hate rejection. When you knock doors and ask people if they want a window cleaner you have to remember, "Some will, some wont, so what?" If you really want more custies, you will get them if you knock enough doors.

I drop leaflets 3 or 4 days before I canvass. The leaflets tell them that we will be calling in the near future to see if they are interested. This preps them for you knocking on their door.

Just remember, most of us with a fast growing round have knocked doors to get that work. It's the fastest way to do it. Hope that helps.

[Sean Dyer]

Also remember most people don't view you as another sales man

if they look mad, just say don't worry not selling anything, just wondering if you had a cleaner 99.9% i find that calms them down although you may still get a no

But so what , for all the no 's you put behind you your closer to that big job

[A P T]

Interesting dilema, why not think of it the way we do - canvassing is a numbers game, we do it for domestic work, and if your hit rate is say, one in 10, or one in twenty, be grateful for each 'No', cos it means you're closer to a 'YES',

[Seymour Sunshine]

Simple way to look professional: carry a clipboard with your company name on the back. That way you don't need to waste time introducing yourself. You can launch straight into your pitch. Print off an A4 page with your company name and Pritstick it on the clipboard. On the clipboard have some lined paper to take notes.

[Tom White]

Interesting dilema, why not think of it the way we do - canvassing is a numbers game, we do it for domestic work, and if your hit rate is say, one in 10, or one in twenty, be grateful for each 'No', cos it means you're closer to a 'YES',

I like that; thanks!

[ChrisOfNottingham]

I'm a newbie too with not many customers but also on the basis of not much canvassing either.

Taking the tips from another site what I do is look at the windows of a house. If it is obvious they have been cleaned recently then move on - don't waste your own canvassing time. If they are dirty, knock and stand back so as not to intimidate. If no one comes then leave a card/flyer anyway. If someone does come to the door all I say is "Hello, are you interested in having a window cleaner?". They know if they want one or not so you might as well keep it as brief as possible. Nothing else you can say will change their mind and No's will get less snotty the quicker you are. If they do say Yes then it should be possible to have an unscripted conversation.

So far I've never had a response from a flyer yet [Edit: I've now had several responses to cards through the door] but people who answer the door have been generally polite. Not many people do answer but by only going to dirty windowed houses I've had a fairly good hit rate from those that do. I also don't bother going up to houses where the front garden is a real mess because I reason that indicates their priorities don't include paying for clean windows , so again, don't waste canvassing time. A well kept garden with dirty windows is a really good prospect.

Top tips;

You can't always tell from the road if windows are dirty, it's worth moving a bit closer. I think its easier to spot dirty upstairs windows from a distance, probably to do with the angles.

Have a list of the questions you need to ask at hand. I wrote them in the front of a small note book so that I can just go down the list and put their details on another page. I also put about 6 dummy customers details in the front pages so it didn't look like I had no customers yet :-)

Also, significant portion of my customers I got by them coming up to me while I was doing another house. On that basis it isn't worth rushing the front of houses while you still only have a few customers because it is a form of advertising.

[Jake Kelly]

(Off topic)

ChrisofNottingham, i just sent you an email.

(/Off topic)

[john.d.h]

your other option is to get me in to canvass for you 

[Alex Allen]

I'm a newbie, tradding it part time, don't have too many customers at the moment because I don't seem to have the balls to go out canvassing. Its crazy because I would talk to any Tom, Dick and Harry but when it comes to knocking on doors and offering my window cleaning services I cant get the confidence up! Anyone got anything that would inspire me? Or any tips? Anything to help me MAN UP and canvass?

Cheers Rex.

your confidence comes from knowing evrything about your own services
you dont need to sell
you just need to find out if the customers wants your services
you will need to advise them on what needs doing
so dicuss their needs
then move on to the price

[KLEENAWAY]

A thing i always do is after iv been out canvassing is sit down at home and count how much more money its bringing in for me per year and as sad as it sounds it excites me and makes me want to go out and canvass even more, might sound like crap but works for me.

Danny

[Woolton Windows]

Cheers guys, there's some really good tips on here! I'm going to give it a go on Friday, I'll report back!

Rex.

[CLEANCARE WC]

if you look ugly then go the leafletting route- but you must do about a 4 hr stint to get a result , chicken out at 1 or 2 hours and you will never get a good result


 AS posted earlier if you have tattoos cover them all up- i took on a tattood lad,he took to  wearing a jacket plus  jazzy London city boy scarf and he looked as if he was going for a night at the opera ,looked great  -however i later found him laying drunk on the pavement, seemed to not cope very well !

LOL  Bobby you crack me up sometimes 

[richard jagger]

I have seen many cleaner fail just because they do not have a guts to knock on door. ANY ASS CAN CLEAN WINDOW NOT MUCH SKILL THERE.
Get and keeping the business is were its at. If you don't want to knock doors maybe you not made to own your own business and should work for a boss who will supply you with jobs.
Remember the custies are not rejecting you personally. it your offer that don't want.If your doctor said you need to drink this medication and you did not like it. Would you doc go into a state of decline.NO!!!

[David Kent @ KentKleen]

on the other hand you may want to build a business quick without knocking on doors. Get some leaflets delivered!!
Or should I have just got a lob?? 
Horses for courses!!

[Paul Coleman]

Maybe I'm fortunate.  I don't feel that I was ever endowed with bundles of self confidence but door knocking for work has never really been an issue for me.  In 1991, when I first did it, I was probably helped by having no income whatsoever apart from a pittance of dole money.  The startup grants only went to people who had been claiming for 6 months+.  That wasn't for me.  Desperation tends to override fear - though it wasn't scarey anyway.  I know this may sound funny, and I really am not trying to change this thread's direction, but I had a childhood of knocking on doors trying to get people interested in the religion of my parents.  Although I had long since moved on from that scenario, I knew that in comparison to that, asking people if they wanted their windows cleaned would be an absolute breeze.
I knocked two, maybe three evenings a week for a year before I felt that I didn't really need to any more.  After that the work became self propagating.  The only time I've felt the need to knock a bit regularly since then was after the WFP switchover - once I had got bored of having much more time off.

[Tom White]

since then was after the WFP switchover - once I had got bored of having much more time off.

That's where we're at Paul.  Wor Lass is getting more time off than Santa Claus at the moment; I'm only taking her out to work today because I don't think being at home all day is good for anyone's mental health. 

And we're bang on time now - something I'm expecting to get moaned at (is it that time already again?) or scrabbling around for work, and next week we've very little on I think.

I'm going to start canvassing very soon; one part of me is looking forward to the challenge, but I just hope I've got the determination to keep it up regularly.  I've canvassed before, but only in places where I knew a window cleaner had dropped out, and in my early years I was lucky in that a couple of window cleaners 'dropped out' and I knew where they had a lot of work, and I canvassed there (there was no repercussions because they really had just stopped working and dumped their customers).

The rest of my round was started with leaflets, which is slow.

[rosskesava]

Time wise, I've never had any more success with calling as opposed to just leafleting. My success rate with leaflets has been about 2 or 3 good jobs per thousand leaflets and I've never bothered about whether there is another window cleaner in the area or not. I've just picked an area of good quality houses and waited for a wet or windy day and off I went.

I think sometimes there's a danger of thinking in too much detail about the best way to get new work rather than doing the most obvious and simple method - a few thousand leaflets. All it is is leg work. What could be simpler?