This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
In this week's first $1,000 segment, we're gonna hear from a real life door-to-door salesman. And this is actually a thing. Like if you imagine this as a thing of the past, there are actually people still doing this. They're doing it successfully. They're not all annoying.
At least that's the promise here. Personally, I wouldn't be excited about people coming to my home to try to sell me something. But it's an industry, right? And some door knockers, as they're called, that's their, if you're a door-to-door salesperson, then you are a knocker or a door knocker. Some of them can earn six figures a year or more as long as they can cope with repeated rejection, which is a big part of the job.
So I thought it would be fun to feature a story of at least one guy out there who is doing well in this world and seems to like it. And as I said, for the right products, like solar panels and other things, is that what this guy is selling? Let's see, alarm systems. Well, we'll hear the details from him. That's the whole point, is to hear his story.
So his name is Robert, a real life door-to-door salesman. Let's hear the story of persistence and overcoming rejection. I'll come back at the end with a few words of wrap up. [Music]
This is Robert reporting in for my "Science Hustle" story. Here it is.
I've started doing door-to-door sales, which to a lot of people sounds crazy, but long story short, I had a buddy get into it and he swore that it was lucrative. He was selling alarm systems, and in his second month, he earned $10,000. $10,000? I was amazed. Some guys he knew were making even more.
I got in with my friend's security system brand, and they gave me two weeks of training. Then they set me loose in the suburbs, and I'll be honest, I was terrified. One of the biggest challenges in this field is dealing with rejection. A lot of the training I did was focused on this, as it's statistically the number one reason why most salespeople quit. Still, even though I had role-played it a lot, nothing prepared me for the sheer feeling of standing on doorsteps, knocking, and then almost immediately experiencing rejection over and over.
The conversion rate in this field is really low. Sometimes it's an average of one sale for every 200 doors knocked, which is a lot of rejection. That number also includes people who don't answer the door, but the point is, you're not going to be moving a ton of product doing this. So why do it? Because the commissions can be huge.
In the alarm industry, commission is typically $500 to $1,200 for a single sale. Just think about it. You could spend two full days knocking on doors, being told no over and over, but then, at the end of that second day, you make $1,000. Over time, if you can produce the right numbers, it all works out. So, after my first $1,000, fortunately, I didn't have to be rejected 200 times.
I got lucky, and on my 42nd attempt, someone actually said they were in the market for a security system. Amazing! I told them we had technicians in the area and could offer a discount if they signed up today, which is technically true, but also a technique they taught us in the training. I was sweating that they'd back out, but they saw it through, and in the end, I earned a bit over $1,000 for my commission. Now I'm out knocking on doors every day.
This isn't a field for everyone, and probably not even most people, but if you're persistent and can keep getting up after being knocked down, maybe you should look into it. Just don't come to my area, please. I need all the customers I can get. [Music]
Well, as I said, not my business model, not something I would want to do, although I do like the challenge, like the social challenge of it, and like learning to embrace rejection and such, but you know what? I think I also kind of like staying in my cave and doing my thing and focusing more on recruiting.
I always think about recruiting as opposed to evangelism, where evangelism is like you're trying to convert people, you know, you are trying to like sell, whereas recruiting is kind of like, I'm just putting something out there and we're gonna see who is attracted to it, who is drawn to it. That is for me, that's my model, but my model's not the only way. So here on the show, I like to give you lots of different examples and stories. So today, big thanks to Robert for his contribution. Listeners, what are you up to?
What's going on? If you have a question or an update, sidehustleschool.com, you can also access the notes pages and the links to download or stream every one of the historical archival episodes, going back nine plus years now at this point, nine plus years, 3,300 plus episodes. All on the website, all completely free. New episodes drop every day. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
You're listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
