How to canvass without driving yourself mad

[Hue Chen]

How to canvass without driving yourself mad.

Canvassing is a very important marketing tool in sales. Most business owners will respect that you took time to visit their stores and, if they are not busy, will tell you a little bit about their business and the market as long as your approach is right. The consequential advantage that you get from canvassing is that you end up learning the market very well. There is no better way to learn which stores are where than walking the streets.

A couple of tips for canvassing:

• Draw up a canvassing plan for the next 3 months. I like to use excel create a 12 week plan with 2 canvassing trips per week. You don’t need to assign actual days to the plan, but just know you must go canvassing 2 times per week. (ie: for week 1 the first day can be S. Dixie Highway from Southland Mall to Dadeland Mall, the second day can be South Dixie Highway from Dadeland Mall to Sunset Place).

• Make sure you are comfortably dressed when canvassing and that your attire will match the people that you will be speaking with. Wearing a dress shirt and tie with sweat running down your forehead when canvassing screams Sales Person.

• Making the Pitch –
  • I found that getting straight to the point is the most effective way to approach 99% of business owners. I don’t introduce myself, give my name or company. I say “I have a quick question for you. Are you interested in expanding your business? I own several shopping centers around the city.”
  • This is effective because 1. the person knows you will not take up too much of their time so their guard is down, 2. instead of selling the shopping center first you are asking them about their business and most businesses are always looking to expand, 3. you make sure he knows you’re an executive with properties in his market and not someone selling yellowpage ads (no offense).
  • From there you will have to use your people and sales skills to get a site visit with them. Just keep in mind that they should be doing most of the talking and you are to only guide the conversation through questions. Find out all their needs first and then begin your sales pitch. This is a business of needs fulfillment, if you cannot fulfill their needs then move on to someone who is a better fit.

• After you walk out of the door there are 3 possible outcomes: 1. They are interested and you need to follow up to schedule an appointment, 2. The owner wasn’t there, 3. They are not interested. For shorthand, I write either “1”, “2”, or “3” on the back of each business card and sort them later. The 3’s you can throw out, the 2’s follow up, and 1’s try to get site visits.

• You should be able to hit 40 to 50 businesses a day and at least 10% of those businesses should be 1’s.

• Remember that if you get a negative reaction, it is usually because that business owner is not doing very well and is taking out their frustration on you, so don’t take a personal.

• You should visit the same businesses every quarter and you’ll be amazed at how much they will warm up to you.

• Remember that the typical lease is 5 years so 20% of the people you speak with have a renewal coming up.

• Don’t spend more than 10 – 15 minutes talking to any 1 prospect, some people are just bored and want to talk. If they are truly interested, they will come out to your site and talk there. They can’t make a decision until they see it anyways.

• Make sure to enter all your contacts into a database and take careful notes on expiration dates, birthdays, or any other pertinent comments that they may have made. Set a reminder to call them 9-12 months before their lease is up.

• If you have a stack of cards that you visited more than a month ago, toss them, you’ll get them again on your next go around. Chances are they probably forgot you and if they haven’t called yet, you have a better chance of success with fresh prospects.

This is just my advice on canvassing, feel free to respond with your tips.

[DLCRESSA]

Hue,

What a great thread man. I love the ideas. I lease grocery anchored centers so canvassing is a must. This is some cool incite.

[bethazor]

LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS, HU!!!! Some additional thoughts to add.....recently instead of walking in and saying, "what are your expansion plans?"-which is what I've done for 15 years-I now say..."Are you happy with your location, rent, size, and sometimes I add LL"-that is of course if I am not in a ctr where I am friends with the LL! Mostly everyone has a beef with their rent, LL, size, parking, exposure, access, something, and in these times, I am finding this really gets them talking-of course I find out when their lease is up so I am not encouraging them to break their lease....during these times not too many folks want to talk about expansion-many want to either downsize, or upgrade their locations-going from an unanchored strip to grocery anchored-I have been averaging 50-75 door knocks a week, and have been getting 3-5 appts/showings from this activity-SO IT WORKS!!!! YOU JUST HAVE TO GO MAKE IT HAPPEN! Then post all leads you cannot use to this website! GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!!!!

[Emran]

great post. glad to know my style is similar to the master.
i like to find out what the tenant is paying by saying "what does this shopping center charge?". it works better for me. i used to say "what are you currently paying", and it was a 50/50 shot if they told me.

[Lambechop]

Hue:

Do you have a sample of the way you do it in excel?

thanks.

[Hue Chen]

i can't load an excel file to the site. however i can describe for you.

I have 2 columns: Day 1 and Day 2
I have 12 Rows: Weeks 1 through 12

and i will then take a look at the map and add a day's worth of canvassing in each of the boxes and get 24 days of canvassing in 12 weeks! then repeat.