Face-to-Face Marketing & The Power of Human Connection

A s the business grows and the team expands, we have shifted our focus slightly; whilst we are still concentrating on recruiting the best of the best and sourcing fresh new talent,we are also focusing on developing those people that we already have. It’s just as important to invest energy into expanding our team’s potential, so this means maximising their assets, encouraging them to push themselves, set targets, enhance their skill set and ultimately become the best Entrepreneurs they can be. I caught up with Nina from Redseven to chat about this process of self-development, subverting traditional methods of recruitment, and the power of face-to-face communication…

Nina: Our team’s in a phase where, because we’ve taken on lots of new people, we’re now in the process of developing those people, training them up. The business is still growing but we’re investing a lot in the people that we already have. Helping them develop their skills. You can recruit people that have the skills already, but they come at a cost. We prefer to bring people in who want to learn, who can utterly invest in the company and the core values we have in place from the off.

Hi Nina! How have things been going in terms of expanding the business? Has anything changed in terms of your modes of recruitment and the type of talent you’ve been scouting?

We’ve been consistently taking on about 2 people a week, but we’ve had this new guy start up with us, Dave, who actually used to work on a building site, so he’s come from a very different background indeed; however, we’re always open to taking on talented people regardless of their previous experience. He applied to work with us after a friend of his had suggested to him that he’d be great in Sales seeing as he’s a very confident guy! On his way to the building site each day, he’d been plugging into podcasts and listening to pieces on sales and marketing to bring himself up to speed. He got inspired, which is really fantastic!

What advice would you give to other people who are thinking about working in direct sales, but that don’t have much experience?

The reason why it’s easy to work with people like Dave, despite his lack of experience in the field, is that he’s motivated. He’s so keen to learn and he’s ready to work hard. It’s that sort of work ethic that you can’t really teach someone; even though he doesn’t have the necessary skills yet, his passion and motivation are equally as important when it comes to being a successful sales person . Actually, bringing people on board that come from other industries can be a surprisingly valuable endeavour; they can bring new qualities, a fresh perspective and an energy that comes out of working in a new environment. The way in which they are able to transfer their skills can be extremely productive.

Do you think that people often slip through the net during the initial phase of recruitment due to the fact that ‘on paper’ someone can come across very differently to how they are in real life? How successful is the traditional mode of judging someone based on their CV and does the power of face-to-face begin in the interview room as well as in the field?

When you look at a CV, the entire essence of someone is reduced to a few grades and their work experience, literally in black and white on the page; it’s a reductive way in which to understand a person. Until you meet someone face-to-face, get them in the room and engage with them, you aren’t able to truly connect with who they are, what they are trying to convey, their energy….it’s the same in the Field when it comes to door-to-door sales.

If you want quality, recruitment can be very challenging. Because we’re like a family at RedSeven it’s far easier to establish a sense of cohesion across the company. It’s only when you start recruiting people for the sake of upping your numbers that this sense of branding gets diminished / lost. Now what I’ve been doing is exclusively recruiting people that I know ‘have it’, or that I’m confident I can train. The only things I can’t control about those people is their work ethic and their personal mental attitude...are they going to react well to a challenge? Those things are hard to assess, but those people that are recruiting with me share that sense of company culture, so they know who is going to fit in with the team straight away.

When you’re recruiting, do you encounter difficulties of people not wanting to work in door-to-door because of the stigma attached?

Absolutely! One of the common objections I get is, ‘I’d love to come on board, but I don’t want to do door-to-door’, so part of my job when I’m recruiting is to change their dated opinion on this part of the industry. I can understand it - and part of my fear when I started was that everyone was going to be very direct, very blunt and slam the door in my face. The good news is that not everyone is like that! Far from it. It’s about reframing the narrative on this part of the job, accepting that there are challenges that come with this line of work, but that it can also be one of the most rewarding parts of the job! It’s about approaching it with an open mind and positive attitude.

People harbour assumptions based on all sorts of things, be it a CV, an idea of a job that has been turned into a cliche over time…. I caught up with Nina to de-stigmatize the notion that door-to-door sales equals a greasy man in a suit that’s too large for him and chat that is more rooted in hyperbole and horror stories than anything else…

How have you been navigating recruiting alongside the expansion of the company?How do you cope with encouraging people to leave their preconceptions at the door?

'If you ask any of my family, they say I’m awful over the phone! I just find it difficult, because you can’t see people, you can’t read their facial expressions, you don’t process their body language'

Ok then Nina, we are all ears! Help our readers shake off their old-fashioned idea of what it means to work in door-to-door sales. Can we make door-to-door fashionable again and reappropriate the idea of baggy suits and misinformation?

Look - when I first started in DTD, I was honestly embarrassed to tell my friends and family, because I knew what they were thinking, (which was what I was also thinking!), and that’s an image of a sleazy guy trying to get his foot in unassuming old people’s homes and selling them double glazing. My perspective quickly shifted once I actually engaged with it as a branch of sales. After my interview in Bristol back in 2011, they showed me the ropes and I thought, ‘this isn’t what I imagined at all! This is actually quite good fun!’. We all have strong images built up in our minds that will stop us from listening regardless of what’s being said. Our minds are all narrowed by cliches. My opinion on door-to-door sales has changed but only as a result of direct experience. A lot of the general public will still have this warped idea of what it means to be a salesperson, so part of our job now is breaking down that stereotype and showing our humanity to our audience.

What is it about communicating with a client face-to-face as opposed to via email or over the phone that works? Why is it important for us to keep this method of sales alive?

Ok, so I actually hate phones. If you ask any of my family, they say I’m awful over the phone! I just find it difficult, because you can’t see people, you can’t read their facial expressions, you don’t process their body language…and email is even worse! The capacity for misinterpretation via email is huge! I don’t say this with the intention of putting people off writing emails - far from it, as they are a fantastic means of communicating quickly and concisely - but think about it, the number of ways in which you can communicate the same piece of information, but with a different tone, is vast!

The way in which you phrase something and the line between ‘professional’ and ‘informal’ is really important to get right. Check your grammar. Check your punctuation. Make sure that you don’t accidentally add some kisses when you sign off. All of this has to be considered when sending work emails, and ultimately the goal is to engage your client, right?

With business, there’s often just one chance to convey the appropriate message and bring people on board. There’s not a second chance to explain. It’s so important to get the tone right. Or, even better, go and meet people in person. Miscommunications happen every day with people that we live with, in relationships etc...but when you meet someone in person, you have a chance to narrow the space for miscommunication. When you use face-to-face as a means of selling, you are able to tailor your approach to meet your client’s needs. You can employ tactics such as mirroring your client’s body language to establish a connection. The moments of magic and spontaneity are only ever going to happen in person. You can flog limitless different campaigns at a screen, but I truly believe that you can’t beat an old fashioned conversation with someone.

In this age of social media and quick-fire information, do you think people are beginning to miss traditional forms of communication…such as an actual conversation!?

I read an article the other day, all about how people are craving human interaction. We spend so much time communicating via a screen and avoiding proper conversation. At the end of the day, people crave the proper nourishment of a human interaction. Our business now is engaging the disengaged. We’re representing Alzheimer’s research UK, and if you went out and asked anyone today if they’d heard of Alzheimer’s UK they’d say ‘yes, of course I have!’, but there’s a reason why they’re not engaged. They’ve ignored the advert. They haven’t taken action.

Do you get a good response from people when you visit them?

Totally. I signed a customer up to The Red Cross the other day and when I asked him why he was interested, he simply said ‘because you came round. You made the effort’. It really is as simple as that. In starting up a conversation, you turn the client from an observer into a participant. They feel involved. You establish a connection. You spread the word and the business grows.

People are so ready to disengage with a subject matter, with images, with adverts with people - people representing different charities in the street even - the public will actively divert their route to avoid these people, they will plug in when travelling on the tube, they would rather scroll through their phone than make eye contact with a stranger. In light of this, it is more important than ever to make an effort to cut through this social armour. To make an effort to connect with each human being, as opposed to delivering a generic spiel. Rather than sending out a ‘bulk’ message to lots of people, try to be specific. Make an effort to tailor.

The general public today seem to have developed an immunity to certain messages, would you agree? They will see or hear a statement, but it won’t sink in, they won’t engage with it.

I see the marketing world like a busy bar at the moment, everyone is making lots of noise and you’re aware of all this noise going on around you, but you can’t define specific conversations and you have to try and actively listen out for things. After a while you disengage and stop making that effort to listen out for the important bits.

Information goes into the short term part of the memory bank and is quickly and easily forgotten. In order for things to have a lasting impact and for the public to move over that threshold of engagement, they need to be hooked within the first few seconds from something that feels personal. I don’t think that the disengagement comes from an active desire or want to ignore these things - in fact, I think that people crave human contact more than ever in this social climate - but there is so much information and transient advertising saturating the market that it’s very difficult to have an impact. It’s about thinking outside of the box, taking the time to treat each potential donor as an individual, making an effort to be subjective in your work.

How do you train your team to present themselves in the right way?

We do it practically. We could train them, sat in a glass box, reading information off of a white board, but ultimately that’s not going to be very effective. What we do is we get them to shadow someone who is experienced in the field so that they can see first-hand what they’re doing. You will copy people’s body language, their mannerisms etc. perhaps without even realising it. By process of osmosis they will pick up effective modes of communication. It’s learning by association, from experiencing something first hand rather than learning by rote. It’s also important for them to make mistakes! If you’re waiting for them to be ‘perfect’ before they go out and engage with a customer, you’ll be waiting a long time. They might be ready in a closed environment, but out in the field it can sometimes be a different story. Things happen unexpectedly in real life, things can throw you off, your client may not respond in a way that you thought they would, and you have to be ready for that. A real person has questions, they might have a dog jumping up at you during your conversation, and if you’re so set on sticking to a script that you’re not able to adapt to meet each person’s needs, then you’re not going to engage them.

I also think that this cliche of a door-to-door salesman stems from people feeling like they are being talked at as opposed to conversed with. Would you agree?

Yes - it’s important to bring a bit of your own personality to the business. I don’t mean to veer off the topic entirely, but to have confidence in your ability to bring the text to life. It’s important to remember that we’re not aiming to recruit an army of ‘word-perfect’ clones, we want diversity, we want each Entrepreneur to have a strong idea of the kind of salesperson they aspire to be. That’s how you grow a business and it’s important to recognise that each person is capable of one day running their own office, with their own values and distinct brand. If robots could sell, I’d be worried. We have a higher cognitive function.

It’s about empathy, treating each person as an individual.

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