STOP Freezing at the Door (or kitchen table)
Adam Bensman explains why salespeople freeze when a homeowner opens the door: they pause to think instead of having scripted opening lines. The fix is learning exact first words for different situations and practicing until responses become automatic.
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How do you get over freezing at the door? You know the moment you knock on the door, wrap those knuckles on it, door opens. You've been anxiously waiting them. The minute that your eyes lock the eyes of that homeowner, you absolutely freeze in your tracks. It's as if someone shot you with some sort of magic freezing gun. Your muscles are seized, your brain is blank, and there are no words coming out of your mouth. The metaphorical cop truly got your tongue. And that microsecond of freezing feels like an absolute eternity. And the longer it feels, the more afraid you get. The feelings bubble up inside, the anxiety bubbles up inside, and by the time some words fumble out of your mouth, they spittle out like gross vomit. The homeowner says, no thanks, we're not interested. Closes the door in your face, you tuck your tail between your legs, you walk to the next door questioning, am I even cut out for this? Should I even be doing roofing sales? And you wonder whether you want to go get into your truck or car right now and call it a day? Have you been there? If you or someone you know has been there, then this video is for you. And it was inspired by a YouTube comment. So thank you for all of your participation, engagement and collaboration and building just such an incredible community, supporting each other as we all grow so we can smash our income goal and give every customer an amazing experience, which, by the way, is exactly what we do here. So welcome or welcome back. My name is Adam Bensman, the roof strategist, and I am so excited to have you here because this topic is one of those topics that people don't like to talk about. Sales get so bro y and aggressive and everyone should a, b, c always be closing, right? It just doesn't work like that. The reality of door to door sales, the reality of sales in general, and the reality of roofing sales is that this industry is tough. It beats us up and it forces us to face our inner demons and our challenges in ways that no other career forces us to. So in this video, I want to highlight two things for you. Number one is the cause of why you are freezing at the door. And then number two is to give you a two part solution to figure out how to fix this truly for good. And that I can dang near promise you with every penny in my name. So let's get to it. First, why is it that we freeze at the door? All right, now we're going to take a little segue here and I want to take you on a journey first, I want to take you on a journey to the last time you rented a rental car. You were at the airport. You got into the rental car, you sit down and you find the key. You buckle up, you find all the controls, and you're like the start. Where's that push button? Is it under the column here? Is it there? Is it there? It's in a different spot every time, and it's a fumbly mess. But now I want to take you to the last time you started your car or your truck in a hurry. It probably went something like this. You bust into the car, your phone's in one ear like this. You get in, you get into it, you push and put on the brake, hit the button, go shift it in gear, you're on the road like that. You didn't even have to think about it. You're multitasking, you're distracted, and you're in a panic. Yet when you get in your vehicle, do you have to think about it? Do you bobble? The answer is no. But why is that? That is because you have done it thousands and thousands and thousands of times. You slide into your vehicle the same way, hand on the wheel, you, you know exactly where your push button or your start is. You hit it, you shift it in gear, you've done it 1 million times. These neural pathways in your brain are running on autopilot. But when you get in that rental car, on the other hand, you have to figure out where everything is. That's what takes so long. Have you been on the phone in a rental car and like, flustered and trying to figure out how to start the thing and put it in drive? It's happened to me. I'm in a rental car a lot. And I'll tell you, this experience is what helped me put together this video. So this story, this experience that I'm guessing you can relate to the autopilot responses, the automatic responses rather of getting in your own vehicle versus a rental car, is this. When you get into your own car, you do not have to think. You fire on autopilot. But when you get into a rental car, nothing is new. So you have to pause and think. Pausing and thinking are what causes freezing. I repeat, pausing and thinking. Or worse yet, having to pause and think is what causes freezing. So now that we know the root cause of freezing, which is having to pause and think, we can now break down the two part solutions. You never, ever freeze again. Here it goes. Before we do a quick story, a lot of people in this industry, and I was, I drank this Kool Aid too, right? They say, hey, hey, in roofing sales, you earn while you learn. Okay, you've heard this before. You earn while you learn. Now, what this really means, by the way, and I'm going to share this with full admitted guilt because I did the same thing with my team. When you tell someone you'll earn while you learn, what it really means is go figure it out on your own. We have no formal training and you'll make some money along the way. I figured it out and so can you. Isn't that crazy? That's what people mean by earn while you learn. Which is, by the way, one of the reasons I wanted to take that whole mystery out and develop our all in one sales training and sales system for both storm and retail that covers everything from knock to close. So if you'd like that, or maybe that relates to you and you want that for yourself or for your team, just text the word demo to 303222, 7133. So text the word demo D E M O to 303-222-7133. We'll show you how we can take the mystery out. Get your team trained up lightning fast, self generating leads and becoming confident closers who never freeze at the door. Alright, this is a perfect segue into part number two, which is how to make sure this doesn't happen ever again. Because we don't want to just learn while we earn. That means that we weren't equipped well enough to go do this thing right out of the gate. So I have a question for you. Are you the primary breadwinner or income earner in your household? Maybe even the sole income earner? Yeah. Now, even if you're new at this, you soon will be. But I ask people all across the country, I've asked thousands of people this question, and in every single room that I'm in, it is almost every single hand that goes up and I jokingly say, hey, well, if you're not, you married. Well, in roofing sales, we earn a ton of money, which means there's a lot of responsibility, which means that every single sales appointment, every door we knock is the highest stakes game of our life. Because our livelihood truly does depend on it. Not only ours, but our family, our loved ones, significant others, our children, your own pocket. So we mess up in the real world, knocking on a door or doing a presentation, someone is reaching in your pocket, taking money out. Which is why this leads us to the perfect segue for the solution number two, which is how to Prevent this from happening, how to prevent freezing from ever happening again. And there's a two part solution. I'm going to introduce it and then we'll break it down. Introduction Part number one is you just have to know what you're going to say to get started. Okay? I repeat, you just need to learn what to say to get started talking. When we start speaking in sales, it's like getting this cascade of a snowball. I don't need to know where I'm going to be later. All I need to do is start talking. So as I'm talking, I've developed think fast ability and I can formulate my thoughts as we go and get the process started. But if I'm not able to start talking, I'll never get to the end, so. So even if you're shaky on your pitch or it doesn't feel quite as natural, all you need is the cue or the trigger of what to say to get started with your pitch at the door or presentation at the kitchen table, or handling objections. So cure number one is you know what to say. All right? Now, if you're someone who has a loose guideline, my best recommendation is for you to sit down and just literally write out a few different scenarios but of what you're going to say at the door. And if you want help, I teach what to say at the door for every single situation to make it stupid easy to follow in my canvassing strategy that's included in that program I was sharing before that, all in one. Training. To get your team trained up again, text the word demo to 303-222-7133. There's also a link in the description, but the big idea is for every time you show up at the door, whether it's to open up a new neighborhood, once you sign a new customer, when the job is scheduled on a day of install, or when it's done, and. And knowing why you're there, whose house you left, you have a formulaic approach to follow. So the cat never gets your tongue. And in fact, I've had numerous people reach out. One of the most common pieces of feedback that I get, which you can visit on our wall of proof, which is literally like thousands of unsolicited testimonials, is people that said, Adam, I used to walk up to the door nervous, not knowing what to say. But now as I approach the door, I know exactly what I'm going to say. So I approach with confidence. I put my knuckles on that door and, and I know the same starting Track each and every time. So there you have it. Cure number one is just to know what you're going to start saying. Don't worry about where you're going to go later. Just focus on what is the first words that are coming out of my mouth to get you out of that free zone and into conversation. And that brings me to point number two. Many salespeople call it role play. In fact, I do, too. But I start to think of this and I'm like, you know, role play is kind of more of like the thing in the bedroom where you're playing a role and you're acting. But role play in sales isn't that, is it? You're not acting. It's practice. Role play in sales is practice in repetition over and over and over and over again. And it's one of the reasons that I do all my videos in one take. So go through and look how many edits are in my videos. I just gave you a spoiler alert. None. In fact, there's one video on YouTube with an edit, and it's only because I was on a roof and then I cut, hard cut to me in a vehicle. And. And the reason that I do these videos one take and transparently, this is take number probably eight or nine of this video is because I am in sales. And I know that if I was learning sales from someone on the Internet, someone on YouTube or in a podcast, and it was cut up and edited over and over again, I'd say, do they really know what they're doing? They can't sit there and present like they would in the real world. And then you see people like this sometimes in the real world, presenting on stages or speaking at conferences. They're not eloquent. There's ums and ahs and filler words. They fumble on their words. They can't connect their thoughts. And this is because they just don't have practice doing it. So repetition is the end all, say all solution to becoming a sales rock star in avoiding freezing at the door. In fact, making sure you'll never freeze at the door again. So let's tie this video to the very beginning when I talked about getting into that rental car versus your own car, truck, your own car or truck. You've done it over and over and over and over again until it is firing on autopilot. And in sales, we are attempting to do the exact same thing, repetitions over and over and over again until it becomes autopilot. That when you hear an objection, you slide into the aro Formula. When you're at the kitchen table, you slide into the car park formula. When you knock on that door, you go right into the SLAP formula and you just know how you're going to start, how you're going to respond. But because that, my friend, competence comes with confidence. And the only way to get confident is through competence. And the only way to get competent is through practice. Which is one of the main reasons that in my training center we include a roleplay training. So the entire team gets trained up on the ARO formula, what to say at the door for every scenario using the slap formula, how to present in the house and close deals. And then we get into role play to practice this and work out the kinks in the office because it is a no stakes environment where everyone can learn from. So in summary, let's wrap this up in a bow. The cause for freezing is having to pause and think. The reason that you have to pause and think is because you either don't know what to say or you haven't done it enough times for it to be on autopilot. So your fix is to figure out exactly what you're going to say to get started at the times where you're freezing, whether it's to start the dialogue at the door, the kitchen table, or in an objection. And. And number two is to practice, practice, practice and practice some more until everything runs on autopilot. And if you want some help, get into our free training center. It's available right now@theroofstrategist.com there's a link right here. You can click or text the word free to 303-222-7133 if you want to hang with me here on YouTube. YouTube thinks you're really going to love this one. And I will see.
