Jim Johnson went from chasing commissions door-to-door to focusing on helping his community. When he reframed his pitch as a service and gave homeowners a printed inspection report, his results jumped five times over with less effort.
It's one of the biggest mistakes we make as contractors and teachers and coaches and sales leaders and things like that. We focus so much on the achievement and the how, the what, the where and the when and not the why. Why are we doing something? So, like, when I first started, like I said, canvassing, door knocking, my whole thing was I was focused on making a sale. And that sale meant a certain amount of dollars in commissions, approximately. They told us, like, about a thousand bucks for each one that we would sell. And so what I did is I superimposed $1,000 bill on every door I knocked in my brain, thinking that's what I was after, is that thousand dollars. And I kept getting a lot of pushback. I didn't really realize what the deal was. I knew my script very well. I had practiced it a lot. I could say it really good. I had my own little spin on it. But I was still struggling through some of it here and there. Now, don't get me wrong. I got my inspections. I got my appointments. I made a few sales. But there was also the really rough stuff in there. Get the hell off my. The. I'm not interested. The, hey, you're the 50th guy to knock on my door. And I had objection handling situations for each one of those. But it was still very much a barrier between me and the person. I'll never forget. One day I knocked on this guy's door, and he opens the door before I can even get the last knock done. He's got a Rottweiler on a. On a leash. And the Rottweiler is just barking like crazy. He goes, you got three seconds to get off of my property. I'm like, hey, man, you don't even have to count. I'm out of here. Sorry to bother you. And I'm out the door, out the walkway. I go, dogs barking, barking. He's like, two. I'm like, all right, I'm off. I'm out in the street. And so he shuts the door. And I kind of looked like I had a little bit of introspection. Like, why did that just happen? Well, I mean, obviously the guy's having a bad day. Maybe he's had some bad experiences. All that stuff was his problem, not my problem, so I can't wear that. But enough of that had happened for me to go, why is this happening as often as it is? And I sat down on the sidewalk, made sure I wasn't on his property. And I thought about it. I'm like, okay, so why am I Doing this door knocking. Well, I want to make some money, which, hey, there's a lot of value in that, and it's important. But was there something more to it than that? And as I dug deeper and deeper into it, what I realized is I was giving off this energy that was really more about me than them. It was about me getting an inspection, me signing a deal, me getting a commission, me. It was all me and nothing about them. I said, well, I wonder what would happen if I actually made it about them. I had this approach that this is all about you. And so I considered, hey, how can I change up my presentation a little bit and make it more about them? And so the first thing I thought of is like, hey, can I do something for the community? That was the first thought that ran through my mind, which ended up becoming this community service project. And I retailered my script to that, and I went and started knocking doors. And I started knocking doors, in a way was more about them. What could I provide them that was actually valuable? Not just a few pictures and saying, you have damage or an inspection where they don't have to go on their roof, but something more than that. And I started that very day, and it didn't go very well because I hadn't practiced. I hadn't put any kind of real thought to it, but it was better. I didn't get a whole bunch of people being really mad at me. They might not have been real happy that I was there, but they weren't mad or angry or anything like that. So at night, I went and sat down and said, hey, how can I give more value? How can I give more value? I said, what is everybody else doing? One of the things I got taught early on by a really great leader was, whatever everybody else is doing, it's wrong. So if they're all doing it this way, do something a little different. So I thought about it, like, what could I give them? Like, people like things to be given to them as value. What could I give them? I went, hey, what if I gave them a report? Just something simple and easy that was like a report I could hand to them. It'd be theirs whenever I got done, versus just show them a few pictures on a phone or something like that. So I quickly worked up this little report that I could do. And the next day I went out and I started knocking doors and said, hey, my name is Jim Johnson. I'm with XYZ roofing company and I'm going around the neighborhood doing a community service project. I'm Going to start inspecting every house in this neighborhood and I'm going to give them a report that looks just like this one. Would you like one? Would you have any objection to me providing this report to you today? And that's a reverse open ended question where you get somebody to say no, but they really mean yes. If you really think about what that looks like, they say, no, I don't have an objection. Say, great, I'm going to go grab my ladder. And then I would perform my inspection. I found that I was much better received. I was doing a community service project. I was giving something of value. I was alluding to the fact that I was going to be knocking on each and every door and giving one of these reports with no obligation. If you don't want to go with this, that's fine, but I want you to have the educational material that, that for whoever you decide to go with. You have the knowledge you need to make a great decision. And the vibe changed. I mean, literally overnight I enjoyed what I was doing because I was giving something of value from me to them. And they were much more receptive. They were like, hey, wow, I get something. This sounds different. And so that was like my first major mind shift once I got into this industry of not making it so much about me, but making it more about them and providing real, genuine, authentic value. I didn't feel like a door knocking salesperson anymore. I felt more like a community educator that was out doing something right by the other people in my community. And it completely changed my perspective, gave me a lot more joy in what I did. My results ended up being about five times what they were before, so I didn't have to knock as many doors. So I got more customers and I had more time to start to work on what I was going to do from that step forward. As I continued to grow in the industry.
