What Is Cold Canvassing?

Have you heard of the term cold canvassing before? What about door knocking?

Maybe you have heard of it. Probably that it was dead, or on the brink of extinction.

Here’s the secret. In this time of increased competition, it’s critical to have new ways to connect with your audience by getting out from behind the desk and going where your prospects are. Cold canvassing is a great strategy for adding a personal touch to your sales campaigns and finding new business opportunities–all you need is a map of your area and a list of potential clients or customers.

What Is Cold Canvassing?

Cold Canvassing involves going door-to-door with the purpose of selling or introducing a product or service, as opposed to a cold call which is done over the phone. This means that cold canvassing allows you to establish more rapport with your audience because you are able to meet them on a personal level. By cold canvassing, you can also learn about your customers first-hand and find out what their needs are so that you can tailor your products or services around their specific wants and needs.

To quickly compare it to cold calling, I’d put it like this: If cold calling is like fishing with a net, cold canvassing is like fishing with a line. The goal isn’t just to throw your net into the ocean hoping to get whatever you can, but instead to cast it in the right place so that you can catch exactly what you’re looking for.

I’m going to assume you already know what cold calling is, so for the rest of this article, I’ll be going back and forth comparing them both.

Cold Canvassing Benefits

There are many cold canvassing benefits. One of the biggest advantages of cold canvassing is it helps you establish an undeniable rapport with them that cold calling just can’t provide. It also helps to aid in the discovery of new business opportunities, which is especially useful when trying to expand into an area where you don’t already have a presence.

Build More Rapport

Cold canvassing allows you to have the benefit of face-to-face communication with customers, so it’s much easier to build rapport. With an in-person interaction, you can let your true personality shine. Prospects will be willing to share more with you, and you’ll be willing to share more with them.

Weatherproofing Yourself Against Objections

Cold canvassing also helps you to identify and deal with objections in a much more effective way than cold calling can provide. By cold canvassing and engaging with your audience face-to-face, you are able to ask questions, counter objections in a much more efficient manner and address their needs. One major benefit of cold canvassing is that it’s also weatherproofed against some of the most common cold calling objections. You can probably think of a few off the top of your head, but I’ll give you a quick example. “I’m in a meeting, can you call back later?”

Basically, the objections that are just a “screw you, I can just hang up the phone on you right now” objections are pretty much gone. If you want to learn how to master face-to-face objection handling, check out our face to face sales mastery course.

Make an Impression on Your Audience

Another cold canvassing benefit comes from the fact that you are able to make a more positive impression on your audience. By making the effort to meet your potential customers in person, you show your prospects that you actually care enough about them to go out of your way and visit them personally, which is a lot harder than cold calling from the comfort of your own little cubicle.

By going door-to-door cold canvassing, you can gain access to cold prospects in a way that cold calling never could. It also gives you the opportunity to meet your audience face-to-face, where you can learn more about them and discover new business opportunities.

Cold Canvassing Disadvantages

I would say there are two big disadvantages of cold canvassing, compared to cold calling. Now don’t get me wrong, having the opportunity to meet face-to-face is fantastic for your rapport, and even reputation. But let’s face it, it can be slow and tedious. And even the weather can come into play. Another disadvantage of cold canvassing, and this is more psychological and mental–there is no phone to shield you from tension, aggression, hostility, or confusion.

Prospect was rude to you for showing up unannounced? Gotta suck it up and deal with it. Someone asked you a question about your service you weren’t prepared for? Can’t just put them on hold and dig up your script anymore. With that being said, learning to deal with these situations in person rather than on a phone call, will help you a lot more in the long run and leave you much more prepared for the future.

Common Cold Canvassing Questions & Answers

Who Needs Cold Canvassing?

Who doesn’t need cold canvassing? We all know we’re supposed to cold call and cold call often, but cold canvassing is too good to be ignored. Every company can use cold canvassing as a part of its cold outreach campaign. This includes any business that wants to expand into new areas with a more personable approach. As a matter of fact, many industries rely on cold canvassing: Pharmaceutical Sales, Medical Device Sales, Real Estate, Solar, Home Improvement, etc.

And by the way, if you have a product that a business or individual can use to improve their lives in any way, you can probably make it work through cold canvassing. It’s just a matter of if it is a cost & time-efficient endeavor.

How Can I Get Started With Cold Canvassing?

Getting started is as easy as putting on your best outfit and heading outside. If you’re doing this for the first time, don’t overthink it. Don’t start analyzing where your best situations might be. Just put on your best outfit, put on your best smile, and go introduce yourself with a passion.

If you plan on making a day of it, I would first prepare a list of areas/cities to get the most efficient route for your journey. There are many apps nowadays that can help you sort that out. (You can even use google maps) This also helps you avoid wandering off and losing focus of your mission if things start to get a bit slow or you ran into a couple of bad meetings.

How Does Cold Canvassing Compare to Cold Calling?

Cold telephone cold calling is like fishing with a net: you cast your line and hope that by random chance, you’ll catch something

Like I said earlier, cold calling is like fishing with a net: you throw it into the ocean and hope that by random chance, you’ll catch something worthwhile. You don’t know what you’re going to get; it could be exactly what you’re looking for, half of what you’re looking for, or even something you’re not really interested in.

Cold canvassing is like hunting, where you’ve studied the prey, his environment, set traps for it. It is more of a strategic, time-consuming, goal-oriented approach to cold outreach. You can’t catch everything with this method, but your hunt/prospecting will be a lot more efficient and successful when done properly.

What Can I Expect from Cold Canvassing?

Compared to cold calling, I would say it’s pretty safe to assume you’ll have a higher closing rate, a higher percentage of prospects listening to you, and much deeper and thoughtful communication and dialogue. On the flip side, you won’t be speaking to NEARLY the same amount of people that you would have been if you were dialing your hundreds of names for the day. There are trade-offs you need to measure. Sometimes it’s worth it, sometimes it won’t be worth it–only you can decide if it’s right or not for your business.

Is Cold Canvassing legal?

The short answer would be, ‘yes.’ However, it’s important to note that cold canvassing/knocking laws differ depending on where you are conducting your cold canvassing efforts. There’s also the FTC’s Cooling-Off Rule.

Secondly, if a business or a home has a “no solicitation” sign posted, it basically means no salespeople allowed. So respect their decision and privacy, skip them, and move on.

Closing Thoughts

Cold Canvassing can be a fantastic addition to your sales and cold outreach. If you haven’t done it before, I’d strongly consider spending a bit of time to get a list together, and heading on out!