Door-to-door sales is one of the most infamously challenging types of selling. Yet, the D2D industry is growing at a rapid pace and massive investment is being made into empowering businesses to sell effectively in this space
Jet-setting in from London and Mexico, Sam Taggart only has a few minutes to speak to us before running out the door to his next appointment. Taggart, founder and CEO of The D2D Experts, is a busy man and is starting to grow his international footprint. Not letting the success get to him, he describes his international growth as “cool,” and swerves us back to the focus of the interview – to discuss selling. Not just any selling, but the art of selling door-to-door.
You may be amongst the many who think that door-to-door selling is archaic, especially with the rise of online shopping and the plethora of digital marketing opportunities available. This is not true at all. Quite the contrary. “I think people will be surprised to know that the door-to-door industry is growing,” says Taggart, who hosts annual D2D conventions and sets up training systems for hundreds of door-to-door sales companies. “It’s the purest form of selling,” he says. “You’re aggressively going to markets that have been passively waiting for the market to come to them. It’s a good tactic that works.”
He started The D2D Experts, which also houses the highly successful D2D University and annual D2DCon event, because he wanted to unify, uplevel and bring honour and integrity to the door-to-door space. “Our industry gets a bad rap,” he says. “Nobody wants to knock on doors and a lot of people don’t like door-to-door people coming around bugging them. It’s a hard job. You have to deal with a lot of rejection. I created The D2D Experts to bring more resources, love and support. We bring it together in a really powerful way.”
Taggart is a firm believer that if you can do door-to-door sales (or ‘knocking’ as they say in the biz), you can do anything. He does not downplay how hard it is. Being successful means you have to be able to build rapport quickly with people, you have to be able to deal with a lot of people saying no, and you have to face awful conditions – your job does not stop just because it is snowing, for example. Knocking is about keeping going no matter what is thrown your way. The kind of skills you learn from this form of sales can set you up for life.
After building a seven-figure consulting business in under three years, Taggart credits his success to the lessons he learnt being on the road going from door to door. These days he is still knocking, just this time he is trying to open up doors to build his business. “When you realize you can spend eight years knocking on doors and get your face kicked in, that’s when you realize you can do anything,” muses Taggart in a recent Instagram post. “Even if it’s throwing an event like I did, where I’m knocking on business’ doors saying ‘Bring your team!’ and they’re responding: ‘No, they’re all going to be recruited,’ I’m out there beating the streets like everyone else. But I’m not afraid to go talk to a stranger. I’m not afraid to put my ass on the line. I’m not afraid to get scrappy. Those are skill sets you learn doing door-to-door work. I love that.”
The skills door-to-door teaches a salesperson can set you up for life. Knocking is all about mindset. It requires resilience and grit, and as a result, there’s a lot of money to be made. Taggart wants to put the heart back into the industry and to do this, he invests widely in creating resources to help companies empower their salespeople to sell well and make money, and to embrace the mindset they require for the gruelling task that awaits them each day.
D2D University gives companies access to some of the best minds in the door-to-door industry and teaches people what it took Taggart years to learn on the job. It is a great way to scale your business and to get people who knock on doors to face each day with a sense of purpose and tool belt of skills to draw on.
“I have a whole training system focusing on keeping employees motivated and selling. That’s a lot of what we do,” he explains. “We go into different companies and we build out their training system. We film, edit, and create a training process for them, and customize it. We don’t just sell an online course. We have some videos that are already done to save time, energy and give it some varied expertise, but we would rather be the company’s back-end system, than just the content.”
Taggart is also the host of The D2D Podcast, with over 250 episodes recorded. The podcast offers sales tips, tricks, and strategies for door-to-door salespeople, adding to the wealth of content he is creating. All of his efforts are to train salespeople to be better at what they do, to close more sales, and to have the mindset to deal with whatever the job throws at them on any given day.
So what are the plans for the future for Taggart? “We have built a lot of things to help bring this industry together,” he says. “The next part of my journey is to expand a bit farther outside of door-to-door. A lot of just entrepreneurs are resonating with the message because door-to-door sales is about going to a neighbourhood to knock. It’s very specific. But if you’re on social media trying to pitch something, you’re knocking on doors! Email, you’re knocking. Call centre sales, you’re knocking. Everyone is knocking on doors to sell something. Expanding beyond door-to-door sales is the next iteration, without forgetting my D2D roots that made me who I am and changed my life.”
You can join Taggart at the next D2DCon, which runs from 20 to 23 January 2023, in Salt Lake City, Utah, and experience leadership, recruiting, and sales training to help you and your team scale fast.
Media Contact:
Clive Vanderwagen, Writer
clive@mindfulmediapr.com
