Cold calling and No Soliciting signs

What is the recommended course of action when you're cold calling and you come across a No Soliciting sign? -Community Mailbox

Depends.....

My first sales job was as a financial advisor. The job involved wandering door to door... business to business.... prospecting for new clients. On one day I came to the State Office of a Fraternal Organization. On the door was posted a No Soliciting sign. I went in because I was curious about how the organization differed from the Fraternal organization I belonged to.

In the process of learning about the organization, I noticed a bunch of investment books on the shelf. I started to ask questions about the books and their use.

After about an hour of chatting, I walked out with over $300,000 to invest on behalf of the organization.

In my experience, if you feel sales is something you DO TO people rather than DO FOR people, you should just walk past places posted with No Soliciting signs. Otherwise, stop in and get to know some folks. You never know how it will turn out.

Jerry -jdedwa11

I find that soliciting and asking questions are two different actions. I've been in food sales and almost every restaurant has a "No Soliciting" sign on the door, I find this to imply they don't want traveling briefcase-watch salesmen selling their customers watches at the table.

I would ask to speak to the manager or owner and ask them a question: May I make an appointment to discuss potential foodcost savings with my company? atempting to sell right out of the chute as opposed to having an appointment.

I am currently in the Uniform and linnen industry. I find No Soliciting signs on every major company I cold call on. Again I simply ask for the Manager that handles their needs and make an appointment. -chrisr110465

Oh man, Bravo!

That's one way to look at it and by those rules a true sales pro has nothing to worry about from no soliciting signs.

Occasionally I run into a "No Agents" sign which is about the same as "No Soliciting". I still cold call using the same script with the exception that I add, "I saw your sign and the part about no agents...." and then go right into my original script (Thank You Jerry Bresser for the script!) thmbp2; -Houston

I went through 30 years of door-door cold calling and developed a system regarding signs.

1 Many office doors are originally installed with no soliciting signs. I discovered that most of these tenants forget they even had one. So I ignore those that look as old as the building.

2 I also look at the complex and if they all have them again, I ignore them.

3 If none of the office doors have them but one, I look to see how aged it is and determine from there. (Is it new?) If it is, he or she has the sign there just for you and is waiting to make you look foolish by you ignoring it.

4 If a sign looks fresh or hand made--I never go in. There are way too many fish to fry--I don't need the aggravation.
Also, what good is an upset prospect. That is very hard to overcome.

5 Finally, a sign posted on the inside of the window is also a no-no.

Why? Because I went through a door that had a hand made "No Soliciting" sign. The owner screamed many 4 letter words in my direction, grabbed my sales brochure out of my hand, and proceeded to call the police.

On what grounds could he call the police you wonder? Many counties and cities have "Green River" laws and I could have been cited for soliciting without a license. I promptly departed.

Nevertheless, he called our office, talked to the owner for some time in the hopes of getting me fired. While that did not happen, we were now on notice and had to apply for a license the next time we visited that nice little town. It was very frustrating as the company had worked that town for 38 years without a license. It was a lot of paper work and permit fees just to pay a few hundred dollars.

The decision to go through a "No Soliciting " sign can have unforeseen repercussions. It is not necessarily about how good you are at sales or brave but what the person on the other side of the door may do.

After implementing this method, I never had a repeat experience.

If it bothers you--don't go in. There are way too many other doors to hit. That's the freedom of cold-call selling.
-John Voris

I do door to door selling, which to me means knocking on residential doors. I use to knock on doors that had no soliciting signs when I worked for companies who kept tabs on penetration rate etc. Now, that I'm independent I don't even bother. There are so many more doors to knock on. "Those people just have no solicting signs on their doors because they are too weak to say no and end up buying from too many sales people." Yeah right whatever. The truth is those people call the police to harass you. They come out and write down your license plate, they try to perfom a citizens arrest on you. The crazy freak points his shot at you.. etc... Sicks their dog on you... etc etc. -cs80918

""Those people just have no solicting signs on their doors because they are too weak to say no and end up buying from too many sales people."

Think the difficulty and rejection of the hardest form of selling - door to door cold calling - has gotten to you. Your broad brushing is off the mark. I don't have a sign but would if it would keep pests away. I just don't answer the door - and it isn't because I'm weak, it's because I don't want to be bothered. -Russ_Emrick

I'm sorry I didn't clarify what I wrote well enough for you to understand it. "Those people just have no soliciting signs on their doors because they are too weak to say no and end up buying from too many sales people."

I DO NOT AGREE WITH THAT STATEMENT.

That is a statement that has been passed down from door to door sellers for who knows how long. It is used to motivate door to door sellers to knock on doors with no solicting signs.

I personally don't knock on doors with those signs on it, because I don't care to be attacked. I was beening sarcastic when I first wrote that statement... if you read my first post you will see that I wrote "year right." immediately following that statement.

Are door to door sellers pest? I'd say every sales person that tries to contact me, instead of me contacting them would be considered a pest then.

The b2b cold callers or any kind of cold caller. I even feel that people who send me mail are pest. I feel that commericals are pest. I feel like you are a pest because you are taking up space in the line in front of me.. Where do you draw the line in who you call a pest? Politicans, lawyers, corporations who stifle the small business person. The list could go on and on and on..

You are right if you don't want to buy anything don't open your door. It would save me the time and frustration of talking to people who don't buy.

The fact is people do buy door to door, otherwise people would stop selling door to door. Cable companies have thousands of door to door sales reps, so do alarm companies and many other companies.

Why do people knock on doors? Some do it because its the only job they can get that pays decent, some do it because their good and they can make good money working few hours.

Some do it because they can make the money they want, because they don't have the skill, education, intelligence to make decent money doing anything else.

Why do people work for minimun wage? Why do people work for peanuts at other jobs?

People do what people do. I personally would rather knock on doors, instead of working for $15 or less an hours at some business somewhere. I can't believe some people work 40 plus hours to make only $600 a week. -cs80918

I want to go back to the words above which ask for a recommended course of action--as if one exists!

I can't offer one. If someone can, I would examine his/her agenda. That is not a reference to the other posts here, btw, and I think there are some insightful responses on this thread. Instead, I question the question itself. The best salespeople distance themselves from dogma. They do what works for them. And they sharpen the saw by their own inductive reasoning. -Gary A Boye

Personally, I usually by-pass them. If it's hand made, I usually stop in and say something similar:

"I saw the sign on the door about no soliciting (or must have an appointment if appropriate) and I want to be respectful. I work with companies like yours on their ________, and I wanted to find out who would be the correct person to speak with on the phone to see if they want to talk further?"

I've never had an issue using that approach. -Jed01