Door-to-door sales: our advice on avoiding mistakes

1 - Don't prioritise

You're certainly passionate about your job as a home sales assistant, and that's great! Enthusiastic, you may want to do everything at once, and that's precisely what you shouldn't do. Carrying out numerous tasks at the same time will cause you to fall behind and make careless mistakes.

Between managing your social networks, organising sales meetings, customer relations, prospecting and going back and forth with the brand, it's easy to get lost in the shuffle.

Elora's advice: to alleviate this problem, we recommend that you draw up a precise schedule each week with the important daily tasks to be carried out. Putting your goals down on paper will help you stick to them and stop you getting lost.

Read also: All our advice on how to stop procrastinating!

2 - Not following a goal

In the same vein, you will only be effective if you set real objectives that are achievable and have a deadline. Your actions will flow naturally from the objectives you have written down.

Elora's tip: set yourself some overall objectives at the start of each new year (e.g. increase my sales by 5%, recruit 3 hostesses, find 20 new customers, etc.). These will serve as a common thread throughout your business. Then, each month, set yourself three specific objectives to help you achieve your annual targets.

3 - Neglecting customer relations

The key to success in home shopping is to work on your customer relations. This means attracting new customers and, above all, keeping them loyal. After all, it's your loyal customers who will enable you to achieve your targets! So you need to give them your undivided attention.

Elora's advice: home shopping customers put human relations at the heart of their needs. They want to be listened to, to benefit from personalised advice and to have a good time during sales meetings. So get to know each of your customers, don't hesitate to contact them to find out what they need and share all your advice with them. Finally, you can create a customer follow-up file to help you keep better track of your customers.

4 - Expect immediate results

Like any business, you need to be patient before you see the first results, and home selling is no exception. You can't build up a customer base and then develop loyalty overnight! It takes time, investment, training and organisation.

Elora's advice: don't get discouraged, and set yourself achievable short-term goals that you'll be proud of. In the first few months of business, don't expect any financial return. Put your energy into networking, building up an initial clientele and recruiting one or two hostesses to give your business a boost.

See also: Our tips for finding customers

5 - Don't be yourself

During your first sales meetings, it can be tempting to memorise a speech to reassure yourself or try to play a role to make yourself seem less nervous. This is not a good solution because your customers will feel it and you won't feel comfortable.

Elora's advice: keep it natural! That's the best advice we can give you. Home shopping customers are looking for genuine and sincere human relationships. The more you stay true to your personality, the more comfortable you'll feel, the more pleasant you'll be to listen to and the more approachable you'll be.