Staying safe on the doors
Most door-to-door safety comes down to reading a property before you approach it, keeping an exit available, and leaving early when something feels wrong. Tell somebody which area you are working and roughly when you expect to finish. The instinct to stay polite past the point of comfort is the one worth overriding, because leaving costs you a single door.
Read the property before you commit to it
Signage, fencing, dogs and vehicles all tell you something before you are close enough for it to matter. Noticing them is a habit rather than a skill, and it is worth building early.
A no-soliciting sign is also a legal matter in some jurisdictions rather than a preference, and honouring it removes a category of problem entirely.
Keep leaving cheap
Do not position yourself where leaving requires getting past somebody, and do not step inside unless the situation clearly warrants it and your company permits it. Both are ordinary precautions that cost nothing when they turn out to be unnecessary.
The failure mode is social rather than physical: reps stay in situations they want to leave because leaving feels rude. The cost of leaving is one door.
Somebody should know where you are
Tell a teammate or a manager which area you are working and roughly when you expect to be done. In a trade where reps work alone across unfamiliar neighbourhoods this is the cheapest possible precaution.
Common questions
- What should I do about dogs?
- Look for signs, bowls and fencing before you approach, and do not open a gate you cannot see behind. Most incidents involve a dog the rep did not know was there.
- Should I ever go inside a house?
- Only where the sale genuinely requires it, your company permits it, and you are comfortable. Trades that run on in-home presentations have their own protocols, and they exist for a reason.
- What if a homeowner becomes hostile?
- Leave. Do not attempt to recover the conversation. The door is worth less than any version of what happens next.
More on door knocking
The craft of working a door: approach, first line, reading the house, what to do when nobody answers.
- How to door knock
- The first seven seconds at a door
- The best time of day to knock
- Which days actually convert
- What to do when nobody answers
- Reading a house before you knock
- Door-knocking etiquette
- Knocking in bad weather
- How many doors a day is realistic
- The mistakes that cost you the door
- Apartments versus subdivisions