"Not Interested" REJECTION at the Door: 3 Ways to Overcome!

How do you deal with getting a door slammed in your face?

What do you do when someone says, “No, thank you,” and tries to kick you off their doorstep?

I get asked about this a lot. So, I’m going to teach you how to deal with the “No thanks, not interested,” very quick rejection at the door to help you develop your confidence. I’ll show you how to turn that “no” into more “yeses.”

Most importantly, I’ll teach you how to keep your morale high so that when this happens, it doesn’t impact you and you can go hit that next door and make a sale.

I’m Adam, The Roof Strategist. And I help salespeople and sales teams just like you reach peak performance, have fun doing it in, and smash their income goals. In this blog, I’m sharing a handful of roofing sales strategies to deal with that rejection of a slamming door in your face.

Don’t Give Up When You Hear “No Thanks…”

The biggest objection I hear is “No Thanks.”

In fact, I just had someone ask recently, “Adam, please help me. How do I deal with the, “No thanks” at the door?”

First off, I want to cover some groundwork. When someone says “No, thank you,” the chances of you flipping that around are low.

Realistically, does it mean you should give up? Absolutely not. Does it mean that there’s a magic bullet that’s going to make things work for you? No, it doesn’t.

But it does mean is that you have an opportunity to develop yourself as a salesperson.

Use Rejection to Develop Your Door-to-Door Roofing Sales Skills

So, here’s my first piece of advice. Use this opportunity. When you’re at the door, you knock, and you hear “no thanks, not interested,” use it as a time to challenge yourself because confidence is comfort.

I’m going to repeat that because it’s so important — confidence is comfort.

When you’re comfortable with yourself, you will be confident no matter what happens. So, when someone says, “no thank you,” use that as an opportunity to keep them talking at the door.

Because guess what? You have literally nothing to lose.

You can’t get rejected anymore because you’ve already heard “no.” Of course, I know it can feel worse because they can say mean things. But my point is that you have no sale or you have a sale opportunity. If there’s no sale, you’ve got nothing to lose.

Try to go down this path. By doing it, you keep them talking at the door. You can do anything that you want to play with it.

I used to make it a game. I would try to see how long I could stand in front of that customer and keep them talking. Just by doing that alone, I turned some of those rejections into sales because some people saw the human in me, not just a salesperson.

Here are few different ways you can do that.

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Strategy 1: Give a Compliment

One is to divert in compliment. Say something like this:

Listen, I apologize for interrupting your day. Now, before I go, I just want to tell you that Aspen tree that you guys have in front [or the garden or the boat] is absolutely stunning.

You will be amazed how things can change when someone is abrupt with you, saying “no thank you,”— and you take it and say, “Oh, I’m sorry, by the way, just want to tell you…” something nice, a compliment after getting an insult.

That’s because there’s a level of guilt that they feel, especially when you’re kind and they’re very quick, rude, and “not interested,” peeking out from behind the door. When you start complimenting their home, their property, or their interest, things are going to transform for you.

Now, that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, they’re still going to close the door, but whatever. Just brush it off. And if you haven’t watched my video on Staying Confident When Knocking on Doors, I tell a really powerful story that you can tell yourself. It’s about staying confident at the door, dealing with rejection, and understanding that it’s not about you the individual.

So, keep them talking by diverting to a compliment about their home, their property, or a common interest. This could be any common interests, like fishing, hunting, sports, politics — or whatever it is that’s common ground because that’s going to be very powerful.

Strategy 2: Ask a Funny Question or Use Humor

The “questioning” strategy, by itself, is not my favorite. But what’s taught in a lot of door-to-door roofing sales training is driving.

Well, why not?

Why aren’t you interested?

You should be interested. Can I share with you why you should be interested?

You can ask a question, but I encourage you not to be abrasive. So many people teach these really abrasive questions like, “What you should be interested! Why aren’t you?”

Instead, you can start by saying:

Listen, I totally understand you’re not interested. While I’m here, all I wanted to ask was, you said you’re not interested or you said you’re taken care of [or whatever their rejection is]…

For now, let’s assume it’s “no thanks.” If they say “no, thanks,” I make it a joke and say:

No thanks for what? I haven’t offered you anything yet.

Make it a joke. Some people will stick around and soften up. The challenging questions usually just push people away. So, instead:

Pump the pitching brakes and take a step back.
Break the ice with some common ground — the beautiful boat, beautiful driveway, or beautiful garden.
Try to play with it and have fun.

When you can inject humor into your questions, making them chuckle a little bit again after they’ve rejected you — like replying to “No thanks” with “You can’t thank me. I haven’t offered you anything.” —some people will see your human side.

They’ll think, “Oh man, this guy isn’t so bad. He isn’t pushy.” But their guard is naturally up when they’re in their home because their home is their castle. You start to bring that guard down with humor, a funny question that lightens it up.

Strategy 3: Plead Your Case

The final way to deal with rejection at the door is just to plead your case. Try any angle. Every human is different, and they’re going to react in different ways.

If they say, “no thanks, not interested,” you can say, “I totally understand, may I leave you with some information. I believe you may want to be interested in this.”

Then, use the “L” from the SLAP formula — Let them know why you are there and make it very familiar to their neighborhood or their town. Say something like:

Listen, I understand you’re not interested. I do believe you may want to take a look at this because [of something familiar]. I’m working with three homeowners on your street. I just helped John and Caroline get their home approved. I just helped Owen with his roof or [whatever it is that you use to make it familiar]. I just met with their adjuster and helped them go from having their claim denied to getting it paid for.

When you make it very familiar to them, you might pique their interest.

Recap: How to Overcome Rejection in Door-to-Door Roofing Sales

To sum this all, there are three different ways for you to take the “No thanks, not interested” at the door and use that to develop your confidence. It all starts with looking at it as a challenge, a game, and seeing how long you can keep them talking.

As you do that and you embrace the discomfort, you’ll become more confident. And with that confidence, you can handle any scenario thrown your way. So, here’s how to take the challenge and make the most of this opportunity:

Give a compliment: Say, “Hey, I’m really sorry.” Then, compliment something on their property. You’ll be amazed at how many people feel bad, say “thank you so much,” and let you continue the dialogue.
Ask some questions with humor: Turn their rejection into a joke. The “No thanks for what? I haven’t offered you anything yet” line is a great way to get people to chuckle and start letting their guard down.
Plead your case: Explain why they should likely be interested and make it relevant to their neighborhood, their street, their town, or a looming deadline (like the end of storm season). You can say, “I understand you’re not interested. I just want to share one thing about how time-sensitive this is because I just helped your neighbor, John, about three houses up with the same thing.” That familiar thing you mention can pique their curiosity enough to start a conversation.

Remember, you can try all these angles. Every human is different, and they’re going to react in different ways.

I hope this helps you deal with that rejection at the door so you can close more sales. Most importantly, I hope this helps you build confidence because when you’ve already gotten the “no,” you’ve got nothing to lose.

Bonus Tip: Roleplay

Now, I am going to leave you with one bonus tip. And it’s this: Roleplay, Roleplay, Roleplay.

This is the most valuable thing that you can do, and it’s important for owners and sales managers to be doing this with their teams.

Adam, I hate roleplay. It feels like acting.

If that’s what you’re thinking right now, look, I hated roleplaying too. I absolutely despised it. And I put myself in that discomfort to do it. I had my team involved too. Because if you can sit here and fake pitch at the door, knock, go through it — with a team of 10, 20, 30, or 40 people watching you and you can embrace that discomfort — there’s nothing, no scenario in the real-world field that will compete with that level of discomfort.

Plus, you get live feedback from your team. They can tell you what you’re doing and point out things like:

What was good
Mannerisms or how you held your hands
How close or far away you stood
Body language, like keeping hands in pockets or slouching away from someone.

You won’t know what you do until you do roleplay, and you can iron out all the kinks by doing this. If you have a small team, keep in mind you can roleplay with:

Just one other member of a sales team
A friend, family member, or a neighbor
Anyone willing to sit and listen
In front of a mirror

You’re going to feel like a total dummy at first but embrace it. That’s the feeling that you want to sink in.

You can get more strategies and a custom sales plan in my Marketing Battle Pack. It gives you literally everything you need to do to crack open a neighborhood, generate one sale, and turn it into a snowball of many sales.

The Bottom Line: Find a Way to Embrace the Discomfort

Guess what? No one likes knocking on doors, but the fastest way to get comfortable with it is to find that discomfort and go deeper. Don’t fight it. It’s the number one mistake because sales is personal development disguised as a money-making opportunity. That’s so important it needs to be stated again.

Sales is personal development disguised as a money-making opportunity.

That means, for us to make more money, we need to develop ourselves. We do that by embracing the challenge and discomfort. So, when you are uncomfortable with anything, don’t automatically take it as a sign to avoid it. In door-to-door roofing sales, that can be a sign telling you to go deeper. Try harder.

You’ll learn to get past that discomfort with roleplaying. Do it in a mirror. Have your team watch you. Use the “no thanks, not interested” rejections and closing doors as opportunities to build your confidence and learn. Have FUN with it. It’s a game that will make you money.

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