Two out of 1200.
That's 0.17%
A financial advisor was telling me about when he first started his business. He was totally new to it and needed people to financially advise so he could actually make a living. He grabbed a stack of business cards and started going door to door for a few months.
He visited 1200 homes. Out of those 1200 visits, he got phone numbers from 60 people. Out of those 60 phone numbers, he set up 8 meetings. Out of those 8 meetings, he now has 2 clients.
If we take those numbers in batches, they don’t seem too bad. 60 phone numbers out of 1200 doors is actually 5%. Eight meetings out of 60 is 13%. And two clients out of eight meetings is 25%.
But the overall percentage… is pretty bad. Using a door-to-door strategy to build his financial advising business, he saw only 0.17% of the doors he visited turn into clients.
He readily admitted that at the end of that door-knocking season: “I needed a new strategy to get clients. This was not working.”
Well, in one sense, it had worked. He had two new clients. But compared to the time he was stewarding, he found it not very worthwhile. He didn’t give me a specific amount of time he spent going to 1200 doors, following up with 60 phone calls, and holding eight in-person meetings, but I have to imagine it was the bulk of his working hours for several months.
I think this is how we need to think about engagement strategies. If only 2 people out of 1200 interactions become new disciples, that is something to celebrate. But it’s also a reason to ask: Am I stewarding my time for King Jesus well?
These things are all true at the same time:
Every soul is worth engaging and pointing to Christ.
The Holy Spirit will continually surprise us by how he works.
We can’t manufacture Gospel responses, no matter the method.
We are called to be good stewards of our time for the Kingdom.
And no, this isn’t a knock1 on door-to-door evangelism methods; it’s a call to consider the results of all of our ministry efforts and ask ourselves if the results we are getting out of the time we are spending is a good stewardship of the goal of making disciples of Jesus.
pun intended