Cookies
Door to Door Recruiting Q&A
These are the questions we get most often from companies new to door-to-door, or ones wondering how they stack up against industry standards. Over the past 23 years, we've hired more than 10,000 sales reps, over 6,000 of them in just the last year and a half. Here's what we've found to be true across 100+ partners, 40+ states, and thousands upon thousands of door-to-door reps.
1. What is a normal turnover rate for door-to-door sales reps?
It depends on what you count. Measured against reps who actually reach the field, a healthy program keeps roughly 30 to 50 percent past day 30, and 10 to 30 percent past day 90. Published annual figures range from 30 to 300 percent because they use different denominators and different definitions of what counts as a hire.
2. How many people do I need to hire to keep one long-term rep?
About ten, when you are recruiting strangers who are actively job-hunting. Of ten hires, roughly seven reach the field, three are still selling past day 30, and one stays long term. That is what a healthy program looks like, not a broken one.
3. Do warm recruits perform better than cold recruits?
Considerably. Somebody you met out in the world runs roughly twice as good as a cold hire, and friends or family run roughly three times as good or better. People actively looking for a job are looking for a reason, and some of those reasons are what make them a poor fit later.
4. What is launch percentage, and what should mine be?
Launch percentage is the share of people who accept your offer and actually reach their first day in the field. Seventy percent is standard, above eighty percent is the goal, and below sixty percent means you have a handoff problem rather than a recruiting problem.
5. Why do new door-to-door reps quit in the first month?
Almost all early quitting happens before the rep's first sale. A rep who has made money believes in the job, and a rep who has not is running on borrowed faith, and borrowed faith runs out in about two weeks. Speed to first commission is the single biggest survival lever.
6. What retention should I expect at week one and month one?
Of the reps who reach the field, roughly 60 percent are still on the roster at the end of week one, and roughly 40 percent at the end of month one. Those are measured per launch, not against everyone who accepted an offer.
7. How much does it cost to hire a door-to-door sales rep?
Anywhere from 100 to 1,000 dollars, and the spread is real. Three things drive it: your market, how selective you are, and whether the role is canvassing only or full-cycle selling. Any single number quoted without those conditions attached is not usable.
8. Why is my interview show rate so low?
Probably because showing up costs the candidate nothing. Interviews booked without a required confirmation step run 50 to 60 percent show rates. Add a required confirmation and shows climb north of 75 percent, out of the same candidate pool. It is usually a process fix rather than a sourcing fix.
9. Is high turnover a sign my recruiting is broken?
Usually not on its own. Check launch percentage first. If you are below 60 percent, you are losing people between the yes and their first day, which is a handoff and onboarding problem. Recruiting more people will not fix it and will cost you more.
10. What counts as a hire when comparing recruiting numbers?
We count a hire as an offer accepted, and a hire rate as offers extended and accepted. Other sources count started, or reached the field, or completed training. When someone quotes you a hire rate, ask what population it describes before you compare it to your own.
11. How should I measure turnover in my own company?
Measure retention per launch rather than per hire, at week one, day 30, and day 90 rather than annually. Those three numbers show you where your program actually breaks. A single annual percentage hides the first month, which is where most of your loss happens.
12. Can I just post the job on Indeed myself?
You can, and plenty of companies do. The difficulty is not the posting, it is the volume the math requires and everything that happens after a candidate says yes. Most owners who struggle here are running a full-time recruiting job in the margins of another full-time job.
Peter Swenson is co-founder of D2D HIRE. He has spent 23 years in door-to-door sales, starting as a rep in 2004. He and his brother Jake built a recruiting engine inside their own solar company that hired more than 2,000 reps in three and a half years, and that system has since hired over 6,000 door-to-door reps for companies across more than 40 states.
Last updated: September 2026
Want these numbers run on your own program?
Book a free 30-minute strategy call. We'll walk your recruiting and retention math, show you where the program actually breaks, and you leave with a 90-day plan, whether we work together or not.