Residential Metal Roofing Executive Report

Sell All You Offer!

Issue #139 | December 4, 2019 | Todd Miller

I hope this finds you well and recovered from the bloated goodness of a great Thanksgiving with friends and family! If you’re a Buckeye, then I daresay you had a little extra to celebrate this past weekend. 😉 If you follow us much here at the Residential Metal Roofing Executive Report, you will know that something we really stress for home improvement and roofing contractors is to sell yourself and your company! While many contractors tend to focus on products during their sales presentations, it is critical to never lose sight of the fact that, above all, when that customer signs on the dotted line, it is YOU and YOUR COMPANY that they are really buying. In order to buy, they must have confidence that you will do the job right and look out for their best interests at all times.

Today, I am writing about something that combines Selling Product with Selling Your Company and that is what I call “Total System Selling.” This is the idea that, when presenting to a prospect, you want to uncover everything that sets your company and what it does apart from your competition. Total System Selling, when done properly, does these two critical things:

1. Justifies the Price and Value of what you’re offering.
2. Establishes your company as the only company that can give them what they want.

Total System Selling forces your sales people to go far beyond measuring, pricing, and writing up a contract. Ideally, your scripted sales presentation that your sales people are trained, tested, and re-trained on will go through every step to “sell” each and every thing you will do for the client. You must leave no stones unturned! And, at the same time, whenever possible, you have to put a price on each of those things,in order to build value and justify the cost.

Here are a few things that I see sales people often missing when it comes to selling their complete system:

• All components of the project including sealants, adhesives, fasteners, underlayments, products, flashings, and etc. Explain why your company uses the materials it uses, and put a value on using those materials rather than the materials that other contractors use.
• The amount of time that it will take to complete their job. Contractors often mistakenly assume that homeowners want their job done quickly. That is not the case. They want their job done right! And, if it’s a premium-priced job, they actually have the expectation that it will not happen overnight. Set realistic expectations when it comes to time but stress to the client that doing things right means not taking shortcuts to try to speed things up.
• Stress the personal commitment held by you and your company to you community and your clients. This becomes the “feel good” part of your presentation – the part where they see their investment in your company as being an investment that also has return for their community.
• Training, credentialing, insurances, and licenses – if it’s something you have, then you need to talk about it and stress that those things only come at a price. If your company pays $100,000 (or whatever) a year in insurances and licenses, share that number! If you spend $40,000 per year on safety training and equipment, share that number! If you spend $30,000 a year sending your team members for training or classes, share that number! Build the value by sharing the cost of things that the homeowner wants!

Sales is about uncovering needs and then showing how your company can meet those needs with confidence. Each of the above things describes things that homeowners really do want – so, in your sales presentation, you will establish those needs early on and get them to confirm that they want these things, and then explain how your company will provide them.

Thanks so much for your loyalty to the Executive Report. As a reminder, this is published by Isaiah Industries, manufacturer of specialty residential metal roofing. Nothing is more fun for us than to connect with quality contractors and see how we might work together to bring them to even greater levels of success. Please contact us anytime to discuss whatever is on your mind!

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