Only a handful of roofing businesses have mastered the art of managing consistent profitable sales in the industry. The determining factor of success, we’ve observed, is to have that astute skill of avoiding common roofing sales mistakes many companies make today.
After careful deliberation, we highlighted five of these mistakes. If profits sound appealing to you, then these five would also interest you. Let’s dive in!
No Sales Process
Many contractors and sale-reps in the roofing industry need a properly defined sales process. If you want to make the best profits, you must have a sales process. A sales process means having a series of repeatable and well-defined steps in your selling. Not having one means settling for an avoidable roofing sales mistake.
This process will enable you to build a selling context around your sales presentation, which your customers will accept and understand. This context will generate more income and ultimately more profit for you.
For instance, it is generally acceptable for a customer to buy a Heineken beer from a five-star restaurant at a significantly higher price than from the retail shop down the road.
The difference in these scenarios is based purely on the sales context, and only a sales process can help you achieve that efficiently. The goal of the process is to make the prospect see why he should buy, and understand the reason for his purchase.Â
With a good sales process in place, your customers should be excited to buy from you. And that equals a sales flow in your direction.
No Price Conditioning
The second roofing sales mistake is a lack of price conditioning of your product. In price conditioning, you re-orientate the prospects to the realistic product price. You do not want to take chances by leading them on an investment journey they are unwilling to take.
Customers are astute, and they will always make their choices. A very efficient way to create a pricing condition is to build testimonial books containing the prices. You can use testimonials showing real, happy people in their homes enjoying the pleasure of well-done roofing.
Some folks call this social proof selling. Social proof selling provides motivating visuals that are often too compelling for your prospects to ignore.
Proper price conditioning will anchor your prospects, and they will be willing to buy from you. Mind you, people have a habit of basing their decision on the first piece of info they see. So, make sure you show it to them early.
Boring Company Story
‘Hey, we are certified, licensed, and have been in business for this number of years…’
A good company story goes beyond saying, ‘Hey, we are certified, licensed, and have been in business for this number of years…’.
Of course, those qualifications are essential, but making your leads feel the soul of your company is more crucial, especially at your business’ onset. You have to make your customers see your commitment to:
- Meet their needs:
You commit to their needs by showing them how you intend to solve their problems and how you’ve previously solved similar ones.
- The company’s development:
Show your commitment to the company’s development by telling the company story. Invite your prospect, show them your team, and highlight their various areas of expertise. This way, you build confidence and trust in them.
- Continuous upgrade of the product they want to buy:
You show commitment to the product by demonstrating your knowledge of your product and pinpointing the features. Offer professional advice about the product. You must also get the customers involved in how they’ll utilize the products.
Presenting multiple options and showing them a range of prices increases their confidence in your brand. Beware of option overload, though.
No Upselling
Overlooking upselling tactics will always be a roofing sales mistake. It’s best to go with the three-options formula because this allows your leads to discount the least fancied option rightly. This is akin to the goldilocks principle.
Also, upselling helps to give prospects a feeling of being more ingenious in their decision-making, even if they spend more. You can present something free in the option to them; more often than not, they will jump on it to buy because of FOMO.
Selling that gives customers an excuse to buy or self-justification always works. People have a fear of losing freebies. People make bad decisions when ‘free’ is involved.
Poor Use of Financing
You should offer financing squarely on every project, proposal, or product if you want to get the kind of profit you want. If you are not offering finance, you are creating price objections for your prospects and making an avoidable roofing sales mistake.
Customers only know what affordability looks like once you show them. The best way to do this is to offer some form of financing. When you do this, it does not matter how expensive the product is anymore. You’ve presented it to look affordable.
Let’s say a product is $18,000. A total payment of $18000 as the only option will immediately raise objections in the prospect’s mind.
However, if you bring up the possibility of a monthly payment of $1850, the customer, in his mind, sees beyond the initial objections and welcomes the chance of purchasing your monthly plan.
And he does this with a sense of relief – relief that he can buy it now with your money and get to pay up more conveniently. Nonetheless, there are some poor ways of using financing which you must avoid. These include:
- bringing it up first in your conversation with your lead;
- using it to overcome objections;Â
- not building the merchant fee into the overhead; and,
- not offering it on every project.
 If you use financing correctly, you will make significant sales and profits.
Final Thoughts
Now that you have seen the common mistakes, it is essential to point out that the canopy that covers all these mistakes is accountability. Your sales reps have to be accountable for the entire process.
They need to follow up on the leads and know how to bend the sales probability in their favor. Visionary leadership that produces results cannot also be overemphasized in a winning sales process.
If you do this consistently, you’ll not only avoid many roofing sales mistakes, you’ll make an astounding profit! If you need more strategic roof marketing content like this, follow Hook agency or sign up for our contractor course below!
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