3 Ways to Become The "Neighborhood Roofer"

Hey, guys. Welcome back to today's video. Three ways to become the neighborhood roofer. And at the end, two bonus methods. I am joined again with Matt Morrison with ACCU Links. Matt, thank you again for joining me again today.

It's my pleasure. It's always fun hanging out with you, Adam.

Yeah, awesome. So Matt and I chatted. By the way. I have to get one thing out of the way. I brought Matt on the channel because I believe in the insights that he brings and that ACCU Lynx brings. I'm in no way affiliated or compensated for having them on or showing the logo or getting you to sign up. Like, this is the value that we want to bring to you. That's it. Plain and simple. Now that that's out of the way, Matt and I met and we were talking about this idea of becoming the neighborhood roofer. Because the number one thing everyone wants to do is stop doing what? Knocking doors. Yeah.

I hated it.

Yeah. No one, no one enjoys it. It's like the necessary evil to turn into a game and have fun. But the big idea is to find ways to generate business where you're too busy to knock doors. So we came up with these three ways and then two bonus ways. So stick around to the end to check those out because they're really the big game changers. So we're going to jump in with this. Nothing is more powerful than what your customers are saying about you behind your back. It's either good or it's bad. There's no in between. And the neighborhood chatter will dictate whether you're going to explode and blow up in the neighborhood. Get those word of mouth referrals. Get the customer literally walking you to the neighbor's house. Or if they're going to be kind of bad mouthing, use anyone but that guy, because it will happen. So here are the top three. We'll jump right into the first one. Be professional and show it. Dive in, Matt. I'm gonna write this one up.

So look, here's my thinking, right? As long as you're putting on a good roof, it's gonna be really difficult to, like, definitively show the difference between one roof and the next. As long as it's laying flat and it's not leaking, most customers are gonna be happy with that. So what are they gonna be thinking about? It was the experience they had during the whole process, from sales to ordering to production, and then closing out the job. Right. So I say things like, show up. When you say you're going to show up, I'm on next door, how many times I see people saying, can anybody got a guy that'll actually show up? I've set 10 appointments and they've never shown up or whatever, right? Show up when you say. And look, we know you get busy, so cheat a little bit, right? Set reminders on your phone. Use Siri to say, hey, remind me to show up at adam's house at 2pm or like on my Google Calendar, I've got it set up to automatically send me an email 10 minutes before every appointment that's on my calendar. And most of the time, yeah, I'm just sitting there deleting that thing. Yep. Okay, I'm good, I'm good. I'm ready to go. But, man, one out of 20 times, it's like, oh, crap, I would have totally forgotten about that had I not gotten that email, right? They don't need to know that you got an email, right? They don't care as long as you show up when you say you're going to show up. It's those little things that can make a difference, right? So, I mean, look, you can, you can use a CRM like Accolinx or whatever you've got, but look, you can also just use the tools in your pocket, right? You don't have to have a fancy system to make sure the customers taken care of. Right? And you stand out from the crowd.

And one thing, which we did cover on the last episode where you were on, which, by the way, we'll put a card. I don't know which side it is, but click the card. Check out that other interview with Matt. And one of the big things here is what customers see of you. Because the number one complaint from customers on contractors is timeliness and communication. And then scope creep, things costing more. I just said number one. I listed three timeliness. People don't show up. Communication and surprise bills. No one wants them. When you show up with a manila folder and you're rifling through trying to figure out, like, where what contract is, what, and you don't have your ducks in row, which, believe me, this was me when I was new. It doesn't look good.

I had a Dairy Queen milk crate. So, you know, I literally stole it off the back of Dairy Queen.

It does not instill confidence with your customers. So when you do sit down, if you have a laptop, if you have a tablet or an iPad or your phone, you can pull up their file. You can show an eagle view. I hover. Pull up your CRM, show them all the notes, show accu links. Hey, this is where you're at. This is what's going on. And then they're like, wow, they have their technology in order there. They get it, and you're going to stand apart. I get this question all the time. How do I stand apart or differentiate myself? Part of it is showing it, not saying it. And when Chuck in a truck showed up and he's like, you know, his dashboard is like the classic roofer dashboard of like, job orders and work orders and McDonald's wrappers.

Don't forget the burritos. Yeah, you got burritos up there, too.

To stay warm, by the way. Way. That's the reason they're up there in the sun. So awesome. So one, be professional and show it, guys. Just an action tip for this. Have your CRM up to date. Look over your schedule early. I recommend getting it set the day before and reviewing it so when I end today, that's when I'm going to have it all set. And to show up with that customer file organized and ready to present to them. Anything else you want to add to that before we roll into.

I was going to add that and say, you know, be intentional about that. Right. I mean, I know time doesn't always allow. Sometimes you're schooling your tires into the driveway 30 seconds before while you're supposed to be there. But if you can plan your day around it and spend even just three or five minutes in your truck looking through the files so that when they start talking about the shingle you were talking about or the product or the warranty, you remember it. Right. When I'm on calls with customers, I'm spending the three minutes before looking at my notes from the last call. So when I come in, I'm like, oh, yeah, Julie was your bookkeeper. And they're just amazed that I can remember. Oh, wow, you remember everyone's names. I've got the worst memory in the world that's got good notes. Right. And that's what. And that's what matters. Right. They don't care at the end of the day. How I remember, just that I remembered. Right. Yeah.

Because first impressions.

Yeah. Prepare for two, three minutes.

If. If you. If time allows, obviously, at least take a breath. I know that's one of. One of my pitfalls. I'm a spastic person. I talk fast. I'm like that at all. Let's get it done. And I remember showing up to a house, you run in, you're like, sample board, be right back. And then back, job file, be right back it's like, no, just like, take a breath. Have your ducks in a row. All right, so that's. That's number one. Number two, this is to solve all of the issues. It's so simple. Real quick, I want to use an analogy here. I started my first business at age 16. I started a mobile car detailing business. And I know that the best compliment I could get is I don't notice anything. When you're a painter, when you're doing a roof, it's the same thing. You don't want people to notice anything. Are they going to notice? I said in the three, communication. So number two is this. Stay in communication. Every single step of the way. I'm going to turn it over to you, Matt. Dive in on that one.

So, I mean, look, I had a neighbor down the road from me. She was getting a whole massive renovation done, including roofing siding, but she was building an addition on the back and redoing her garage and the whole nine yards. And one day, it was like she had dudes out there all the time. And then one day, the dudes weren't there. And I come down. I was like, angie, where are your. Oh, I don't know. I just didn't show up today. I haven't seen him actually in a week now. You know, and it's like they must have had some other project going on, but they just didn't talk to her about it. She spent like, 80, $90,000 on this project. It wasn't just a roof. And these guys would just randomly not show up, send one guy out for an hour. So stay in communication. And obviously for any things like, you know, when the. When the contract gets signed, when you schedule a job, if you're pulling a permit, if you're supplementing the job, stay in communication. I have found that most people are not shady. Most people are not trying to scam you. Most people aren't trying to put that insurance money in their pocket. They just want their job taken care of. And there's. The longer you go and don't set. Don't meet and set great expectations by communicating with them and keeping up that $3,000 check just shows up, and they had no idea where it was coming from because you didn't pick up the phone and talk about that supplement that stuff causes, you know, just gets people making up their own ideas in their head about what's going on. So stay in communication. If you, you know, if you're using a system that can automate things, right? Automate the Ben, like, hey, Your job scheduled for Thursday or you know, hey, thanks for turning your job and there's no need to spend the time typing or texting those things out. Just let that stuff automate in the background. That way you can take it the things take care of the things that you know are unique to what you're doing and your knowledge of the situation.

Yeah, because if you're not letting them know they're going to create a story and it's the same way. I just ordered some new. They were running socks for trail running from on Amazon on Prime and I still check when are they going to get here? You know, especially things right now are pretty crazy. People want to know what's going on. It's human nature. So if they're not, if the story is not being told to them, they're going to create it. And it's usually not a good one. I'm going to do a shameless plug for Accu links here and for my products when you automate these things like with Accu links and correct me if I'm wrong, once that stage changes, those emails can fire automatically schedule a job or whatever. Yeah, exactly. These are whether. So if you're an owner, do that. If you're an individual rep, the stuff in the battle pack, if you have it, use it. There's all notifications we just talked about are in there. They're pre written, they're ready to go. Just plug in your information. There's a link in the description. But either way you need to be communicating owners. It's a great way to control it because the worst thing is when a homeowner emails or calls you up and they have a question and they're like, hey, you're like, wait a minute, my sales rep didn't tell you that the whatever the issue was. So it'll keep you looking like you're on top of everything. It's a great foolproof system. So key takeaway, stay in communication every step of the way. Use templates, copy paste if you, if you need to manually, if you can automate them, set them up, let them rock and roll. And remember, every time there's like a status change, update the customer, even if it seems benign and even if you know you're on top of it, you just need them to know that you're on top of it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I'll give you a little pro tip here. If you use, if you're a Gmail user, a lot of people of us, a lot of us are right Gmail at The bottom of the button. Bottom of your inbox or not inbox. I'm sorry that when you hit compose email, the box pops up. The send button, which we always hit send to send the email. It's got a dropdown and one of those send emails. One of the senses send later.

Right.

I've literally had customers where I'm like, dude, Adam, I'll hit up. I'll hit you up in two weeks and just check in and whatever. And as soon as I end that Zoom call, I'm opening up Gmail. Hey, Adam, just checking in. How'd that report go? You get this reports written like the way you wanted to Let me know if you need any help. Insert links to my calendar or whatever. And I schedule for two weeks and I will because I, I'll forget to send that email. It's written as soon as the, you know, while the Zoom meeting is still closing down on my computer. I'm already writing it send in two weeks and I don't ever have to mess with it again. So if you know there's something that you can predict. Yeah, I'll circle back around in a week. Write it right then while you're still thinking about it. Right. And then let computers work for you. Don't work.

Exactly. Leverage your time for sure the tools.

That you've got, you know.

Yes, yes. The growing arsenal of tools. Number three is create a memorable and easy experience. When you are memorable. Remember the first quote. Nothing is more powerful than what your customers are saying about you behind your back. A memorable moment is either good or bad. And what do people talk about? The worst vacation ever. I'm not going to sit here and tell you guys I went to the most beautiful. I just did my five year wedding anniversary with my wife in Maui. I'm not going to sit here because it sounds like I'm bragging. Right. People just don't talk about that. They want to talk about the negative things. Like when I went on a cruise in the Caribbean and then like there was this person barfing nonstop in front of us, got grounded. Then we got stuck in Miami. We had no air, we had no hotel. People want to tell the negative story and your customers are going to the same thing. So you are memorable no matter what. They're going to be really not so great or it's going to be awesome. And you got to go the extra step for them to share the awesome. Because when their neighbor is saying, hey, I didn't know when it was going on, he lost touch. I went through Three reps, because there was high turnover, whatever it is. Then the neighbor you worked with can be like, hey, you should work with Matt. He was awesome. He was over at so&so. And I was up. Up to stuff. So anyway, I'm going to shut up. Create memorable and easy experiences.

What are your thoughts on that one? I've got a phrase that I've lived by for a while, and that's that people don't care about what you care about. They care about what they care about. And if you can show that you care about what they care about. Right, Then they're going to be more likely to work with you. Right. And my. One of my favorite stories about this was I was working up in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We had a sales guys up. Sales guy up there who was trying to break into this neighborhood that had a bunch of people from Southeast Asia. I think they were from Myanmar, if I'm not mistaken. Somehow a bunch of these people got. Got located there. I don't know how. What the backstory was, but anyway, he was trying to break in this neighborhood because there was like hundreds of them in this neighborhood. And he turns in the first job. And I'll never forget it because we couldn't pronounce the name on the folder. We didn't know how to pronounce it. It was letters going next to each other that don't happen in English. And we didn't know what it was. And we were like, dude, Jay, what's going on with that? He was all like, yeah, they're from. They're from Asia. And I was like, okay. So we start processing the file, and he comes back a couple days later and goes, oh, Matt, by the way, we can't build that job on a day with a four. Now, we've all gotten like the odd request. Don't build on a Friday or Beware of dog or what? Close the gate behind you or whatever. But I was like, a four. What's up with that? He goes, it can't be on the 4th, the 14th, or the 24th. What? Well, in their religion, the number four is bad luck. And they believe. And I'm paraphrasing, I don't remember all the details, but something like, they believe if their home is exposed, elements on the day with the four demons will come into their house. And I'm like, well, we don't want to be the demon. It's one thing to pay for a cracked driveway, but to pay for an exorcist? I mean, that's kind of a New one. Right. And so, you know, we decided it was like, all right, cool. Those big old notes. 4th, 14th and the 4, 24th are off limits. Right. They don't even have a 4 in their address. Right. It's a big deal to them. It wasn't a big deal to us. It's not part of our culture. But it was to them. Right. And so we made a point of, you know, making sure that everything went well, the way they wanted. And then the next thing, you know, dude, we couldn't pronounce anything, any of Jay's folders because he got the entire neighborhood because he wrecked. They recognized that he cared about their culture. It was important to them, and we made it important to us. Right. And that, I mean, he must have, I don't even know, 70, 80, 90 houses that summer. It was nuts that we just from that one neighborhood. Because we took care of their cultural needs. Right. What was important to them was important to us.

And being care about inhuman.

I love that.

Care about what they care about. And it's people that watch this channel. See, like, my focus is on taking care of people, educating them, because ultimately we're of service. Yes, we can get paid very well doing it. But when. Yeah, we worked in an area with a large Hmong population, it was not uncommon to have chickens in the home. And things that were just culturally are different. And when we were just mindful and polite and appropriate, and especially if I put myself, which, you know, I'm a white male, I got it the easiest than everybody. And I can only imagine having strong cultural differences and people coming into your home and feeling judged, especially in your own house, you are not going to do business with them. Have an open heart, be loving, take care of people. Because just like. Was it Jarvis? Was that the name of the. Just like. What happened with Jarvis? They're going to talk. And they did probably doing nothing more than just taking care of people.

Yeah. I mean, we had communication challenges. We had all sorts of other challenges. I think one of them, I was growing rice in their basement or something like that. But it didn't matter. We took care of what was important to them, and that made all the difference. Yep.

And so take notes, guys. Always document. Take notes on those unique things that so you remember, so you're on top of it. And just be loving. Remember, people's homes are their castles. It doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't matter if it's a cultural thing. I've been in homes with severe mental health issues. You know, homes That I would not want it and have it myself. I'm sure we all have our stories. I walked into a house once with a woman. It was a rental. We were doing a commercial property. She had an 8 inch knife on like tucked up here. Answer the door with one hand with all these claims. And then as soon as I start talking, she sets the knife on the table. And I was like, oh, this is interesting.

I almost died on my neck.

Stands up, just still telling that story. Care about people. It's that simple. And drop the judgment. Bring the love and it'll help. So that I'm going to do a quick recap before we jump into the bonus because there's two of them I want you to stick around for. Number one is be professional and show it. Show up prepared and well organized. Automate what you can use the tools and technology at your resource, whether it's ACCU Links or your favorite CRM. Number two is stay in communication every step of the way. Automate. Remember, if something changes, they got to know. Okay? Stay on top of it and use those emails. You can check out the ones in the battle pack and you can even plug them into ACCU Links. Number three is create a memorable and easy experience by caring about what your customers care about and pay attention to those details. All right, Anything to add, Matt, before we roll into the two bonus ones?

No, man, that looks good. I've got more stories I can tell, but I don't think. I don't think they'll add to your point. Fantastic.

We could probably riff back and forth for a while. So number one is the bonus one that we threw out there was to ask for reviews. So many people. And I'm going to be doing a whole other video on this here in the future. Reviews are probably the most powerful thing that you can use to sell. Rookies especially. Don't ask you want to know. Because I could sit here and say, guys, the marketing battle packs the greatest thing in the entire world. And you'll say whatever, Adam, you're trying to sell. But if you click on the page, you read reviews and testimonials and see what other people are saying unsolicited, that is a very different level of credibility and authenticity, especially when they're screenshots and they're unedited. And the same goes for your customers. Because you know what everyone. What, Matt, I'm curious what you think. What is the. What is the pitch for every roofing company that they say that they're better?

Oh, well, you know, we have our Warranty or we're certified or you know, those kinds of things. But so does everybody else in town who wants to offer a warranty and get certified. I mean, again, you can only so good of a roof on. You got to be able to offer something different.

I have a better product, a better install and a better warranty. It's what everybody says. And I've been in business for this many years and BBB credited and I'm certified by shingle manufacturer. And when you just let your customers do the selling for you, you use reviews, you show them what they're posted, even if it's an email. Guys take a screenshot on your phone. If you get an email from a customer screenshot, take out their private info unless you have permission to use it. That stuff is so powerful because when you sit down, you can say, hey, I did Peg. Have you talked with Peggy? Because you can chat with her and hear directly what she has to say about me or. And then you can show those.

Right? Or if you're sending out marketing stuff or if you're using aculinks as smart docs or if you're still just carrying away the folder, bring a printout on that thing. Right? Especially if you can make that very locally relevant, not some guy whose church you did in Ohio and you're working in St. Louis. Make sure it's relevant to the area you're in.

Exactly. Exactly. So the next bonus here, and I decided to throw one more in. We didn't have a plan, but I'm going to do it anyway. Bonus two is make it easy to spread the wor. How do you do that? Referrals. Ask for referrals. Use my referral strategy. There's a link. We'll put a link wherever it goes to the referral videos to help you do that. And remember we talked about this, Matt, you and I on the last one. You can always bake in those. I call it baking in, meaning putting in the referral requests in the emails. Hey, customer. Here's what's going on. Your job scheduled, by the way. Who do you know we might be able to help? Let them know who we are. If we book an appointment, we'll give you a $25 gift card to a local restaurant. A way of saying thank you. And that's again for the appointment, not for a name. You're not buying names off people. It's a way to say, hey, thanks for the opportunity to chat with them. 25 bucks buys a meal.

Okay, pro tip. Make that part of your signature Right. Your signature doesn't just have to be Matt Morrison, you know, customer enablement specialist with accolades. It could be, but you know what? A signature is just a pre made block of text. So your pre made block of text could be your standard 12 point font with exactly what Adam just said. Hey, if you know anybody, let me know. $25 gift card, whatever. And then in big bold letters, your name and your title and your cell phone number and whatever else. They don't need to know that it was a much larger block of text. They don't need to know. Use technology, guys.

Yeah.

So easy. And this is not accolinx. You don't need to buy a darn thing. Go sign up for a free Gmail account. Everything I just said is there. You just got to click on some of the buttons that are in there. Right, exactly.

Appreciate that about you, Matt. Not like of course you represent a company, but the information that everyone's learning today is applicable no matter what you use. So the last bonus one that I'm going to add because I'm just sitting here thinking what are people going to comment? They're going to say work your installs and never leave the neighborhood. And that is a for sure. The third bonus is this. Listen, stay in that neighborhood. Don't go one and done. Go into it every day and work those installations. All right? If you're, if you're not knocking doors around them. If you're not, which I prefer to do. Sending letters before the install to the neighbors and after the install to the neighbors. Those letters are available in the battle pack, by the way, or write your own. I have a video which I can link to on the five essentials for direct mail. Check those out. So you can create your own if you want. I had a few people do that and have great success. So yeah, that's it. Recrap on those bonuses, ask for reviews, make it easy to spread the word and live in that neighborhood. Work those installs. Matt, is there anything else that you want to add that we. That I might have breezed before we call it a wrap today?

No, I think that I think you've done a fantastic job. I think there's a great. And I like the last one. Living your install. I used to make a point of going to my installs the day of the build and picking up at least one square of felt somewhere and I would try to do it in front of a customer's open window. I didn't just want to do it. I did, but I also wanted to be seen doing it right. And so I go find the open window, I'd go find the back patio and I'd be out there picking up some scraps just so they saw me out there. So again, I'm trying to make it easy. I'm trying to give them a memorable experience. I want them to think I care. Look, I just. At the end of the day, I'm here because I want people to succeed. I want the contractors to succeed. Accolinx just happens to be where I currently think I can do that the best. So if you want to reach out to me, my email address is trainingculinx.com trainingculinx.com whether you're a customer or not. And just if you want to reach out and connect or find me on LinkedIn, whatever. And let's chat. It's always fun hanging out with people in this industry.

So awesome. Matt, thanks a ton. So anyone else, just accu links. Matt will hook you up with whoever you chat with. And before we wrap it up, what did we miss? If there's anything that you've used as a great tactic to become a neighborhood roofer, drop a comment, let us know. Remember, subscribe to the channel. Hit the bell so you don't miss any of these upcoming videos. Links to everything in the description below and we'll see you on the next one.

See you guys.

Bye.