9 Sales Rules The BEST Roofers Live By

The strongest salespeople have philosophies that they rely on. And in this video, I'm gonna share the 9 philosophies that I've found are like a common thread among the industry experts and sales trainers that I've worked alongside or interviewed over the years. People like Dan Walrack and Da'Shaun Bryant and John Brose and Chuck Tokey and Sam Taggart, Cody Landels, Jim Aline, John Senac, John Abernathy, and the list goes on. These, by the way, extend even far beyond the roofing industry. So if you or your team want to become the strongest possible salespeople, you're in the right place. I'm Adam Bensman. Welcome or welcome back. Let's get started. Now, the first item on this list, number 1, is listen more than you speak. Now, what do we mean by that? You'll hear folks like— I just did an interview with John Brose, and he basically Gave the same old saying that you've probably been hearing since you were a kid. Things like, hey, we have, what is it, 2 ears, 2 eyes, 1 nose, and a mouth for a reason, and that is that we need to listen more than we speak. And I know Dan Walrack brought this up recently as well, that it is so important for us to actually listen to what homeowners have to say so we can provide the right answers. Because salespeople can have a tendency to I'm gonna say word vomit, just like projectile vomit solutions, and just try to cram their pitch down people's throats instead of simply listening to hear how they can help. Which brings me to number 2, acronyms. You may have catched— or catched— you may have caught that on my channel I use acronyms. I teach the SLAP formula for door-to-door, which is say hi and break the ice. Let them know why you're there. Ask an open-ended question. What do we do after we ask? We listen. So, we can then P, present to their answer. So, this formula along with the ARO formula which stands for acknowledge, reassure, overcome. And the CARPARK formula, it's my closing formula. Connect, assess, report, present, ask referrals, and kickstart. All these are acronyms. And what these acronyms do is they allow you and I to digest these complex topics and ideas into really easy to reference frameworks. We can just kind of like pull them out of the air when we need them. And then plug them into our sales process or conversation during the times we need them. And they become powerful, what I'll call fallback methods for us. So they get ingrained, and instead of winging it, we begin to, without thought, just start actually using the right pitch and the right process. In fact, Cody Landels, fellow member inside the Roofing Strong Alliance, he just ran a session on the use of acronyms. Both in a leadership and an accountability and a performance standpoint, from, from all angles of the business, from sales to production quality to the team aligning around the same visions. It was just beautiful. By the way, if you want to learn any of my formulas, they're now available at no additional cost to the Tamco Edge certified contractors. You can click a link in the description to learn more, go to rsa.pro. All right, I just am telling you this right now, I'm probably going to screw up the list Because I want— I'm going from memory. So let's hit number 3 on the list, and that is knocking warm and not cold. Okay, now what do I mean by that? Let's say I showed up in this beautiful neighborhood, which by the way recently got hit with hail, um, pretty badly actually. And I showed up to this house, and let's say this home, uh, no one's ever seen me. They don't recognize this logo. They don't recognize my face. They don't recognize anything I'm wearing. Or nor do they recognize my truck. What I'm doing is I'm knocking what's called cold, where I knock on the door and they show up. And naturally, when you hear someone show up at your door, there's 2 questions that show up in your mind, and that is, who is it and what do they want? And when people are wondering this, there's no familiarity, so there's natural resistance. So instead of knocking cold, what we want to do instead is what we call knocking warm, and that would be sticking around in the same neighborhood over and over again to build familiarity. So people see their— see my truck, they might see me up on a roof of a house, and now they start to recognize me. Even if I'm a small company and don't have the hugest brand or the largest brand presence, I can be the largest roofer in the neighborhood. I've been teaching this for years with the multi-touch marketing, and And that you can access at no additional cost as a, the Tampa Edge certified contractor, including my direct mail letters, my done-for-you marketing, leave-behinds, all that jazz. But even Dan Walrack in a recent interview was sharing his philosophy of using these, 'cause he uses what he calls watch us work or watch our work letters, leaving them at homeowners' doors. So when he does pop over to the neighborhood, back into the neighborhood, he's able to see if people have grabbed his letters You know, off their doors and he knows that they're home and they're going to show up and be like, oh, I recognize that guy. It also gives you a reason to show up. So, being warm in the neighborhood, using multi-touch, this is sticking and staying put in the same neighborhood. It's using a comprehensive system like knocking a door, leaving a letter at the door, and then showing up behind it, sending a letter in the mail. At scale, companies have used mass direct mail, mass postcard mailings, and this creates a warm door-knocking experience. We're going to keep it going on the list. Let's hit the next one. The hardest door to open is actually your own door. And I've heard this from a lot of people. And I remember when I started knocking doors, it was in 2011, and I got into this neighborhood. By the way, when I got into it, I was working a hailstorm. And I remember that hail maps at the point, they weren't what they are now. Like, you had to like mail order it in, and it was set up in the office, and it was laminated. And I remember that I started knocking where there was no hail because I didn't know any different. And I didn't have any luck. And then finally, I got my hands on this hail map and I went into this neighborhood and it was ground zero, biggest hail fell. And I was many, many weeks, many months late actually on this storm. And I showed up, I literally got laughed at out of the neighborhood and it was humiliating and it totally killed my morale because it was weeks and weeks and weeks. I didn't have any sales training. I didn't know what I was doing. I was figuring it all on my own and I was failing a lot and I remember the days that like I tried to think of everything I possibly could to make door knocking easier. So, like one strategy was I'd print out my leave-behind door hangers like I'm not done till the stack is done and I have it on my passenger seat and I just remember driving into these neighborhoods and sitting there being like you got this, Adam. You got this. You got this and that the hardest door to open was my own door. But once I got it open, things got naturally easier and easier. And one of the things I learned was from a gentleman named Carl who I interviewed on the channel, and he shared this on the— on an interview. He says his trick when he got started was to show up in the neighborhood, open his door, find the house where he pretty much knew no one was home, and just knock on it. So the first and hardest one was out of the way right away. And I absolutely loved that strategy because like, what a great way to just like get into it, you know? It's like They say the hardest part about getting a gym routine is simply showing up. So it's a beautiful one. All right, let's hit the next one on the list, speaking of door knocking, and that is chasing nos. You know, in sales, we're taught to pursue yeses, right? We got to get to yes and get to yes, and it can be demoralizing. And this does happen, by the way, to nearly every salesperson at some point in their career where they go on— I call them goose eggs— when you get a big old zero, and that zero is No traction, no results, no sales. And it might be for a day, it might be for a week, it could be for a month. It just, it all depends. And sometimes these nos, they feel defeating. And I know especially when you're getting started, when you're hearing no for the first time or over and over and over again, you're not used to it. It's exhausting. But I remember in an interview I did with John Brose, he talked about, and he's not the only one by the way, this I'd also heard Yeah. And what I'm getting the most semblances from, from almost every one of these people that I just mentioned in the beginning, is that when you shift your mindset around nos, like let's say— and by the way, I am making up these numbers for simple math, and I know that they're not accurate, but it'll just make this conversation easier. Let's say, for example, you have to knock 100 doors to get to a yes, and an average commission is $1,000. Well, what's each door worth, right? $10. So if I know that every door I knock and they're like not interested, I'm like, I just got $10. Next door, I got $10. But think of it this way, what if every 10 doors you knocked, which could happen if you're in a hot neighborhood and you're getting traction, it took you 10 doors to get to yes? Well, now suddenly each door is worth $100. So when you knock and they're like not interested or go get a real job, you're like, I just got paid $100. Because you got to get through those nos to get to yes. And this is a really powerful mindset shift that can really help you go from like dreading getting rejected to almost looking forward to it. Like, okay, it's out of the way, but I also got paid to go through it. Speaking of knocking doors, you know, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. And if you want to learn from folks like Da'Shawn Bryant and myself and our strategies, you can join us inside RSA. Again, there's a link in the description. All right, next one on the list is playing the long game. And you'll hear from folks like legendary Dan Walrack, who served hundreds of homeowners. By the way, Tampa hasn't verified that figure or my interview I did with Josh Sparks, the chairman of Infinity Home Services, which is a private equity platform doing hundreds and hundreds of millions in revenue. Again, not verified by us, but they shared these numbers with us. And Dan sold hundreds of homeowners himself in one year, and he quoted north of $500,000. I can't remember the exact number, but it was a tremendous amount. And then Josh Sparks said that nearly 40% to 60% of their revenue comes from word of mouth or referrals. And what's interesting is we think about this, both of them, they're playing the long game. And the problem with so many roofing companies is they're not playing the long game. They're very transactional minded. I'm going to go knock on that door, I'm going to try to get that sale, and once I'm done, I'm going to churn and burn and then move on to the next one. But folks like Dan are investing in their, in their community. You know, Dan's even sharing strategies of how— and he does this out of his heart too, like he's getting involved in the kids' sports and the community, working concession stands. Others are doing charitable efforts. Some just simply focus on creating an amazing experience. And I know Josh Sparks shared their SMART customer experience system. SMART is an acronym. Back to acronyms, by the way. Thank you, Josh. His SMART customer experience acronym to deliver just a world-class experience because you can't be thinking, oh, you know what, if I don't get this now, then it's a done deal. Like, why would I waste my time? Meanwhile, I was recently down in Florida speaking to some roofers who were literally telling me they've repaired the same roof 2 times over a number of years, and they finally just got the call for a full replacement. So you don't know what's going to happen, and the idea is play the long game, right? If you're, if you're really in this in the long run, people feel the difference when you truly, truly care. Play the long game. Next one up, you've heard me say this one. Lots. Plan tomorrow tonight. In fact, I've heard other people even go so far as to say plan your entire week in advance, plan your month in advance, and I get it. The roofing industry, whether you're in storm or retail, it's fast-paced, it's unpredictable, appointments change, last-minute calls come in, production problems show up, you know, adjusters, if you're in the insurance place, will show up 3 hours early or not show at all or 3 hours late. But the idea here is when we think through The limiting factor for most roofing salespeople is not ability, it's actually capability, meaning time. So time becomes the most valuable tool for you. And when you can plan tomorrow tonight, you wake up, you should never be going to bed wondering what you're gonna do tomorrow, what your day looks like. You have your schedule, you know where your installs are, where you're knocking doors, where your appointments are, so you can maximize the minute of every day. 'Cause this was the very first industry that I got into Where I remember finishing work, it was like 9:30, 10 o'clock at night at first. And I thought to myself, boy, I wish I had more time. And I couldn't believe I'd ever say that because I used to sit when I was a massage therapist, by the way, and I'd like watch the clock tick by and it was like— reminded me of like middle school when you're a kid just watching time slip by at snail's pace. Like, and it was absolutely misery. So, I would highly recommend you follow this practice and plan tomorrow tonight. That's how you can maximize your time. All right, that's going to bring us to the next 2 on the list. First one is my favorite, and this goes down to accountability, and that is no excuses. You'll find that all the folks that I had mentioned have run sales teams or helped run sales teams, and one of the things that will just absolutely poison culture, including your own mind, is excuses. That was a bad lead, that one was a telemarketer, they wanted to cancel, I didn't get the sale because of this, it was my company's fault. There's no such thing as a good excuse and John Brose and I got into this in a recent interview and it's funny, I even caught myself like, oh, if there was a reasonable excuse, like there are no such things as reasonable excuses and it is so true. So as a salesperson, your attitude isn't— excuse me, I shouldn't say isn't because it might be. My recommendation is to ditch the attitude of There's an excuse that's always outside, and look for what you can do better. Even, even if it's not 100% in your locus of control, the idea is for you to use every single sales opportunity as what I'll call an improvement weapon. And that is what distinguishes the difference between the salespeople that just never seem to really, really get ahead and those who are absolute all-stars. So no more excuses, only opportunities for improvement. And this brings me to my last and absolutely most favorite sales philosophy, and that is be a lifelong student. When you ask any of the folks who I just mentioned what they're reading right now, they're going to tell you. What were the most inspirational books that you've read? They're going to tell you. What were the best seminars or conferences you've attended? They're going to tell you. What are the podcasts or YouTube channels you watch? They're going to tell you. And I know that if you are here right now still, kudos by the way, congrats and thank you. You truly are a lifelong student, and I support lifelong students along with many of these folks who I mentioned, like Da'Shawn Bryant and, and John Abernathy and Sean Brose and Cody Landels and Jim Moline, uh, and myself. We're all in the trenches together inside the Roofing Strong Alliance by TAMKO. Whether you're joining us or whether you're accessing the on-demand sales training, Be a lifelong student because each and every opportunity you have to learn is what I call information leverage for you to learn, apply, and have a disproportionately incredible outcome from it. Thanks for joining me on this video. If you are new to the industry, jump into this video and I'm going to teach you how to get set up to succeed as fast as possible. We'll see you soon.