Become a Roofing Sales CLOSING Artist

Close even stronger. That's what I'm going to share with you now to help you become a closing artist so you know exactly what to say when throughout the entire appointment. Listen, because closing deals isn't just some magic phrase or like technique at the end of an appointment. A real closing artist knows how to dance through a conversation from the beginning all the way to the end, recognizing that there's a series of dominoes that need to fall or get knocked down in order to even have the possibility of closing a sale. And despite the fact that I've shared closing techniques, my favorite talk tracks, all that on this channel, what I've yet to do is expand on the entire psychology of it, because I'm finding that folks that are like me, like you're probably like me if you're tuning in, you jive on my style, are like, man, I really want to understand how and why that works so I can be more fluid and natural in my conversations and show up as my authentic self to win more business. Now, part of this effort, by the way, is through the recent acquisition of the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance by TAMKO as we relaunch the Roofing Strong Alliance, which, by the way, membership to our training and growth community is available at no additional cost for the TAMKO EDGE contractors. There's a link in the description. I'm in this position to just give, give, give even more than I have since starting my channel in 2015. So I'm just like, letting the floodgates open, and I want to share as much as I possibly can to support you. That's why I wanted to do this video. So let's begin at the very beginning. What you're about to experience is a progression. We're going to walk through an entire sales appointment from start to finish, explaining what's all going on in the prospect's mind to help you connect authentically and win even more deals. So let's start at the beginning. All right. When we open up an appointment, this is where I find the most common mistakes after I've trained thousands of salespeople. So there's what's happening and what, in my opinion, should be done to be even more effective. What's happening is many salespeople, the minute they have a chance to talk, are just going to— I call it, I call it the old pitch vomit. They're just going to vomit their solutions, vomit how great they are. Better product, better service, better warranty, better, better, better. Here's my deck. And that's it. And they think that presenting is just like rocking through a presentation or talk track. That's where things go wrong. And when appointments start that way, they do not end well. Which is why at the very beginning, we need to focus on our discovery phase. In my CAR Park Formula, this is what I teach in my closing strategy, which again is available inside RSA, is we need to assess the situation, which means identifying Where are the homeowners at in the process? What is the problem? What do they like? What do they not like? What are they looking for? When we can understand our prospect, we can present solutions that fit exactly what they're looking for. Simple questions to ask. Why did you call us? What's the problem with the roof? Where are you at in the process? How many estimates have you received? What did you like about the other contractors' offers? Right. All of this. Oh, and my favorite one, by the way, which I'm saving for last, which is how will you evaluate which contractor to choose to do your roof? If you're a scriptwriter, write that down. Okay. That is one of the best questions to ask because at that point, when a homeowner shares with you how they're going to evaluate a contractor out of the gate, you know, is it price? Is it quality? Is there a timeline? Is there a product preference? And my favorite follow-up question to ask to How will you evaluate which contractor to choose is simple. Hmm. That's great. What else? And when we ask that question, what else, a homeowner will reveal even more information because they'll usually give you a shortchanged version to start. Now, after we ask the what else question, I'll ask it again and then I'll ask it again until I get to, that's it. Now I know. And they'll give you— let's just jump into some roleplay. Hey, Mr. Homeowner, you know, How will you evaluate which contractor you'll choose to do your roof? Well, we've been doing our homework and we really, really want to go with a Class 4 impact-resistant shingle. I know that we'll save some money on our insurance and gosh, we've been through this process so much. So that's, that's important to us. That's, that's great to hear. Class 4 impact-resistant shingle. What else? You know, obviously we don't want to overpay. We want a really fair value. Fair value. Okay, great. You know, what else? You know, actually, my, my wife works on all throughout the week from home and she's on Zoom. She can't really have noise. Like, I'm really hoping that the contractor we find can do the project on a Saturday. Saturdays. All right. Saturday install, Class 4 impact-resistant shingle, fair value. What else? You know, we had our kitchen remodel done and that company I couldn't stand. They didn't communicate. I didn't know when they'd show up. They'd show up out of nowhere. They'd knock on the door. My wife was working. It was so disruptive. So yeah, we just want a company that communicates really well. All right, great. So I've got— you want a company that communicates really well, fair value, can do install on Saturday, and a Class 4 impact-resistant shingle. What else? You know, that's it. Well, pop quiz, friend. I'm jumping out of roleplay. What are the 4 things that your entire presentation would focus on? That. But if you didn't have that information, what will likely happen is the prospect is sitting here, by the way, in their mind is a talk track. I really want a Class 4 impact-resistant shingle at a fair value from a contractor that communicates well, that can do the install on a Saturday. Those are the 4 things that are important. Meanwhile, the sales rep goes through their entire pitch deck. They've got the, the, you know, whether it's a flip chart or on their phone or I don't have my iPad handy, but you get the gist, right? They're going to grab their iPad, they're going to go through it, and they don't address any of that until maybe the Class 4 option at the end. So when you do a proper discovery, this is again, I know you're probably like, oh, you're talking closing. It starts at the opener. When you have that information, you can deliver the value to what's important to them throughout the process. That's where it all begins. Number 2. So we cover the beginning. Now let's talk about what happens in the middle. In the middle of the presentation, usually where sales reps lose deals, even though they think it's because the closing phrase they learned didn't work. It's not because it didn't work. It's because they didn't have the foundation to make it work. They got to hit these dominoes, right? So Domino 1 is figure out what's going on so I can propose the right solution. All right. The second big domino to knock down here in order is addressing the questions that they're naturally going to have. And there's a distinction between this that I shared in my previous objection handling video. A question is a curiosity or wondering how something works. An objection is a definitive reason of why someone will not move forward. So when the questions come up, people might want to know like, how does it work? Meaning the entire process from start to finish. How do you protect their house? How do you protect the rose garden? The, you know, the hot tub, grandma's— by the way, I say grandma's rose bush because my grandma loved rose bushes. You know, the is it done in a day? How long will my house get disrupted? All those process questions that come up. Right? That's where we want to, we want to make sure to answer all of those throughout the presentation. And again, some carryover from the previous video. If you know that all these objections and/or questions come up throughout the process, our goal is to hit them head on. And if we don't, what happens is the equivalent of this. So I'm going to go back and I'm gonna tell you a story. All right. I did some consulting years ago, and when I say some, it was 5 years long. So I guess it was more than just some. For a law firm, and I helped them increase their, their close rate of wanted cases. They're a personal injury lawyer that worked on contingency agreement, very similar to roofers. When I first got involved, I would find that about 30 minutes into the, into the appointment, a question would show up. And the question was, how much is this going to cost me? So I'm sitting here thinking, all right, so if 30 minutes in the question comes up, how much is this going to cost me? What do you think they're thinking about for the first 30 minutes? What's it going to cost me? So what I did is I took this question and I put it right up into the introduction and said, hey, before we get started, I just want you to know it's a free consultation. There are no fees unless we take your case and win. Does that make sense? Yes. I got a verbal agreement understanding the question at 30 minutes, which now I'll put the, the, the person on the phone, the prospect at ease. Ah, I know what's coming. Right. It eased throughout the entire process. And guess what resulted? A huge jump in the close rate. Now, the reason I share that is it is so important for you to get in the mind of your homeowner and just think through what questions are they going to ask and can I put them in order and answer them in order? And if you want to learn more about this, go check out that other video. All right. Now let's get to the end. And this is where— come on, you're in. You're here for the— this is the meat and potatoes. But if we just jump to the end, you miss all the beginning and you don't ask the questions to present the right thing and address their questions. You've got no chance at closing. But at the very end, the other reason that you have no chance at closing is this: if there are unanswered questions, people are not comfortable moving forward. So a big miss that salespeople have a tendency to make is they learn the like magic phrase, which I'm still— jury's out on whether there is one, by the way. If you want to learn more on that, read the book Spin Selling by Neil Rackham. It's a classic. He can share all the research in that book that's kind of influenced a lot of the work that I do and have done and have implemented over the years. But anyway, besides the rant, if a homeowner still has questions like, how long will this thing take? Are there going to be any surprise expenses? Is my deductible going to go up? Is the insurance going to cover— like, whatever the things are if there are unanswered questions and they can be silly questions, you might have a homeowner who's like the research, like, maniac and knows more than you do. And they're like, well, how many nails per shingle are you using? So I go ahead and hit that in my presentation. And that's the one thing that's keeping them from closing the deal. So what do we need to do? We need to identify if there are any questions. I'm going to give you a two-part way to do that. Part or method number one, it's a two-part question. Hey, we've covered a lot. Do you have any questions for me so far? By the way, if you're a scriptwriter, write that down. Number 2 on the list is, hey, I know we have been talking for a bit. Does all of this make sense? Does all of this make sense? We have the first question. Okay. Do you have any questions for me so far? Or a better way to phrase that is, what questions do you have for me? It's a little bit more inviting. Either one works. After they answer and you'll find some homeowners say, nope, I'm good to go. But just like you probably had this happen, if right now I hit pause video and I said, do you have any questions for me? Your knee-jerk would be like, no, I'm good. And then like 5 seconds in, you're just continuing to think about questions like, actually, I have one. And your homeowners are doing the same thing. So we're going to give them an opportunity to voice the questions that came up that they didn't feel comfortable asking before or weren't aware of. So I'm going to play it out in real time. Hey, Peggy, we covered a lot. Do you have any questions for me so far? No, I'm good. Excellent. Is everything making sense? Yes. Now I have what I call the green light to close, and you can use whatever, which I'll teach you mine, but whatever fancy word, phrase, talk track, etc., that you wish to choose or wish to use. But what could happen is you say, hey, Peggy, do you have any questions for me so far? Yes, I do. Then they'll go back and they're usually what I call buying motivated questions. They're very specific on product, price, or timeline. And when those come up, you know, hey, if I can address these things, this, we're probably going to move forward with this deal. Okay. Now I always want to start at the beginning. So if I say, hey, Peggy, do you have any questions for me? Yes, I do. Answer them. Do you have any other questions? No. Great. Does all this make sense? Yes. Proceed. The other way it could go is you could say, hey, do you have any questions for me so far? No. All right. Everything make sense? Actually, by the way, you'll notice that the word actually usually precedes whatever question comes up later. And then they'll ask it. Say, that's a great question. Do you have any others? No. Now, once we have the green light to close, there's like a million and a half— by the way, big exaggeration here— closing techniques. People have written books on words and phrases and acronyms and all these different types. There's a lot. But I'm going to give you my favorite because your job as what I'll call the closing artist can handle the conversation fluidly and overcome objections and connect authentically. And what you've done is you've put your homeowner at ease. You've made them feel comfortable because you understand them. You're giving them the information that they're craving and you're answering the questions before they even come up and you look like the expert. So I call it riding the comfort wave. So we're going to use what I call the comfort close. Great. Are you comfortable moving forward? Which you'll notice, are you comfortable moving forward is an emotional ask, not a financial ask. This allows someone to tap into their emotional sense, which again, this is a closing masterclass. People make decisions emotionally and later validate them analytically. So when I can ride the emotion I created, which is a positive, safe, secure feeling, and I say, are you comfortable moving forward? They'll have a knee-jerk response to say, yeah, I am comfortable. And you're not asking for anything. And by the way, if you're doing retail, you can use a modified options close and say, hey, Are you more comfortable paying by check or taking advantage of our special financing offer? An option. All right. You can put your own creativity, flair, and even humor on it. Are you comfortable choosing me as your Roofing Hero? Have some fun with it. But that is the, the arc of closing that will make you a closing artist. I hope this helps you feel like a closing artist. And if you missed the last video, jump into this one because I'll teach you how to be an objection handling artist.