Closing Lessons From a $35MM Roofing Company | Interview With Ryan Shantz

Hey, everybody, welcome. I am joined today by Ryan from Sumoquote who has run not a 10 million dollar a year company, not 15, not 20, 25 million plus on pace to hit 35 million this year. Also founder of Sumoquote. Ryan, thank you for joining today.

Adam, it's great to be here, man. Really appreciate you having me on.

Yeah, we got to connect a few weeks before Thanksgiving holiday and kind of chat through things and I'm really excited to kind of bring bring Ryan on the channel to share some stories with you. This is not just want to get this out of the way. Two things. One, I am not an affiliate. I'm not accepting any payments or anything to have this video out there. And two, we're not doing a product demo. What we're covering today is going to help you and your sales transformation as we adapt to new times, both with COVID new technologies and providing tools and avenues for you whether you use Sumoquote or not, to help you close more deals. So I'm going to shut up for a minute. Ryan, will you mind a quick introduction on your background and let's slide right into what started you on this path to creating Sumoquote. Because people watching may not know what sumoquote is, but they're going to learn soon.

Yeah, thanks, man. I mean, I have a bit of an odd path in coming into this. I mean, I've been an owner of.

A roofing company for the last almost 10 years here up in Calgary, Alberta. You gave some numbers. So my partners run that. I run Sumoquote now, but before I took over running sales for our residential division there, before that I actually owned a denim line, a blue jeans company, which was very interesting going from denim to construction. And I had done some shingling in the past, so it's not like roofing was unfamiliar to me. But the whole concept of being in an industry that is highly brand sensitive, you know, you take a $2 T shirt, you throw a logo on it, suddenly it's worth $50. Right. So I come out of an industry like that into a roofing space that's incredibly crowded. And how do you tell these companies apart? It's really difficult thinking from the homeowner lens about how roofing companies really differ from each other. And so we came about it in a bit of a unique way and getting Sumo boat with our own company in trying to stand out in a crowded space and seeing some pretty tremendous results with that. So we built some tech around it and launched Sumoquote. And it's been going Great. It's pretty fun.

That's awesome. I didn't know, by the way, when we met before that you ran a blue jean company. Here I am with a. I think it says Oakley back here. And you can imagine that this plain polo that I could have got at Walmart cost a couple bucks more because of that logo. And they're probably made in the same dang factory.

Yeah, you would be surprised. I could tell you some stories about touring through factories in India and stuff like that. I've seen a lot out there with that.

I believe it. That's wild. So thanks for sharing the intro. What led you in your business? Because obviously you guys created Sumoquote. You showed it to me, you've proved it and are using it in your own roofing business. What pain points led to saying, hey, we need a platform and for anyone that doesn't know, I'm going to give you my interpretation, you can correct it as you see fit. But Sumoquote is a easy to use digital platform to quickly and easily create presentations and quotes for homeowners so they can see contingency agreement, retail quotes and so on. And it's in a polished up professional landscape. Did I get it somewhat accurately?

Totally, yep. You got the main purpose there for sure.

Yeah. So what led to this? Like you, obviously, you guys have been very successful, wildly successful. Why did you need to go to digital presentations?

You know what the pain that we were feeling was? We had grown to become the largest residential roofing company in our region here, but we have to compete against anyone. And in our region, there's about 1,000 residential roofing contractors. And so, you know, like I said, we've grown to becoming the largest of that group, but we have to compete against everyone. And typically there's a lot less overhead that a lot of those companies are carrying. We're never going to be the cheapest in the market, nor do we want to be. That's not our position. So we had to figure out a way to communicate, and not just communicate to show the homeowner that they were going to get a different experience with us, that we were more professional that we wanted. We were engaging with this. We had a better understanding of the project. We could present solutions easier, we could market them the story of our company or yeah, like we could. We had a better way for them to visually understand that we were different than anybody else they were talking to. And the results for us, we saw our closing rates before Sumo Code. And you've got to understand we're, you know, We're a bit of a volume player. Right. So it's a lot of cold, you know, leads that we're getting. It's a lot of digital marketing stuff like that. So we were closing previously at about 27%. We saw our closing rate go up to 44% in the first couple of years. And using Sumoquip like it, which was massive difference on our business.

Yeah. And just for everyone listening and watching, when you mentioned those digital marketing leads, we're talking a blend of both retail and Storm work, correct? Or was that okay?

Those numbers specifically were our retail numbers, the storm numbers. We had them in there, but it kind of muddled it up too much because, you know, big storm one year, medium storm or small storm the next. Like it, it pushed our numbers around too much. So when we were trying to just analyze and isolate the direct impact that it had, we just did our retail numbers on that.

Perfect.

But certainly we use Sumo Quote for all of our insurance stuff as well.

Yeah. And I wanted to get that out of the way because so many people who are doing Storm, like, I have a 90% close rate. Like, yeah, you can. And I've also found so many. So many people measure their close rate based on feelings and hunches and not. And I made the same mistake. So I don't remember you and I shared this, but we. When I'm looking down, I'm taking some notes on my notepad here for follow up questions. But I audited our books and I thought our close rate for storm was about 70% and it turned out to be about 30 and similar things. Leads were coming in. This was back before you had good systems in place to book appointments. So you do the classic, oh, you want an estimate? Okay, what's your name and number? We'll call you back. And then you're like scrambling to find a sales rep and then send them the info and then they call back and. And there's all these little leaks that happen. And one of those again is when you mentioned a presentation is everyone's following the same format and that's awesome. So you said 27 to 44%.

That's right. Yeah.

27. That's significant. That's really significant. I want to take a step back for a minute because I made a note. You said you needed to find a way to show customers the value because you weren't the cheapest and to stand apart from someone else. I teach my clients when we do one on one work, how to sell against the. Here's your estimate. 30 square roof, remove and replace $10,000, and then that's the estimate. And this is like the chuck and a truck roofer, the small company. Can you share a little bit about how this formal delivery of this information accomplishes that core objective of helping you stand apart and showcase the value?

For sure. And let me. I'll start by saying you can't rely solely on your presentation, right? The sale is a whole bunch of things that's just one piece that we're hyper focused on that can help achieve results. But you should be looking at how are you running and managing your sales through every piece, right? So not to put it entirely on that, but, but how are you differentiating there? What's the impact it has? You know, best told through a story. One of the sales guys that I was running, this is a few years back, this was, I think it was on like a 42, $43,000 hardy job.

Siding job that he was selling.

And the homeowner basically told him, hey, look, you know, you can swing by and talk to me, that's fine. I've kind of already made up my mind. But, you know, yeah, I'll take 10, 15 minutes with you. So, you know, you've already put your quote together, so I owe you that much. So he swings by, sits down with the guy. The competitor's quote is sitting on the table right there, right? Like one of the homeowners where he's got his file, his paper file system. And he opens it up and here's the competitor's quote and everything else. And he's looking through our quote or our sales presentation. And after about five to 10 minutes, he looks at our sales guy and he's just like, you know what, Actually, I'm gonna go with you. I mean, look at your quote. It's so much more detailed. Now the ironic part about this is my sales guy can see the competitor's quote. He actually thought the competitor's quote was more detailed, but it was built in Word or Excel or something like that. And it was just heavy text, text, text, text, text. So you can imagine the homeowner, now the homeowner has ours, which is really visual. Lots of photos, lots of icons, like just things that are very easy piece by piece to comprehend and understand compared to the competitors. All built in Word. While the homeowner starts reading the competitors, hits a bunch of industry jargon, starts not understanding something, tunes out, goes over their head, they shut down, right? This is how they. This is how a homeowner is reacting to this. So the Results that you're looking for are how do you make it, how do you make it easy for the homeowner? This quote is not for you. This quote is for the home. For your client. It has to be easy for them to understand, comprehend and answer the questions and provide solutions for the things that matter to them, not the things that you think should matter to them. And so it's a lot of how do you start to craft something really, really quickly, really easily, but make it about the homeowner and have it stand out to them. And Matt, that was the. One of the things that really, it's the story of it, but ultimately it drives the numbers. Right?

Yeah, you, you know, I, I gotta bring it up because you came from retail selling clothes. If we forget roofing for a minute and we look at selling any product, packaging can make or break a sale because of what perceived value. So you see these videos on YouTube unboxing the new, I don't have an iPhone, but whatever it is, unboxing. And this whole experience of unboxing or seeing something on a shelf and saying, I'd be willing to pay that. And you'll see like three deodorant sticks. Some are just on their own, some are in a box. And then the fancy, like organic natural ones and some fancy packaging. And they're all essentially the same thing. But packaging and presentation have this link how we people make buying decisions because of perceived value. And I love what you brought up about, like showcasing the value, even if the numbers are identical. If I delivered it in chicken scratch, like the notes I have for here, someone's going to look at this and be like, I'm about to spend $25,000 with you versus everything. I mean, then all of a sudden they're thinking, if they're this organized on the front end, what about later? They really know what they're doing. I understand what it is. And I also wanted to touch on what you mentioned about making the quote easy to understand. Funny enough, I still have my camera set up because I just filmed the video about what the key takeaway was. You need to communicate with your customer as if they're a 10 year old. Not saying that there's. This is not saying that they're stupid. It's to help you simplify the language and not say all the jargon and tech and like overwhelm them. And they're like, but what does this mean? What's my house gonna look like? And will it shed water?

Oh, totally.

Well, and here I'm gonna share My screen for a second, just see a sample. Anybody that's watching. But to your point of packaging matters.

I run webinars on this stuff on how to craft quotes that sell and stuff. Right. And so the concept of why does design matter? So on my screen, this was an actual test done by 7up. They had two bottles, one in their classic green bottle and then they had another bottle that was tinted yellow. And they did a taste test. And so they let people taste this and of course, you know, the regular lemon lime taste from the green tinted bottle. But consumers reported a more lemony taste when they drank out of the yellow tinted bottle. And obviously it was the exact same drink in both them. There was no difference in the drink. But the packaging influences their brain and how they perceive, even taste. So let alone getting into how they perceive a company and who the company is and how professional they are and everything. Like, like it really affects people, what they see and how they see and how they interpret that.

Yeah, that's brilliant. I've read about this study. I geek out on these market research and they call them behavioral economics studies of why do we do certain things and how we all behave irrationally. By the way, people ask me for book recommendations a lot and. Have you ever read Predictably Irrational?

No, I haven't.

You might enjoy that because the author, I forget his name, he's an Israeli guy, brilliant dude, talks about how as humans, you can make. He ties it all into buying decisions and why we choose certain things. Even though, like in our own head we know it doesn't make sense, but we do it anyway. And if we think of a roof, we don't have a package. Roof doesn't come in a package. So the quote, the estimate, the contingency agreement, however it is, that's the, that's the package. And I like to get people thinking outside of roofing. You know those impulse buys at checkout when you're at the grocery store. I would love to see a test on the same. I'm sure they've done it like a chocolate bar where one just says like dark chocolate and the other one says like dark chocolate and it's got like a gold foil around it and you know, cool reflective packaging in a cool name. All of a sudden that thing is going to fly off the shelf for a higher price than the other one when the contents inside are the same. And I'm trying to help through the channel people to understand that ultimately roofing to the layperson can be a commodity. And one of the guests I had on there. His name's Andrew Itnyour sales rep. He said, you have to remember that you're not selling a roof, you're selling an experience. And I was like, that is spot on. And the experience starts at the appointment.

And so that's sumo quote. How we try to communicate about ourselves in the market is we want to create simple, easy to use digital tools to help contractors create an extraordinary customer experience for homeowners. So it starts with the quote, but we're moving into, you know, customer portal web meetings, you know, custom landing pages that are all based around your company, but to the homeowner. And so we're starting to get into some of these spaces where, yes, we recognize it's about the experience. It's that concept of Amazon obsessed over customer experience over and over and over again until they were the largest company in the world. Right. And for contractors, again, in our town, we've literally got a thousand. You have to stand out. You have to create a unique customer experience or figure out a way so the homeowner can tell you apart from everybody else.

Yeah. When you talked about Amazon, I'm sure you've heard or read the book Delivering Happiness. Yeah, yeah. And Tony, he passed away this last week. I don't know if you saw that in the news.

Yeah, yeah. Zappos Tony Hase.

I always butcher his last name. Tragic. And at the same time, he's a pioneer focusing on just helping people and delivering the experience. And that's awesome. So 27% close rate digital presentation rolled out up to a 44% close rate. I know. Before we started chatting, I would love. Are you comfortable sharing just like a sample so people can see and get ideas on, if they're on their own, how to create one, if they want to try Sumoquote, which, by the way, anyone here, as I mentioned, I'm not affiliated, but go ahead, reach out. Go to Sumoquote.com, you can email Ryan, get set up for a demo, just see how things work. But what we're going to do is chat about the kind of the five big ingredients, essential ingredients that are going to make up a really good visual presentation for your quote. So, yeah, slide in. I'll let you take it from here, Ryan.

Yeah, so I'll walk through a quick.

Sample and then we can back out.

And we'll talk about sort of those ingredients and separately. Right. Because I think there's some key things and this I think just does a. It's a good way to set the stage. So this is a Quote from our company. You know, obviously our branding's on it. You know, companies can throw their own branding on it, but put the client's house on the COVID it makes it feel so personal and it's something unexpected. The number of times I've sat with homeowner, you, you know, if I'm, if I've got it built ahead of time, I'll print this out in color and put it down in front of them.

And the number of times you get.

Them do this double take where it's just like, oh, oh, that's my house. Like, it's just they care about their home. So for you to go to the trouble of putting it on the COVID it's something meaningful. It's a small thing, but it's, you know, you're trying to create all these little meaningful experiences, right?

Yeah.

With Sumoquote, let them know what's going on. So share an introduction, talk about the process. Homeowners don't know the step by step of the stuff. You live and breathe it. So do something like that. Sumo quote. One of the things that we like to do is to stitch in custom marketing pages. So this is one we've grabbed from Atlas, but something to help the homeowner again, understand why you're using a certain product or what the difference is. This is one marketing page that we built. How to compare contractors. So really trying to take the key things that Epic is really strong at and get the homeowner to be thinking that this is the lens that I need to be comparing contractors through. So how many years have they been in business? You know, how many projects have they completed? Do they have a full time safety officer? I mean, you don't need to have a full time safety officer to be safe, but we're at the size where we've got one. So hey, if you got it, flaunt it. Right?

Yep. Yeah, I love it. That's a great side by side. People do really well with that and I do. Do you mind? Can you back up one or two more slides for just a moment? This introduction letter is so important. I have a. In one of my programs, in my battle pack, I have a template to create your own pitchbook before, by the way, that's like the, the leading up to the quote and it's the same thing as this introduction. And what I know will get back. You know what I'm going to say that because I know we're going to get to it, but this is all about the customer and this intro to what it is they're going to see sets the stage and is going to create that filter, the lens that they're going to see the rest of the presentation. So I just wanted to say, like, don't rush this part. Make it excellent and let you shine for them.

You can get into a lot of nitty gritty on this stuff because even this page, you know, we've got a few paragraphs, but we've got a bunch of bullet points.

Yep.

And I almost guarantee you nobody reads the paragraphs.

Yep.

All their I does is go to the bullet points because they want to. It's, it's the how can I comprehend and analyze this information as quickly as possible? And so even just on a page like this, recognizing the importance of bullet points and what you're trying to communicate, that is the purpose of this. And so yeah, you can really dig into some of the detail on this stuff. But yeah, there's some interesting things as you go through all of this. Right.

Yeah. Thanks for backpedaling for me on that one. I wanted to focus or at least touch on how important that is to set the expectations of what's to come.

Yeah, of course. So I mean you put together essentially your pitchbook or your sales presentation and can walk through step by step, social proof, whatever it is that you need to on this. Right, sure. Photos are a great way of explaining. This is a roof that I was on. It was a 2016 storm and you know, full shake, full vinyl. We got this approved. We actually flipped this. Rather than having a high end roofing product, we went to a Class 4 asphalt shingle, but then we went to Hardy on the walls. So we used the money that they had for a full shake, which was really expensive, in order to upgrade their walls instead. But I remember sitting, standing on the street with the homeowner and there's a dead spot behind the chimney here that we're showing. Right?

Yep.

If I said to the homeowner, hey, there's a dead spot behind your chimney one, she doesn't know what a dead spot is. Right. And her chimney, she would be thinking the actual two by six foot chimney sticking through the second story roofline. Right. Like not this one on the first story. So it. But to visually show this and to show a solution of, hey, we're just going to frame in a small cricket behind there in order to correctly direct water off the roof. Like it. Everything makes sense, everything is simple, easy to understand and it establishes me as the expert. So she's talking to anybody else and.

They don't mention this.

Well, instantly my credibility goes up because I've explained it to her in an easy to understand manner. And now she could, you know, show her spouse they could make. Right. Like, it's.

It's easy.

We've made it easy for them the whole way through.

Yeah. And you highlighted a common sense area of best practice that many roofers unfortunately would overlook. They may find it during the install, maybe, maybe not, who knows? But the fact that you pointed it out immediately says, hey, they didn't. The last guy didn't point that out, you know, and all of a sudden your, like you mentioned, your credibility is through the roof.

That's.

That's excellent.

Yeah. In this one, I'm showing a retail quote. So this one I'm doing good, better, best. So you can show your products, your price in this one for the better. What I've done is I've said, hey, this includes everything from good, but with following upgrades. And I've listed some product upgrades, but then I've said advantages. And really, at the end of the day, the whole. It's. It's that whole what's in it for me? Right. So to the homeowner, well, why should I bother paying $2,000 more for the better package? And so you've got to sell what ultimately matters to them at the end of the day. So if you just list a bunch of products and leave it at that, you're probably leaving it short a bit. Again.

Right.

So again, make sure your quote is a communication tool for what matters to the homeowner. Don't just have it being a tool to give a price and that's it.

Right. So explain the value of the extra two grand. What's in it for them?

Yeah. Right. So, yeah, so in this case, we go through the good, better, best. We give them some options. We've got an authorization page where they can select the package they want, but we can also talk about additional upgrades that they may not have thought about. So one of the nice things with Sumo code is E signing. So we make it really easy so you don't have to drive town again or, you know, it's fast and simple for them to sign. Typically when they're signing here, typically, then I'm stitching in product pages, so letting them pick colors and go through that. And then of course, just all the legal terms and conditions stuff. Right. So, yeah, we always want to make sure that's included. So that's kind of your standard quote. But it visually, it's intentional.

Every page is intentional.

It's purposeful in how we're walking through the sales process and the story with them, and we're trying to ultimately make it about things that matter to them at the end of the day.

Right. You know, this looks real. I've seen this before. I still think it's incredibly sharp. I know that there are people who are less tech savvy. I've seen the platform. It's very simple. The main takeaway. And I did another video on this when you showed me that. And I know this is even just a conversation. Right. And a way to showcase what this can do for new salespeople especially. And every owner that's listening or watching, every new salesperson that's listening or watching. When you have something tangible, whether it's a shingle sample, what happens? You're capturing attention. They're pointing. Look at this. You're drawing attention and you're holding attention. And it allows you to go through the right information in the right order without the crazy shotgun question. Homeowner, you know the one. What about this? And then all of a sudden, you're on your heels in reactive mode, answering these questions, but didn't get through everything. So it helps you hold attention. It directs their attention in the right place and allows you to deliver. Oh, I forgot to tell them about our company.

Oh.

Because there was a whole page on that and the same thing. You know that this could replace the pitchbook that I have a template to create one. You don't need that if you have a tool like Sumoquote and then you can customize how you need to or create your own. Either way, in my opinion, a visual presentation of all these elements is important for consistency and it's important for holding attention. And it's important I'm delivering the info in the right order. And I always. I like to use analogies, you know, but if you're trying to assemble. Like I have this. This cool standing desk now that I got the direction said assembles in seven minutes. Well, five hours later, it's together. And you know, if you make. That is actually a true story. It did take five hours. There's a lot of.

I've got a standing desk. My. I get it.

It's not worth it. But my point is, it's like trying to get the thing assembled but skipping to the directions on page seven. Well, what about all the other steps to get to build the thing? Step by step. So that was awesome. Can you share? Because I know I've got a note here. I'd love to touch on these ingredients, like, what would you say are the top five ingredients or top five elements that a digital quote or a digital presentation should include?

Yeah, I mean, I think the. I'm a big fan of a guy out there named Donald Miller. So he's got a book called Building a Story Brand. Have you heard of that one at all? Yep.

I know Donald Miller very well.

Yeah. So I think. So he's an author. Right. Comes from a story background, hence the story brand name to it. So. But one of the things he talks about there is one of the biggest mistakes that companies make is. Is making the story about themselves. They think that that quote is supposed to be a story about them, the contractor. And really, at the end of the day, the homeowner doesn't care about the contractor. The homeowner cares about himself.

Right.

So within that, you know, Donald Miller gets into a lot greater depth on. Okay, you know, you're not the. You're not. The story's not supposed to be about you. You're not the hero of the story. You're the guide. And starting to differentiate between those roles and stuff like that. But the. The hero of the story should be the homeowner. And that's where we get into a lot of those subtle little things of put their house on the COVID Right. Like that matters. That's meaningful to some people. If the homeowner has talked about their prized rose bushes three times. When you've been walking around the house and you're the only contractor that puts a photo of those rose bushes in there and makes a note and says, we're going to double tarp these things and we're gonna give them a hug every morning. And, you know, you make a note about it in your introduction. Like, if you're the only one that talks about what's most meaningful to the homeowner, that just increases your odds of winning that job at the end of the day. So you can make it about what matters most to the homeowner. And obviously, you're gonna be included in that story as the guide and how you're gonna engage and help them solve that problem that they've got. So it's not to completely remove yourself from that, but to ultimately recognize they're the most important person. So make sure you're putting a few pieces in there that makes it feel customized to them.

I love that. I swear, it was like you were sitting on my wall as I filmed, because the video I just filmed was the Three Secrets of Top Performing Sales Reps. And we touched on two of them today. One was communicating it in simple language and two was focusing on what's important to the customer. And I'll repeat because it's airing, we're filming this on December 2nd. It's coming up tomorrow on the 3rd. And one of those was just simply ask, hey, Mr. Homeowner, may I ask you what's the most important thing for you when it comes to selecting a roofer or a contractor? And you'll. I mean, this, this. I know I'm preaching to the choir, Ryan, but you'd be amazed. And it might be the rose bushes. And if you're the roofer that takes the picture, which I love taking the picture and embedding it in the quote or at least showcasing how you. And especially that little sketch tool, you know, where you show the cricket and okay, we're gonn. If you can do that and then sketch out where the tarp is or how you can lean plywood up against the side of the house to, you know, keep, keep things protected. Those things are what sets you apart from the experience. And for those that haven't listened or read Donald Miller's book, I highly recommend it. He breaks down the formula of all basically like box office hit movies and they all have the exact same storyline. And he threads through those storylines and how you can apply that formula to your marketing efforts to put your customer in the center of the experience. And it's phenomenal. It's very simple, simple and well done. And I love that you talked about making the customer the hero and making it all about them because frankly, people will likely even forget your company name. It's not that important. They're remembering the rep, him or her that's there, and they're remembering the experience above all else.

Yeah. And so that leads me into sort of one of the next things is you can have with a quote, you can have your same basic template, but you've got to find fast, easy ways to customize that. Right. So Ted Williams has. He wrote a book in the 1960s. Right. Ted Williams, one of the all time great baseball players, wrote a book in the 1960s. Way ahead of himself with things, you know, talk about big data and data analysis and all this stuff. But he knew his batting average through every single space that a baseball could go through the strike zone. And there's 77 spaces that baseball can go through the strike zone. And he knew his batting average in every. Through every single spot that the ball could go through. Right.

So.

He knew, you know, low and away in these areas, and you move it over 3 inches, and it's a different batting average. You move it to the side another 2 inches and different batting average. And so he knew this. So what? In this scenario, though, contractors need to look at themselves not as the batter, but the pitcher.

Okay.

And if you are giving the exact same looking quote to every single homeowner, you're just hucking the ball out there. You don't know if you're throwing a ball or a strike. You certainly don't know if you're throwing, you know, low and outside. If you're throwing right in their sweet spot. Right. So the more you can ask questions and the more you find little ways to customize and include to inch that closer to their sweet spot, that's where you're gonna see their batting average, your closing average, skyrocket because now you're throwing it right into their sweet spot of what they can hit out of the park. So that's the like again, the finding the little ways. It doesn't need to be massive ways. Keep your overall same templates. You've got a lot of the same marketing pages you can use. But you might want to, if financing matters, make sure you drop in a financing page quick. Right. If it doesn't matter, don't insult them by including it. Right. Like, don't make them wade through 20 pages of content if there's only 10 that matter to them. You just need to find out what those 10 are and then just quickly, you know, toggle pages on an offer, include pages or not in your presentation. And it just needs to be fast and scalable and easy to do.

Yeah. And I like what you mentioned about toggling it based on their needs, because I know there's times you'll get a retail lead and then you're up there and you're like, wow, this is a hail claim or a wind claim. And you become the hero. You, instead of them wanting, expecting to spend 12 grand to replace the roof, you say, hey, we've got this opportunity and you showed me, I mean, slide in that contingency agreement, flip it from a retail presentation to a storm presentation. Ink the deal on the spot, you're out of there with a signed contingency agreement as opposed to having to quote it and vice versa. So having that level of flexibility and customization is important for everybody to do. And the more personal it feels, the more the customer feels special, appreciated. It's about them, higher level of perceived value. And it's easier because, I mean, I get this question all the time. How do I compete when there's five other roofers and it has become a race to the bottom? It's like, how cheap am I willing to go and still get the job? And I tell customers, or I used to. Now I teach my clients to tell their customers, if you are looking for a cut rate project, it will result in cut rate work. And I'm not willing to provide cut rate work to win your business. So I suggest you work with someone else and turn and walk away. And you'll be amazed at how many people will say, wait, wait, wait, I want to hear what you have to say. And if they don't, you don't waste your time.

It's interesting. And I can't say, you know, that I've seen this every time, but I've seen it with Sumoquote where people have been telling us why they won't work.

With a lower priced contractor. So I had one.

This was again around 2016, 2017, but.

I gave a price.

It was about an hour and a.

Half north of town here, and I.

Gave a price for a condo there. Full roof, partial siding, partial metals. And our price was $237,000.

Followed up with property manager, five days.

We played or whatever and just said, hey, want to reach out?

Want to see kind of, you know.

Next steps where we fit? Obviously, we'd love to work with you on this.

Yeah.

He said, well, you know, I got your quote. You guys were 237,000. The local guy in town here, he's awesome.

We work with him all the time.

He bid 207,000.

But I really want to work with.

You guys in this project. So feel free to tweak your numbers if you want to, but either way, I'll push you guys to the board and make the ultimate decision. Right? You couldn't ask for a better setup than that.

Somebody, you know, all the pricing.

You can tweak your numbers if you want to or not, but either way they're gonna be advocating for you.

And I said, hey, that's awesome, I.

Appreciate that, but I'm sorry, I've just been asked, you know, I'm the sales manager here. I'm just naturally curious, why do you want to work with us on this? Like, we're 15% higher than somebody that you're raving about how awesome they are.

Why we've done one service call for you one time, like, why do you want to work with us on this? And she said, oh, man, I know it shouldn't matter, but holy smokes, that quote you gave me was just awesome. Like, I had a question, I turned the page, there was the answer. I just know if I set those two quotes in front of the board, the board's gonna be like, well, obviously.

We should be using this company.

So I'm pushing for you guys up front. I'm just gonna look better to the board. It'll just make my life easier.

Wow, that's awesome.

So it's just the.

You don't.

And it's not that the quote was totally upside down from how we normally did it, but again, you just include a couple of little things, and when you're asking questions and listening and, you know, just those little things to push and lean on and the people will give me another quote is not pushing and leaning on that at all. Suddenly, you're the one that's trusted. You're the one that's being advocated for.

Yeah, I love it. That's awesome. So back to these five ingredients. I need to refresh my memory. The first one was customizing it and making it about the customer. Then we talked about just having it be formal in general and quick to adjust. You know, if, by the way, there are people who just aren't tech savvy, you can do this. Printed out. And back in the day before we had CRMs, we used three ring binders. And I remember vividly sitting in my truck just ripping pages out and being like, okay, put these back in, put these back in. And I'd have different testimonials, like, because I was working storms in different towns, so I'd use this. I know you're going to laugh. You're like, we have technology now. But I'd swap the testimonials. I'm, oh, that one's from this suburb. But now I got to swap it because I'm in this, you know, and then you hand assemble them, and you got to make it relevant to what's important to them. The third thing that we hit and please correct me or jump in if I'm wrong is to. No, we already did that one.

Customize well, so the last three, and I'll go through quickly because you've already expanded on a number of them here, right? Social proof is powerful, right?

Testimonial. Testimonials.

Yeah, exactly. Testimonials. So to be able to easily include testimonials so they can see it. Like, with Epic Roofing, our company, we've got a PDF page and we've got images from videos that we've had of customers giving Their testimonials with a little play button on it. And we've actually embedded a link in the PDF so that when you click on the image, it opens up a video in YouTube for the homeowner. So there's some cool things you can do with tech to do that, stuff like that. But social proof is a powerful one, making it professional.

Right.

Like just have it look professional. And that level of professionalism with graphic design, making it visual, making it easy for them to. To understand, you know, the brain. And again, I've got. Let me. I'll show you this one quickly, just because I've got a good visual for this. This is from this presentation that I've done before as well. And we've kind of already touched on it some here, but. Okay, queued up.

So.

Here'S the difference, right?

You've got a bunch of words on.

This page and your brain is processing them, and it's dough, tomato, mushroom, peppers, cheese, onion. And after two seconds, three seconds, you know where I'm going with this, right?

Pizza.

Exactly. But if I show you this instead, you know it instantly.

Yeah.

And not only do you know it, like, my mouth actually starts to water looking at this. I have a very different reaction visually to looking at this versus looking at the words.

Wow, that's a compelling slide you put together there.

Well, and the concept. So, you know, back you were commenting before on behavioral economics, but the whole psychology of it is the brain will comprehend visually up to 10 times faster than written words, and not just comprehend 10 times faster, but retain 10 times longer. And so if you can make things visual, it's going to make it that much easier for them to understand and they will retain it longer and be able to communicate. Right. Like it's. So again, it's these little things that you're doing, but they have powerful effects as you go through it. So to be able to include those photos is a massive deal. And just to try and think about one little thing or two little things to be able to include in photos, it's powerful. The impact it has at the end of the day.

Yeah, that's good. That's really good. I absolutely geek out on these things. The subtleties of how we can communicate in a strong way and what it boils down to is emotions and what you just showed a bunch of words, I'm processing those analytically, then I have to link them up and put it together. But when you show me the pizza now, I can respond to the pizza. I salivate. And the same thing goes with the language that we choose, the words that are in the actual presentation, Every word in our language has some sort of emotional response. And we play the pictures in our head and I could say a word like, man, it's warm out, but if I said it's piping hot, it's the same thing. But now you have that visual and you have a different. Like, you all. All of a sudden you're like, I got to shed a layer. You know, it's a very different emotional response to hearing the same thing. And I love what you just showed visually as you described a pizza and now I actually want pizza. It's a little passive, but no, that's super powerful. So, Ryan, thank you for sharing all of this. I think that we covered a lot of ground to showcase why a presentation is helpful. I'm going to do a quick summary here and please fill in any blanks I miss. The idea is to channel attention, personalize the experience for the customer. Increase your ability to stand above competitors by showcasing your value in a visual format. Think of it like you're putting packaging on a product that has no packaging, and it's darn sexy packaging to get people to choose you over someone else at a higher rate. In doing so, Ryan's proved with his own company an increase in close rate. I didn't do the percent different, but from 27% to 44%. That materializes into a lot of. Lot of cash and a lot of profit. And we covered. Some tips to help you put these together. People that may be listening or watching want to take the next step. How might they get in touch with you if they want to chat more?

Yeah, check out Sumoquote.com you can sign up for a free trial if you want to reach out to us and get a demo. Helloumocote.com if you just want to reach out to myself, personally, I'm happy to. I love talking to roofers. I just think talking safe is fun. It's always the best part of my day when I get to chat with proofers and go through this stuff. So. Ryanumocote.com I might not be able to run a full demo for you every time, but yeah, I'm always happy to connect and talk shop. And we're starting to even review people's quotes for them and help sort of grade them and provide feedback on their existing quotes and stuff as well.

Way cool. I love it. That's awesome. Reach out if you guys have questions either way, put this to use. If you don't have the technology. At your disposal or the funds or whatever it is. There's rudimentary ways to accomplish this. And I will say, and I'm curious, Ryan, if you would disagree. Something is a lot better than nothing.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, take whatever steps you can take. Right. So depending on the stage of your company, depending on the stage of life and just whatever it is, like, take the steps you can take. There's always some best practices to get better and stuff. Yeah, no, I 100% agree.

Awesome. And I'm glad to have you on because all of my stuff is low tech that people can adapt, whether they're high tech or low tech. And inside all my complete sales strategy and battle pack is a pitchbook template of the key ingredients that I view leading up to the asking for the business or the quote that people could very easily copy, paste, put into their own sumo quote or paper format, whatever it is you do. So, Ryan, thank you again for being here. Everybody take action on this. Put together your presentation and I encourage you the next time you show up, have something to show, because I bet you and I want to see in the comments, like going from talk track, which by the way can be efficient, to a visual presentation. I'm curious to see what the close rate difference is, especially if you can actually monitor and track with real data, not just your feelings, because every salesperson has a great closing rate. Till you look at the paper and then you're like, oh, yeah, I did miss a couple. So awesome. Anything else you want to close with, Ryan, to help people put this stuff to use?

Yeah, just keep focusing on customer experience. It's a crowded market out there and so we got to find ways to stand out. So, you know, Sumoquil can be one.

Of them, but there's other ways as well.

So seek those things out, keep learning. And yeah, let us know, of course, if there's anything we can ever do to help you guys along the way as well.

Awesome. And I do want to close with this last thing because people might be curious. Sumoquotes name. I mean, this looks like when they put together a presentation, it's white labeled, meaning it looks like your company created it. Correct. It doesn't say yes. That's what I.

Their branding, their colors. We've got different professionally graphic design templates. Some of those marketing pages. We can even help build some marketing pages for you. So there's a lot that we can offer in this space.

That's awesome. You're like a full suite digital agency for presentations. I dig it. So cool. All right, everybody, thank you so much, and we'll see you on the next one.

Thanks so much. I appreciate having me as well.