Contingency Agreements? NO vs. YES | My Opinion For Selling Hail, Wind, & Hurricane Damage Roofs

Contingency agreements, yes or no? This is a very contentious topic, and in today's video, I'm going to be covering the pros and cons of using no contingency versus using a contingency. And then I'm going to share my thoughts and my personal recommendations. Now, before we get moving, a lot of people are resistant to the contingency agreement. And I want to read you a message that I got from a gentleman named Chase, who I sat down with in Dallas, Texas, back back in May. We sat down on Thursday, and Chase was of the variety that said, hey, I don't like using contingency agreements because they scare homeowners off. We build really strong relationships, and I do a handshake deal. And then after we talked about my viewpoints, which, spoiler alert, I believe they should be used nearly 100% of the time. And I'm going to explain why. Even if you're really against it, I recommend that you watch this video all the way to the end because I'm also going to be touching on the big old question, are contingency agreements enforceable? So let's get started. So Chase, who was not using contingency agreements, ends up sending me this. After we sat down and walked through how to present them the right way. Here's the message, including the stack of contingencies we talked Thursday. This message came in on Monday. He says, I want to personally thank you for taking some time out of your day and having coffee with me at Starbucks. And since this Monday, I've signed six contingency contracts with your advice. I couldn't thank you enough, and I don't really have any words to show the gratitude I feel. I was on track to sell a couple million in my first year of roofing already, and I believe this is only going to multiply that. Thank you again. Let me remind you, Chase is very talented. Chase was doing the no contingency deal from Thursday to Monday. He signed six deals and he's in a monster neighborhood. This is just to showcase the power of. Of the contingency agreement when used the right way. Now, if you're new here, welcome to the channel. And if you're not, welcome back, I'm really glad to have you here. My name is Adam Bensman, the roof strategist, and everything I do here on the channel and on the podcast is designed to help you smash your income goals and give every customer an amazing experience. And believe it or not, this is my opinion. You may agree, you may not. And if you don't Feel free to drop a comment. If you do drop a comment. This is a place to have a rich discussion because the reality is there's no one way or only way to do things in this business on this channel. In the podcast I'm here to share my own experience and what I see working for the thousands of roofing sales professionals that I coach, that I teach and that are using my all in one sales training, sales strategy and sales system. Because inside there I do teach how to present the contingency agreement, which is what I went through with Chase. So whether you agree or not, do watch this video, engage in the conversation. Please do so in a respectful way to support everyone learning. And if you haven't done it yet, click the subscribe button. If you dig the video, give it a thumbs up. That tells me to do more content just like this. So I want to get into this whole thing why people choose not to use contingencies versus people that choose to use contingencies. I understand that oftentimes people say I don't use a contingency because I like to build my relationships off of trust. I use handshake deals. I don't use them because everybody else does. I don't use contingency agreements because they scare people away. Now I want to share one thing. Give yourself an honest look in the mirror. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I mean that there's a member inside the Pitch Pro Movement, a couple of them, who don't use contingency agreements, and they're very, very successful. And again, we talked about this on one of our last sessions. By the way, if you're interested in the Pitch Pro Movement, there's a link in the description. On the other side of the coin, what I often hear is folks who don't use a contingency agreement, including a gentleman I interview on my channel not long ago said I don't use contingencies. And it's almost always followed up with But I've had these cancellations and they always have that horror story of putting in all of this sweat equity in labor and time and effort to then have the door shut on their face to have that homeowner go with someone else. Now I want to tell you a story of a time that I went down this road and why I did. I went through this resistant customer, wouldn't sign anything. He says, hey, if you just get this approved, we'll work with you. And it was one of those classic situations where the adjuster called me up and Said, hey, you know, I'm running an hour or two late. I forget what it was. I show up, I'm sitting in front of this house the hour, the hour and a half. I think it was about two hours. I'm roasting my butt off in my truck in the summer and the adjuster shows up, I get the roof approved, I come down, I'm all excited to start going through things with the homeowner. He literally didn't even acknowledge me, walked towards his home, said, thank you, now give me your estimate and then close the door in my face. I did not win that deal because it was a race to the lowest number. Now my guess is if you're not using a contingency agreement or, or, or if you are not presenting it the right way, this has happened to you once, twice or maybe more. So I want you to give you a hard look in the mirror and ask yourself, is this happening? And the truth is every person, with very rare exception that is using no contingency agreement has this, this happen to them. Now the only other time that I am for no contingency is the very rare circumstance where we have multiple decision makers. I'm talking HOAs, apartment complexes or commercial properties. There are times that you need to put some skin in the game and you're playing a bit of a gamble because you might have three of the five decision makers in your corner and they won't sign yet. But you know, you're going back and forth and you know that you need to develop that trust. Those are the very rare circumstances and I know that that job is teetering on the brink of make or break. And in fact, Corey, who was just on the channel and shared how he signed a 1.5 million dollar apartment complex following the advice that I share in my commercial video playlist, by the way, which you can check out. And he didn't have that contingency on that project right away because he was of this camp and then followed it with, you know. But I also get, I have had these cancellations. It did pan out, but unfortunately there's times that it doesn't. So now I want to move into why I believe that contingency agreements are in my opin, a must, or at the very least any owners or managers that are watching, in my opinion, they should be a must for the team. It takes a very well practiced and seasoned salesperson to be able to get away without using them with consistently high results. But it is not something that's easy to teach to everybody. And by the way I go through how to present this the right way, which I'm going to be sharing with you some bits on in my program, the complete closing strategy which is available in that all in one sales training, sales strategy and sales system that I call the roofing sales success formula. And if you're not quite ready to make an investment, I do recommend checking out my playlist on using the contingency agreement as a closing tool. I hit the three main points on that. But let's talk philosophy. I am of the camp that yes, a contingency agreement is something that you should use and not everyone is going to agree with me. So I am absolutely all in. Now why is that? When we work with a homeowner, there's a tremendous amount of time, energy and effort that goes into this. And ultimately the, the homeowner has no obligation or need to use you because they see you as being desperate to earn their business. And I know what you're thinking, oh, well, it differentiates me because the last guy did it. No, what will differentiate you is how the contingency is presented as a valuable thing to the homeowner. Most people present this as, we need this to work with you. Me, me, me, me, me. No one cares about you. You need to care about the customer and position. The contingency agreement that says, hey, I, I want to sign this because this is in my best interest. You are going to bat for me. I've got nothing to lose. I'd be silly not to sign this. And that's exactly the way that I teach for the contingency agreement to be used. So I want you to see this. With no contingency agreement, ask yourself this right now. If I get this roof approved, does the homeowner have to use me? No. Who holds all the power in this until you get that deposit? This is you. This is the homeowner. You. The homeowner does. They don't see the value of the time, the energy, the effort of you putting in to get that claim approved. Your back end office. We're not. We don't earn by the hour, we earn by the project. Right. So my mission with the contingency agreement is to actually switch this power dynamic where the homeowner needs us right now. Without the contingency agreement, we need the homeowner. I don't want that. I want that homeowner to need me. Why? Because of my expertise. Because of the fact that we are going to be putting in a tremendous amount of time, resources and energy from you running your truck Your own gas money, your company with anyone that they're involving in supplementing or estimating, whether it's office or outsourced, and the ability for you to make that homeowner whole, you provide a tremendous level of service and value. And without that contingency agreement, the power dynamic is reversed. The homeowner does not see the value in you. And yes. Can they be canceled? Yes. Do you get bad people? Yes. I'm going to touch on that in a minute. When we, when we move into the enforceability of a contingency agreement. My point is, with the contingency agreement signed, your likelihood of cancellation decreases. The power dynamic in the relationship dynamic starts off in your favor. The customer views you as the expert, the customer needs you. And most importantly, it is a much higher way of securing your job. Because if you don't have that in place and the next guy knocks the door and says, hey, I know you said you're working with someone, but do you have anything signed? Well, no. Well, here's what I can do to help you. And if they position it right, using what I very openly teach, that rep could steal the job easily. And in my opinion, ethically, because there's no agreement that's been made. Owners, managers, my opinion again, present the contingency. New reps will struggle by setting improper expectations. Not out of ill will, just out of lack of experience and not really knowing what they say and how it lands on the homeowner. So my vote is in. Agree or disagree? Drop a comment. Again, I want to lead to a rich discussion. As I said before, there's more than one way to do this. And if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you have wild success doing what you're doing, you'd be an idiot to listen to me and change it up. What I'm sharing with you is my direct experience in sales, training, lots of teams and serving literally thousands of people. And I'm bringing this to you to help you decide what your best path is. So drop a comment, let me know, are you going to be using the contingency or not? Alright, now let's talk about enforceability real quick. Enforceability, the contingency agreement, so far as I understand, and disclaimer, I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Do whatever you want. I'm sharing my opinion. Okay? I can't give you legal advice. I'm not an attorney. A contingency agreement technically isn't a contract till money changes hands. A contract doesn't exist till money changes hands. That's my understanding. The other thing is that people that use the contingency agreement to try to hold someone's toes to the fire, you're usually going to spend more money on legal fees than you will in collections. And that lesson learned is that you likely didn't present it the right way. And I know new sales reps you think you did, but the message, the words you say and how it lands are very different. And again, reference, if you haven't yet followed it or maybe you want to, you can grab my closing strategy in that all in one sales training, sales strategy and sales system covers everything from knock to close in a really fast nine and a half hours. And I've got packages available for individual reps or teams. There's a link in the description and you can always message my team text or call 303-222-7133. Alia or Sheena or me will help. So my point likely based on how that's being presented and there's some tweaks that you can make. Now my also opinion, unless it's a massive commercial job, wash your hands of it. Look, what can I learn from this? And as Brendan Bouchard says, think of something happened for you, not to you. So this happened for you. What can you learn versus it happened to you. You got screwed. You're the victim. This way you'll help develop yourself as a professional. Professional, you're fine tune your skills, you'll level up and you'll do it even better next time. And your efforts can be better allocated at winning the next deal versus trying to chase a collection that will probably cost you more in time, energy and effort than it's worth. Now in closing, my opinions. Yes, I'm a contingency agreement and you might be wondering, hey, how can I do this? To help, I want to offer you a free copy of my pitch like a pro roofing sales training video library and you can click into that right here to all my videos organized by category includes, including a bunch of the contingency agreement stuff. I highly, highly, highly recommend it. And again, free copy. I'll send it to you right now. And if you want to jump straight into that playlist on the contingency agreement, here it is. Click in take a peek links in the description for everything I mentioned in today's video. And if you have any questions, you can call text 303-222-7133 and I'll see you on the next one.