Adam Bensman explains how roofing companies can double revenue by selling solar together with roofs without needing new customers. He uses numeric examples (average roof $20k, average solar $40k) to show a $20k roof sale can become a $60k combined sale; claims roughly one in three customers will accept. He emphasizes timing the ask (storm vs retail), uses sample scripts for overcoming objections, and frames solar as primarily a finance product (loans, dealer fees, and term length matter). He also cites a beta rollout where a partner company initially grew 100% and finished the year up 80% after adding solar.
Questions this video answers
$20,000
$40,000
42% (claimed by speaker)
Grew initially 100% and ended the year up 80% after adding solar (speaker's claim)
Chapters
How can you plant the seed for solar if you're a roofing company? Oh, that gave me a big old smile. Here's the beautiful part. With solar. What's an average roof price here? How much do you sell a roof for? I'm going to use 20 for simple math. An average solar system is going to be about 40,000. By the way, Maryland, I believe, had a 42% rate increase on their utility bills. Is that true? Am I messing up the states? We're in Maryland right now, aren't we? Cool? So that's a big value add. Average solar is 40 grand. Average roof is 20 when you time the ass, which I'll get to in a second. With solar at the kitchen table. When you sell your roof, you can turn a $20,000 sale into a $60,000 sale like that. If one in three people say yes, you doubled your business without taking on a single new customer or anything. You don't have to market in a solar landscape either. This is the beauty of roofless solar. The sales system I'm telling you about I co developed with Cody Landles and the first company we rolled it out with in beta. His name is John. He was actually just texting me. His company grew at first 100% and then it dialed in. It ended the year up at 80% growth by adding in solar. It is all about the ask. Where people go wrong is they get excited because they have solar. It's a new thing to sell. So number one, sales reps get confused. Oh, I got this new thing, a new shiny object for me to make money. And then they confuse homeowners because they bring up solar. Number two, homeowners get confused because the rep says, hey, we can do roof, we can do solar. And what the homeowner is thinking is, dollar sign, dollar sign, dollar sign, dollar sign, stacking. And they hear no. So the right way to bring up solar is it depends on if it's storm or if it's retail. If it's a storm environment, it's right when they're about to hand you a check. Because at this moment, I say, hey, listen, did our office share with you the opportunity for you to put that check in your pocket 100% tax free, and we can do your roof and virtually eliminate your electric bill with zero down. Would you be interested in hearing more? Well, hell yeah, I would. Okay, great. Now hang with me, because this is going to sound too good to be true. And now we transition to it. We've overcome the objection in advance. It truly is complicated because the logic, my friends, isn't there. For most people who here selling solar, raise your hand if you're already doing solar. I see some solar hats in the room. Okay, so for those of you that are already doing solar, you get this. Solar is just a finance game. You know, they say know the business you're in. Michael Gerber said in the book the e myth, like McDonald's, what business is McDonald's in? Thank you. Real estate business. Okay, Solar, you're not in the energy business, you're in the finance business. That's it. Realistically, a homeowner can pocket insurance proceeds 100%, legally and ethically, get the work done, use that 20 grand, 15, 18, whatever it is, minus their deductible for whatever they want, get the roof done, add solar to it, you end up with a $60,000 project and their net compared to their current electric bill is plus or minus zero to $200. Who here believes your homeowners would take $20,000 cash in exchange for $200 a month? Raise your hand. Yeah, quite a few people, especially if they have debt because they can take that money and they've got 19% interest rate on their credit card debt and they just went debt free in exchange for a 6.99% solar loan. Credit Human is offering those right now. 6% or 7.99. It's 1% under mortgage rates, under prime. So we offer it right then. Then on the retail side, when you're competing on your estimate, if you're financing, what percentage of deals do you finance? My retail friends, 80. 80%. Okay, so 80% of the roofs you sell are financed. For example, I show up, I say, hey, I can do your $20,000 roof and it's going to be 250amonth. Or I can do a roof with solar system, which is $60,000 their net difference. Here's how we have to do the math, okay? Because the solar system, excuse me, the roof loan on its own is going to be 10 year high interest rate, high dealer fee. Solar loan is going to be over 30 years and we're going to take out their electric bill, 250 plus their electric bill is 450amonth. Now I'm price anchoring to their current roof plus their current electric bill, their monthly expense. So I'm going to share with you, hey, if you've got 250 on your roof, 250 on your electric bill, my apologies, 500 bucks a month, I can get you into this roof with solar combo package and oftentimes it will be cheaper than their current out of pocket, meaning you could get them in at 450 bucks, maybe even dead on 500 bucks a month. And that's how you can compete, because we're spreading the loan length out longer. And solar loans are cheaper as long as you select the right package. That's where I get all the pushback. What about high dealer fees? You got to choose the right packages, and you have to choose a package with the low dealer fee when you're dealing with insurance work. Otherwise you'll go bankrupt. Because what you didn't realize, you rolled the roof into a solar loan and you didn't factor in a 30% dealer fee and you just ate your margin. So it's all about timing the ask.
