Ice Breakers in D2D Roofing Sales (Even For Ugly Houses)

You show up in an ugly house. The icebreaker you thought you had or that you used before doesn't work now. And now you're freaking out, and you don't know how to break the ice, so you end up showing up at the door, you skip the icebreaker, and the homeowner feels like you punched him in the face with a pitch, and they reject you really quickly. And then you find yourself in those neighborhoods that have. I'm just going to say it because it's the words you use. This is a video in response to your comments. They have ugly houses or houses that reek. You know, the ones that you open the door and you get, like, wafted in the face with an aroma that makes you want to vomit against your own will. I know. I've been in those houses. So how in the world can you authentically compliment or find common ground or build rapport or engage with customers in an ugly house? Well, guess what? In this video, I'm going to be teaching you exactly that. This video is more than just about icebreakers on ugly houses. In fact, I'm going to be sharing with you the most important takeaway when it comes to building rapport. That's going to help you build genuine connections and authentic connections with your customers really, really quickly. Because I know the whole Rapp building side in sales, there's like, oh, we know how to build rapport, the Ford acronym. We know that you got a compliment. You know, you got to find common ground. But what ends up happening is people do this from a disingenuine or unauthentic place where the homeowner feels like you're just being a chameleon. Like you like pizza. I like pizza, too. You know, it just. It lacks the punch that's going to help drive real connection in real sales. So let's get started. First, just want to say a quick welcome or welcome back. My name is Adam Benzeman, the roof strategist, and everything I do here on the channel is designed to help you and your team smash your income goal and give every customer an amazing experience. So if you haven't done it yet, hit that subscribe button so you don't miss a thing. Now let's get into Icebreakers, especially for ugly houses. First, I want to cover my most recent self discovery of authentic connections and icebreakers. In order to explain this, I want to take you on a little journey with me. And if you're in a safe place to do this, if you're driving, please do not. I want you to Close your eyes and imagine the exact moment when you were a kid, Maybe it was in elementary school or middle school where you found out through the grapevine someone told you, hey, she's got a crush on you, or he's got a crush on you. Do you remember that feeling, the first time someone had a crush on you? I do. It was the first time that I felt liked, loved, worthy, excited. And here's the funny part. Now I want you to take it one further step. So keep your eyes closed. Picture that moment when someone told you that someone else had a crush on you. What did you respond with? How did you feel? Most importantly, how did you feel about that other person? Now, even if they weren't the one for you, even if you weren't attracted to them, wouldn't you agree that you felt a higher sense of respect or like or appreciation for them? Yeah, you did. That is the law of reciprocity, okay? Which, by the way, if you are in sales for more than a month, you know that reciprocity is one of the six methods of influence taught by Robert Cialdini, one of the greatest in our time. And reciprocity means that people will do things for people that do things for them. Meaning if I do something nice for you, you're more likely to do something nice for me. Meaning if I like you, you are going to most likely like me back. Because people like people who like them. I want you to write that down. People like people who like them. Isn't that silly? But it is so true. So what is the key takeaway from this? I want you to focus on liking your customers. I want you to focus on bringing your heart to the conversation. I want you to channel all of your passion, excitement about making the sale into how do I help this person get to the best possible outcome that is truly in their best interest, and I'm going to be their hero. And then what happens is you like your customer. Or better yet, you learn to truly fall in love with your customers. Now imagine for an example if this whole ugly house analogy. If you show up in an ugly house, your hands are tied. But if you truly like or love everyone in your family and you have this one relationship that it just isn't there. Maybe they're going through some things, maybe they've been rude to you. But when you're in that group setting as a family, you find a way to connect. You ask about something from their past that you know is doing well or something that they're excited about. Because in your heart of hearts, you want what's best and you can check the BS right there at the door. So when you like or love your customers, this all becomes easy and genuine and authentic. And if you can't do this, by the way, I'm just going to tell you now, you're best leaving this industry from the sales side. It's not going to be a good fit for you. You need to learn how to connect authentically and truly love your customers and like them. When you do, they like you back. So let's get to it. In terms of actionables, here's what we're going to do. Number one is we're talking about compliments and I'm not talking canned compliments, alright? The reason I say not canned compliments is I've watched canned compliments on a house that was, by the way, not a good looking house with no landscaping, just a patchy lawn and it looked like the dog peed everywhere. And the first thing the salesperson said was, beautiful lawn. Do you do your own lawn maintenance? I was like, are you joking, dude? This person doesn't maintain their lawn. They don't even have a lawn. That would come across more as an insult. Would you agree? Yeah. Not a whole lot of a compliment there. So when we compliment, we need to follow the framework of being genuine. We need to be sincere and we can do this on finding common ground. And what we want to do is focus on things that we have shared values around. So I'm going to tie all this together, okay? Genuine common ground and shared values. So a genuine compliment could even be, hey, those are really cool glasses. When you compliment people, that's a really awesome shirt. I love your shoes. Cool belt, cool watch when it's sincere. Again, a genuine compliment, it doesn't matter what it is, but I found a deep resistance to doing this for people. By the way, it felt weird to me and I'll tell you why it felt weird. I didn't get a lot of compliments as a kid and I remember and by the way, I have very loving parents. What I mean by that is I wasn't in an environment around people that said, hey, you're great at this, you're great at this. Cute this, you look great. Like I didn't have that before, you know, you get, get the atta boy or good work. But when people began to compliment me, I was like, wow, that feels good. And I didn't know, like I was uncomfortable saying it to other people. Now I compliment people all the time because I look for things to connect on, because I find that I can connect more deeply and start conversations with people I never imagined I would or could. And it's just. I don't even think about it anymore. So when you genuinely compliment someone, it makes them feel amazing. And if you resist this, my guess is it's because you're not doing it enough. And once you start doing it, you don't think twice about it. So that's the first piece. Next, finding common ground. These are things based on shared values. So the common ground and shared values are heavily linked. I want to give you an example. I showed up at this customer's house way back when she had a vegetable garden. At the same time my wife Sheena and I had a 40 by 20 vegetable garden that consumed most of our free time. It was nuts. So I go to this customer and I want you to see the difference here. I said, great. Vegetable garden, looks awesome. Okay, I could stop right there. I want you to gauge now genuine disingenuine. Would you give maybe like a 5? Like, I noticed something, I commented it. Now I said, hey, is that zucchini? Looks like that one might need to get harvested. If we wait till tomorrow, it'll turn into the size of a baseball bat. Now, if you've never grown zucchini, you wouldn't know this, but if you did grow zucchini ever, you'll know that it'll reach the right size and then it's like overnight, like, whoop, grows into a baseball bat. That's practically what happens. So I noticed something and I use one of the most powerful tools in our arsenal of sales, which is specificity. Okay, now what do I mean by that? It means being specific, paying attention to the details, pointing out the details, or highlighting the details. And we see this all the time in the news. Does anyone ever just get shot by a weapon? No, they never do. They get assaulted by a black military style semi automatic rifle with a high capacity magazine. Okay, those are details. High levels of details. Now, that level of specificity about the garden showed the customer that I knew what I was talking about. And then we had this nice little sidebar about her vegetable garden and I later earned her business. Why? Because we spent three minutes talking about vegetables before we even talked about the roof. So those shared values and then leveraging specificity. And I'll give you another example. If I walked up to. And I'm going to butcher this, because I actually don't know a whole lot about classic cars, but I know a lot of customers have that classic car in the garage or the driveway that you've seen. And if you know about that model year, it's like, hey, has that got the 302 in it? And like, oh, no, it doesn't. It's got the blah, blah, blah. Like, the minute I start talking about those details, it shows that it's not just like, oh, cool call, bro. Right. I'm sharing again with that common ground. And being specific, I'm saying, hey, I really am into this, too, and it can be on anything in the house. So the house, the person. And I want to leave you with a few actionables to look for anything in or around the lawn that shows you what's important to that customer. Any vehicles or power sports toys parked in the driveway, Any flags, emblems, or stickers on the bumpers of cars hanging in the house or on the window. Whether they're a supporter of a cause that's meaningful to you, Whether they're also a firefighter, whether they also went to the college where your kid's going, Whether they're a fan of the same sports team. All right, the next. I want you to engage your other senses. I want you to pay attention to your nose. If they've got something cooking on the barbecue in the back of the grill, there's your immediate thing. If you love cooking. Hey, you got room for one more? I smell. Is that some burgers I smell on the grill? Just play with it. Okay, so engage your senses. And then the final thing is just to look at the person, Connect with them, what they're wearing, how they're presenting themselves. It goes a long way. So there you have it. How to find true ways to connect. Break the ice, even if the house is ugly. And I think this would pair really well with now with this playlist. Just because our time's wrapping up doesn't mean your and my time has to. In this playlist right here, I'm going to be teaching you a bunch of different ways to pitch at the door and for all the types of scenarios that you're going to face. And in there, you can blend in these icebreakers. And now you're going to know exactly what to do the next time you're at that ugly house or really digging for an icebreaker because you can't find that common ground. And last thing, if you haven't yet done it, I'd love to get this into your hands. It's totally free. It's my pitch. Like a pro roofing sales training video library. All the videos I've ever done, organized by category. For easy binging, pop in right here. I'll send you a free copy. Thanks for joining me. We'll see you soon.