Adam Bensman (The Roof Strategist) explains how to sell and explain ice & water shield to homeowners by educating them with a vivid "nail in a Coke can" analogy. He describes ice & water shield as a self-sealing peel-and-stick membrane installed on vulnerable areas (eaves and valleys, per building code—16 inches inside the heated wall) that creates a secondary watertight layer beneath shingles to prevent leaks from nail penetrations and ice dams. He frames the approach as a competitive sales advantage, inspired by Joseph Sugarman's advertising method of highlighting a single component to build perceived value, and closes with calls-to-action linking to additional sales-training resources.
Questions this video answers
"16 inches inside the heated wall"
Chapters
How to win business against a competitor, it's by doing things that they didn't. And if you've watched this channel, you've noticed that almost everything we do to win business is by educating a homeowner in ways that other people didn't. This allows us to build a tremendous amount of trust and then of course, earn the business. And one thing that came up a lot here at Roofcon, which by the way, thank you to everyone who came up to introduce yourselves, share your stories and inspire videos just like this one. This is how we do it. So ice and water shield is a component of the roof that we use on nearly every roof. Yes, I know guys down in the southern markets, you might only be using this in the valleys and guys and gals in the northern markets. This is a code requirement to get 16 inches inside the heated wall. Now, the problem is most folks don't go into the level of detail to communicate the use of ice in water shield. And this key message, this story that I'm about to tell you is the reason that we need to learn to sell ice and water shield. And yeah, you're thinking, Adam, well, everyone uses it, so why talk about it? Exactly why? Joseph Sugarman is one of my greatest influencers. And a gentleman asked me, actually quite a few folks asked me at roofcon, what should I read, what should I follow, who should I follow? And Joseph Sugarman was one of the greatest direct response copywriters of all time. And he had record breaking sales by writing an ad to sell smoke detectors. Quite possibly the most boring thing that anyone would ever want to shop for. And here's how he did it. Now the funny part is every single smoke detector, at least at that time, had a special metal compound in it. And I don't remember the details of the metal compound, but all of them have this metal compound. And it acted as a sensor. So as the smoke came up and hit this, it would expand and trigger, make the smoke detector go off. But Joseph Sugarman was on to something. He says, you know what, every single person, every single smoke detector has one of these, but no one is talking about it. So Joseph Sugarman crafts this incredible ad in print. I believe this was back in the 60s or 70s. And everything that he talked about was how this smoke detector was hypersensitive to protect families. And he said, listen, our smoke detector has this incredible element in it to keep you safe. And when that smoke hits this precious metal, and he described the metal in its details, it will expand, trigger these sensors alerting you that Smoke is in the home now. Never once in that ad did he say no one else had it. He said, our smoke detector has this. And the result was record breaking sales from a smoke detector. So if this philosophy can work for selling quite possibly the most boring thing in the world to purchase, then it can certainly work for your roof. And tell you what, what I'm going to be teaching you today worked incredibly well for me to win business over competitors. And I cracked this code in the very first year that I was selling roofs. I use it for myself. I've trained tons of people to use this and I shared this with people at Roofcon and they said, wow, that's awesome. That's really going to help because I never in a million years thought to tell homeowners about ice and water shield. So here is how I do it. And by the way, welcome back. Welcome. If you're brand new, my name is Adam Bensman, the roof strategist. And everything I do here on the podcast and YouTube channel is designed for one simple reason and that is to help you smash your income goals and give every customer an amazing experience. The new edition that you will be hearing more about. And that's why I was inspired to do this video today by request at Roofcon and to help you, you give your customers an amazing experience. So how do I sell ice and water shield? Here is how I like to explain this to homeowners. In a way, by using my hand, I want to draw in their attention. It's a really powerful thing that we're able to do in in person sales. So I'm going to give you a little sketch in case, which I know some people and I've been on sales appointments where guys and gals like to bring a pen and paper along. So let's do it, Mr. Homeowner. As you know, here's your roof and I'm just going to do a little cross section of the roof and here's your gutters. Right? And what we want is for water to shed off of your roof. Right, Duh. So water is going to be coming down this way. But what can happen, especially in colder climates like my friends up north, is we get things called ice dams or any potential for water to go the other direction. And what will happen is all of a sudden the gutter freezes up and the gutter comes over and then we get these little icicles that come down and then this ice starts to build up going this way. So what happens is now we've got water going the complete other Direct underneath your roof shingles or in areas of heavy water traffic, which may be things like the valley of the roof. And in a valley, I couldn't draw a valley to save my life. So valley of the roof, we've got water coming down to a central point. We have a lot of water flooding down there. Now we want to make sure you're protected as best as possible. So think of this, Mr. Homeowner, as a roof shingle is installed. And here's your little shingle and here's your nail strip. We've got multiple nails going into that shingle. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. There you go. And each one of those represents a hole. Now the underlayment that it goes through goes like this. Sometimes roofing companies, by the way, we're going to make this even prettier. There's your, there's your shingle. I'm an artist, look. Sometimes roofing companies choose to use metal in the valleys of the roof. Well, let me ask you this, Mr. Homeowner. What happens when you put a nail in a Coke can? See all this space. If you put a nail in a coke can, you can see in the background there, there's plenty of room for what to come through water. So what happens with all these nails that are going through there? Water is going to seep out. Water has a lot of different opportunities to find their way into your home. So with ice and water shield, it's a very special membrane that we apply by peeling and sticking it to the decking of your roof. And we do that following building code from the eaves where the water is going to run off or in the valleys. And here's what makes it special. It is a self sealing membrane. Now what do I mean by that? What I mean is instead of putting a nail in a Coke can, this goes like nail goes in and it's a self sealing membrane, which means water can't get through. So instead of having hundreds and hundreds of tiny little holes in your roof that God forbid anything happens, that water is going to go through your ceiling, which we don't want. So we use ice and water shield in the valleys and on the eaves following manufactured building code that all the vulnerable areas that could possibly leak are self sealed with essentially a second roofing system. And that's one thing that we do to make sure that this roof is watertight for your home. Pretty simple, right? So I'm going to recap this for you. Main takeaway explaining that. And again, when you don't have a pen I always use my fingers. So normally it's like putting a nail through a cocaine. What's going to come, what's going to happen, all the nails, all the coke's going to spill out, water is going to go in. Ice and water shield we stick down. It is a self sealing membrane to act as essentially a second roofing system to shed water. God forbid anything happens. And by using this in your very next sales presentation, even if everybody else is using ice and water, do you think they took the time to explain it? Do you think they position themselves as the expert understanding how the roofing system works and how it will benefit them? No, I don't think so. And this is just one way that you can have a competitive advantage on closing more deals. And speaking of closing, if you need help on closing, I have a few other paths for you to take. Let's start free. I have an entire playlist on closing and especially for my guys and gals out there selling storm damage roofs. Click here for my closing playlist on using the Contingency Agreement as a closing tool. You can also search the channel for the Car Park Closing Formula to learn how I run a sales appointment start to finish. By the way, that program is available as part of the Roofing System Sales Success formula. Should you be interested in making an investment in yourself or your team to learn how to effectively run that sales appointment and close deals? So for more Just because this video is about to wrap up doesn't mean our time has to. Click here to Excuse me, jump into that playlist to help you close more effectively. And if you haven't yet done it, you can head over right now to the roofstrategist.com for a free copy on my Pitch Like a Pro with Roofing Sales Training Video Library. It's all the videos I've ever done, organized by category sent to your inbox. Thanks for joining me today and I hope that this simple little adjustment helps you close even more sales and I will see you on the next one.
