It’s Not What You Say - It’s How You Say It: 5 Tones That Sell Roofs

Cody, you built and sold a roofing company selling roofs over the phone. Not Zoom, literally over the phone. No kitchen table.

Yep.

There's so much that gets lost when you're not in person. For those— we've got folks tuning into our podcast listening, they can't see what we're doing. They can't see my ugly barefoot shoes, right? But those that are here can see our body language and, and everything. So when you're selling roofs over the phone, you lose all that. You have body language, which some people report at 70% of our communication. You've got the words you say. And what's the final one? Tonality.

Yep. 100%.

I want to get into tonality because on the phone you're losing the body language piece. You've got scripting and tonality. If you were to be coaching a brand new salesperson, first, I want to start with the basics of what tonality really is and then how tonality changes sales outcomes and practical tips for people to use in the home. So that's just for you to know what's coming. Let's jump right into it. Tonality. What is it in the sales process and why is it important?

Yeah, tonality is so important because it conveys so much. So if I just said something like, wow, you did that, or I said, wow, you did that exact same thing. One, I'm impressed. The other one, I'm disgusted.

Yeah.

And, you know, that is the power of tonality. You know, you can use it at, you know, other examples is, you know, if your spouse calls your name and they say, Cody, I'm super happy. If they're like, Cody, I'm like, oh man, what did I do? I left the kitchen dirty, whatever. But it conveys that. And the majority of communication is nonverbal. And so when you're in person, a lot of that does get taken up by body language and looking in someone's eyes and how you just feel. But once you take away that body language, if the same percentage is now nonverbal, Now it shifts all to tonality, some with like cadence and pace and etc., but it's really tonality. And that's what you'd have to master over the phone. But it's also important in person because it allows you to ask things that you maybe not wouldn't be comfortable other. Like the most powerful, one of the most powerful tones is the curious tone. And it's just, if you just are just curious about, oh, you're getting multiple estimates, huh? Why are you doing that? Versus, oh, you're going to get multiple estimates? Why would you do that? Don't you think we're awesome? That's what it's saying.

One went from curiosity to one, the other went to judgment.

And entitlement. It's like, yeah, it's like, yeah, and 100%. So that's the power of it. Having the right tone allows you to ask harder questions. And really the best way to have the right tone is 2 things. One is repetition. So we did morning role play. Every morning we did role play. Tone and is, I think of it as warming up for the day. It's, you know, if you went and played golf, you're gonna, you know, hit some balls on the driving range. If you're gonna go play basketball, you do the layup lines, you do a little bit of a warmup. And now if I'm going to, you know, perform a play, I'm gonna rehearse my lines beforehand. Well, if I'm gonna go perform a sales presentation that, you know, is gonna have some tonality and it has some points where, you know, I need to be genuinely curious, even though I'm maybe not that curious because I've asked the same question 100 times, like it might be helpful to warm that up. And so I think daily role play is helpful. But the other one is just truly having conviction about what you're saying, believing in what you're doing, and being genuinely curious. We used to always train the team, imagine you're selling a roof to your mom. And if you come from that frame of mind, it allows you to be genuine. Because if my mom had a roof leak and she had a 20-year-old roof, I'm telling her she needs to replace the roof today. That's the best thing. I replaced your mom's roof.

And that's what we told her, actually. You know, which we got, I got a really crazy story. Kody's office is in Phoenix. My mom and I live in Colorado.

Yep.

I referred you. You did her roof. She buys a new house. I, which is like 25 minutes from me. I am out in your office in Arizona. And one of your sales folks walks up to me and he's like, yeah, he's right here. And I'm like, What? How does a homeowner know who I am? He's like, no, it's right here. He puts it on speaker and I hear, hey, honey. And it's my mom. I'm like, why are you calling? She's like, oh, I was calling Cody for an estimate. Our new house might need a new roof. You guys did a great job, which is crazy. So yeah, imagining that you're selling your roof to your, to your own mom. And the, the, one of the most highly paid direct response copywriters of today's time, Clayton Makepeace, if I, if I, and I maybe miss, miss attributing this to him, but I'm pretty sure it was. He says, you got to imagine that you're sitting down and writing to your grandmother like a one-to-one conversation. So continue with that.

Yeah. And so if you are coming from a place of truth and you feel like it's a moral obligation to help the homeowner replace the roof today because we know roof prices are going up next month, or we know that, hey, that one leak turns into more plywood damage and you have that confidence, you can come from a place of caring and not a place of greed where it's like, I want you to sign today because I want money. And so it's, you know, and the same. And so if you're coming from a place of truth, it allows you to have those natural inflections of tone. But sometimes it's, you know, you also have to be a professional and be able to emphasize the tone in addition to it being natural. So that's the 2 ways that I think tone can really be achieved is one, truly believing in what you're doing. And from an ownership level, one of the things we used to do on a regular basis is read reviews back to the company. You know, that's something I would do on Friday. Like, hey, big shout out to, you know, Bob. He just helped Susan. And it's like, here's the review. Bob was amazing. You know, because that told my sales team that we are doing world-class roofing.

Right.

So then when they have the conversation later today and it's like, you're gonna get an amazing service, you're gonna work with Bob. It's like, it's, they're not just saying that for the 100th time. They're saying that for the first time since hearing me say that Bob is really amazing and, or hear Susan say Bob's really amazing. And that's powerful. Validating.

They believe in it.

Exactly.

So you mentioned curiosity, like the, the curious tone. What other tones do you train on?

Certainty. Certainty tone. Um, you know, and it— the most important, um, with those come in on some of the highest friction points. Repair versus replacement. You know, if someone calls in and they want a repair versus a replacement and they have a 21-year-old roof, the easy answer, um, you know, is they, they want to hear repair. So like you have to be the expert in the room. So you have to have even that much more certainty during in that tone. Um, you know, other times might be like, you know, in insurance and somebody wants to absorb a deductible and you have to be certain that that's against the law and convey that, you know, so there's the more kind of bad news you're delivering and bad news is something that they just don't want to hear, right? Homeowner wants someone to be able to absorb their deductible. They want to be able to do a repair. It's cheaper. Yeah.

Everyone wants to know the best case scenario that'll cost me the least and have the perfect outcome.

Me too.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

And so if you're delivering something besides that, like one, we need to show, not tell, but we, when we show, we need to also tell with certainty.

Mm-hmm.

And so, you know, though that is very important empathetic tone. And this isn't, isn't just in sales too. It's in, you know, customer service, it's in escalations. You know, sometimes an angry tone is necessary. One of the things on escalations I used to say is you should, and how we systemize customer experiences, you should be more upset than the person you're talking to if they're, if they're, if it's an escalation. Like, I cannot believe this is happening either. Like, this is unacceptable. Now that I know about it, I am now, we're gonna lay out the next steps. But, you know, if you're a manager, if it rolls to my desk, like, you know, we need to, you know, have the, the, the angry tone, the escalation tone, the empathetic tone for homeowners. I, I, we used to always coach on, this is really difficult for a lot of people. If you thought you were gonna have a $1,000 repair and it's a $22,000 re-roof, and then you thought, oh, insurance would pay for it. Well, insurance doesn't pay for it because it's just a 21-year-old roof. $22,000 punching you right in the gut when you don't have it, like that hurts.

Yeah.

And so we can't be like, oh man, why hasn't Susan signed yet? Like, we got to be empathetic and understand, like, this is a big thing. This is like, yeah, we went from $1,000 to $22,000 and like, it's not fun.

A couple hundred by offering financing.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And but offering financing again with that empathetic tone rather than with the greedy tone and like, you know, saying that this is what you should do, you know, this is what's helpful. Yeah. This is what a lot of people find helpful. This is how we help homeowners, you know, and just shifting it from into that empathetic mind state.

In the ability to create the experience, if you can go from the empathetic tone of, this is really tough, I'm really sorry about this, and forget the price of a roof. I know for those who fall in love with their customers, which I remember hearing that, I can't remember who I can attribute that quote to, whether it was someone in marketing or sales, it sounded a bit flowery to me in language.

Sure.

And then once I matured more in business, I realized There's nothing more profound than truly falling in love with your customers. Now, like I have said the word love you, brother, to more people that I serve. Yeah.

Than I—

that language never came up, but I genuinely love the people I serve. But to be able to— when you truly care about your customer, I had one customer of mine I'll never forget. He went blind during the process. It was a long process, multiple trades. He had a ranch property. And it was heartbreaking to witness that his wife had to hold his hand to sign the paperwork. But when I saw him 2 months prior, he was fine. You know, and we've all had folks— we're getting naturally rained on now. This is beautiful. If you don't like the weather in Colorado, wait 5 minutes. That's what they say. We've had customers pass away, lose pets. So that empathetic component is very important. But then also being able to transition to the juxtaposition of great news. Gosh, I know you probably weren't expecting this. You probably were like, hey, it's a shingle or two, easy repair, we'll be in and out. Now we're looking at a full roof replacement. But the good news is we can make this ugly old roof and only say that if they said it first.

Never call their roof ugly.

Right? So whatever language into something absolutely beautiful that you're not going to need to worry about with the best products and blah, blah, blah, and the warranty, yada, yada. But most importantly, it's beautiful and we can make it wicked affordable for you, right? Yep. So that, that emotional arc is powerful in the sales process. Jon Bros talked about that in a recent interview.

And that, and that brings us to another tone, you know, enthusiastic tone.

That's funny. I wrote that down. I was like, we gotta hit it this season.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep. I mean, and whether that's, you know, an end of month special delivering or just, you know, the, the best product you're offering, I, I think that's why we sold so much stone coated steel because We would deliver it as, man, this is an awesome roof. People love the metal shingle. If they had a shingle roof, they had a tile roof. People love the metal tile. And we were excited to talk about it and people would love that. Some people define sales as a transfer of enthusiasm. I've heard that before, transfer of emotion. So if you get them excited about it, you can separate yourself because a lot of people that sell roofs don't get excited about it.

They don't. Yep. And you'll find the people, it's amazing. I think it was you and I. So we're out here in this completely remote off-grid cabin, and we were hiking yesterday, and I was like, I don't remember the context. We were shooting the breeze about how if someone says something with enough conviction, people believe them.

Yes.

And you can say the most outlandish, which, by the way, you never should. It's the point, the emphasis of like, I'm sure you've had it from like, oh, yeah, that's exactly how it goes. And you're like, yeah, I believe it. And then later on, they're like, Wait, what?

Yeah.

Right. So, that level of conviction is a big deal, which kind of ties into enthusiasm. But, the most charismatic people— thank you, Mother Nature, we needed this rain. The most charismatic people have a high level of enthusiasm.

Yeah.

So, enthusiasm, speaking of contagious, there has been multiple— excuse me, I can't say multiple. I know of one test done, a social experiment done. If my memory is right, it was one of the major social media platforms on what they called social contagion.

Mm-hmm.

And what they did is manipulated the newsfeed of a control group or a test group and put in negative-leaning content, and people were more likely to engage with negative content. And what this did was it was a relatively groundbreaking Social experiment to show that our emotions are contagious. When you said sales is a transfer of enthusiasm, enthusiasm is contagious. There are people that you are around that are like a rain cloud, right? Like this rain cloud. Yeah. You just feel the heaviness. Yeah. And then there's other people around you're like, dude, what is it? Every time I'm with them, I just leave so fired up. Yeah. So what would be your best advice for someone? Because because here's the deal: we there's salespeople who are tuning in. who are like, OK, tonality— curious, certainty, enthusiasm, empathy, anger. Got it. But how do I practice this and refine this skill with a level of intentionality that produces sales results?

Yeah, it's micro reps. It's role playing when you're going to use the curious tone, when, you know, in the exact moment. It's like objection handling. It's objection handling, but you layer in the tone aspect of it as well. And that's what we would do with our daily role plays is we would, you know, in the morning, we would, it would only be maybe 2 sentences or 1 slide or, or like whatever we're trying to hammer home for the, for that week. Like a price increase is coming, you know, or end of month special. So like, let's rep just how we're going to deliver that end of month special, you know, in the first 2 seconds when we, or the first 2 sentences when we get them on the phone, right? We're going to send a text message, say, hey, I got some exciting news for you. Give me a call. And then as soon as they give you a call, what are you going to say? Like, and that's what we're going to— okay, here's what we're going to say. And you're going to rep that, you know, 15 times this morning, you know, making sure that we're emphasizing the right words. And then that way, the first time you get that call today, you're like, hey, you know, like you're just like ready to go. And it's not like the first one you're like, all right, I'll get it the next time. Like, you know, because it's a new 2 sentences you've never said before. So like, why don't we rep it 15, 20 times and then Then you're on autopilot and then that first call comes and you're going to default to your training and it's going to just feel natural. It's going to be the 21st time you said that and then you're going to nail it because it's only 2 sentences.

Yeah, I love that quote. You probably know it because you're former military. What is it? You don't rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training.

Yep. Yep. 100%.

And then the other thing too, you know, I didn't, I didn't used to value the importance of a sales warmup till I was— I've spent quite a bit of days actually in your office.

Yeah.

And like seeing real time your culture. I remember I flew out there before we even started working together. 'Cause I was like, this guy Cody is new in my life. Like, there's so many people that talk a big game.

Is it game?

And it all checked out. And I vividly remember you're like, come to my office. I want you to see the culture. And I saw your team. I met your team. I saw how they followed you and your sales manager, the bell that everyone rang. Like, I love sitting in the office and people get up from their desk and ring the bell. And I'm like, This, this, and then you were like, oh yeah. And everyone does role play every single morning. So we were in your office, we were out there for an RSA. Well, at the time, RSRA, it was prior to the acquisition by Tamco. We were in your office with a group of about 35 members. And then on the other side was your team. And you said, hey, we're gonna call the newest guy on our team and secret shop him live. We put it on speakerphone and the dude crushed it. And you're like, oh yeah. And everyone's like, how long's he been with you? You're like, oh, I think this is his like 45th day or something.

Yeah.

And everyone's like, he's doing better than most of the people that have been on my team. But you, you shared that your secret was sales practice daily. And I think of it now as I'm getting older and I go to the gym. I used to be able to like get in the gym, like I got 30 minutes and just like just start squatting. And now I'm like, all right, I gotta do like hip warmups. I gotta activate my quads a little bit. I'm like getting some cardio. And sales the same way. You gotta warm it up.

Yeah. You gotta warm up the, the talking. I mean, like even when we do videos like this, right? The first couple, it's like, blah, blah, blah. Like you're just, your tongue's like, Just feels stuck. Yeah.

Yeah.

And your mind's not working. Then all of a sudden you just hit it and you're like, oh yeah, I'm just, I'm just having normal ideas.

Yeah.

You know, and like, that's where we want people at. And, and, you know, like, I, I think most, probably most people in the country have never role-played their intake call.

No.

But that's the first impression to the, the company. And you're, and you're guaranteed to do 3 or 4 today.

Yeah. Like, like, and I love it. You, so we have inside RSA my inbound phone sales strategy, which is a whole script and training on tonality.

Yep.

And then we've got you running live sessions on the same thing, diverse perspectives. And I love it. And I remember I actually just linked for 2 members, like the perfect intake call script, join Cody's session. If you have questions, jump into the Alliance Brain, ask it.

Yeah.

What's the perfect intake call script like? What, you know, can I, can you script one out for me? Here's my company. Can you help customize it?

Yep. Yep.

And then you can just copy paste and hand that to your team. So if we were to just for, for, for the, the people, whether you're brand new or you're seasoned, I just want to reiterate, and please feel free to add, we got the curious tone, best used when you think curious questions. If you're asking questions, stay curious. Even just taking a word and someone said, I'm getting 3 estimates. 3 estimates? That's curious. Now all of a sudden—

Why not 4?

Right?

Yeah.

Right. As opposed to 3 estimates.

Yep.

Right. Okay. Next one is certainty. Deliver certainty When you are explaining the quality of your products, your service, your warranty.

I'd say, and even simpler, when you're having hard conversations.

Yeah.

Like when you're, 'cause it's usually like, hey, you're expensive and I'm about to tell you why, why I should be.

And you're like, yes, you are correct. We are.

Yep. And that's a hard con— you know, it's like, what does the warranty actually cover? Okay. Like we're gonna have a hard conversation. Like here's what, you know, it's whatever it is. Like that's, that's when I use the certainty tone.

Yeah. Enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm. I mean, one, when we're, anytime we're talking about any of our products, like one of the big things I talk about in packages, even our, our, you know, cheapest package is never described as the cheapest package. You know, it's our most affordable. This is, it's a, it's still a great package. It's what people love when they're moving, you know, in under 5 years.

Mm-hmm.

So if you're not moving in under 5 years, you're not gonna love it. But if you are, you're gonna love it cuz it's awesome. You know, like, do you see that?

Do you see the roller coaster? Do you hear the, better yet, hear it? It's like, oh, it's not for you. But if it's for you, it's for this. I, I love that. I also think enthusiasm is needed to reinforce Reinforced commitment.

Yep.

I, one of the things I listen for when I'm auditing calls is if someone's like, oh, I love that about your company. If someone says enthusiastically, and it's, it's sometimes the surprising stuff, it's like, hey, you know, we know that one of the top complaints with contractors is that they don't communicate.

Yep.

They show up late, they don't show up at all. You don't know what's going on. So when you work with us, we have automatic, excuse me, automatic updates. You're never left in the dark. But also we're humans. So you've got my cell phone, you're gonna be kept in the loop. You're always gonna know when we arrive, when scheduling is, et cetera. They're like, I love that. That's when you match the enthusiasm. Yeah. I know. Isn't that great? Yeah. Our customers love it too. Yeah. As opposed to breezing over it. Yep.

And that's why we have so many 5-star reviews because people just love it and they go, man, that's so cool. And now we get double enthusiasm instead of just, that's so awesome. Okay, next slide. You know, they're like, next question. Okay. And is this your forever home? Like, you know, let's live in the awesomeness a little bit.

Then you took their enthusiasm and instead of fueling their enthusiasm, you deflated it. So match enthusiasm with enthusiasm and use it like, so it was like, hey, I think I want to move forward with this one. Wonderful decision. I think that's the perfect color for your home. You're going to love it. We're going to make this the easiest roof replacement you ever got.

Yep. And to take that even further, one of our sales reps, I learned from him, and it's one of my favorite things, is whenever somebody signs, congratulate them. Yeah. Congratulations. This was probably a really tough decision. You've probably been stressed about it. Doesn't it feel good to have this off your plate?

Yeah.

And they go, oh my gosh, yeah, this is, you know, and like just that congratulations right after they do it, it changes it from like still maybe decision to being firm.

Yeah.

And it locks it in. Yeah.

Which is one of the things, and I'm sure people, maybe you've done this, I've done this, I'll, I'll, I'll do endless research and then I buy the thing and then I have buyer's remorse and then I research the thing.

Yep, yep, yep, yep.

And that's it. That buyer's remorse trigger is what you can eliminate with enthusiasm and congratulations.

Yeah.

So then we got 2 more to wrap up. Empathetic.

Yeah. Empathetic is when you're delivering something, hard news, timelines, and just really throughout the whole process. But it's really important when you're going from a repair to a replacement, when you're getting— they think the whole roof's approved on an insurance claim and you go up there and you know it's not going to be, or the insurance company came back and declined it, or you have an ACV-only policy or whatever, something like that that is dramatically going to impact them and they might not be able to pay for it. That's where I think it's really, really valuable is understanding the struggle that they're going through and what it's— it's a huge financial hit for a lot of people.

Yeah.

Especially with us in Arizona, we had it a lot because we have the tile roofs. And so tile roofs, a lot of real estate agents say they last forever because technically the tiles do. And when you're selling a house, it's probably a good thing to say they last forever. Come to find out, the underlayment, it doesn't last forever. And they find this out 2, 3, 4 years after buying the house. And it's just like they're thinking they need to have a small repair leak and it's a $25,000 ticket and it's just brutal.

So taking off a tile roof is not the easiest thing in the world.

Exactly. And so that's—

Can't you just take off that one spot? Well, to get there.

Yeah. And then it's like, then we got to do here and it's like, that's where the empathy comes in, especially when you're delivering bad news. Change orders, redex, you know, skip sheathing, like stuff like that. Mold, like anything that's just, you know, bad news is basically what I would say.

Yeah. And life circumstance. When you're hearing from someone about challenges they're going through, you know, there's a time to like, as a salesperson, one thing that upsets me with traditional sales training, and I don't know if I could say traditional, but a lot of sales training is very It's adversarial in a way. It's like the prospect, like even the word prospect, it sounds like a target, right?

Yeah.

Like, I got my sights set on this prospect and I only win when I close the deal and they get their wallet out. And it's like, but you gotta be human. How many times have we dealt with someone who's like, we're helping them through this process, they got diagnosed with cancer, they lost a family member, they lost a spouse, and we dealt with elderly. And, they lost a spouse and then the thing needs to get done but it's not really of an importance, it's a nuisance. And, there's a time to support, there's never a time to press. And, you're like, oh, okay, I'm so sorry. I can't even believe what you're going through. I want you to know that we are here to support you in whatever that means.

Mm-hmm.

And, if you need time and space, we're going to give it to you. If you want this to be hands-off, Whatever you can do to make things easier for them emotionally. So that's where I would just add in the empathy piece as well. Yep. The last one, you put it as the angry tone, but I'm almost like matching upsetness. Yeah. Like, not angry. Like, you called me up, mister. You know, it's like, you know, when they're mad, I, you know what's— I never thought about that when they're like, oh, you know, the roof leaked. And then you're like, oh my gosh, the roof leaked.

I'm going to get right on it. Yeah. Like, this is so unexpected.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's good.

If I'm more angry than you, then you go, Huh? Yeah, you get on them. And it's like, this guy's so angry. Like, dang, I know it's going to get solved. Because at the end of the day, that's really what they want. They want to feel heard and they want to know that something is going to happen. And for a lot of people, they want to know that it's not going to happen to somebody else again. And so if I am that angry, they know, hey, you obviously heard me. This is just as bad as I think it is. 2, I know some heads are going to roll, which means 3, this is probably not going to happen again. And so like you combine all that and it just totally— they go, well, I'm glad I talked to Cody.

Right. You know?

And then they just let you handle it.

Yeah.

And then you gotta execute.

Yeah. Because I mean, yeah, yeah. That's the other thing that I think gets overlooked in sales. Like, oh, but you have to do a really good job.

Yeah.

Doing better than what you said you're gonna do. Not meeting expectations, but exceeding them. So Cody, thank you. You know, I think you and I, we're both students at heart. Like you literally just before this, you had recommended a book to me. I just downloaded it. I can't remember the title, but I'm going to pull it up because I downloaded it on Audible.

Exactly What to Say.

Yeah, there it is. Exactly What to Say, right in my library. Training isn't something that you did, it's something that you do. So, I just want to make an invitation for those that want to take their team and say, listen, we are the culture that continually improves. On the cutting edge and sharpens the axe. There's an opportunity to work with both of us and our fellow mentors and access the training inside the Roofing Strong Alliance by Tamco. There's a link in the description to learn more or apply to join. Cody, thank you so much for being here. And for those that may wish to work with Cody, you can check out Cody's website at reimagineyoursales.com. Cody, appreciate it, man.

Thank you.