LockDown LIVE: Losing Roofing Sales Customers Even With Contingency Agreements? Do This

Hello again, Adam here, the roof strategist, and welcome to another lockdown live. For those of you that are joining me live, thank you. For those of you that aren't watching the replay, I set that email up to send, and the Internet is broken and it is in cyberspace, spinning and spinning and spinning. So I apologize for everyone that did not get the email yet. So let's jump right in. Help. I'm losing customers, even with signed contingency agreements. What do you do? This video was suggested by by a subscriber named Justin. I sent an email out on Sunday to the insiders list. If you're not on that, you can opt in below. You also get a free copy of my ebook. So I sent an email out saying, hey, what do you want to see in these lockdown lives? I really want to make sure that this content pumping the brakes and putting things on hold. So today's video is going to show you how to protect and lock in those sales so you don't lose them. Because ultimately, those sales that you sign, they're your commission. We all count them. I know you don't count your chickens until they hatch, but we do. So we want to protect those sales. I'm going to show you the easiest way to do that, because truthfully, it really boils down to one fundamental thing which I'm going to touch on. But first, I want to touch on this. There's two quick stories I want to share with you, because I've had this happen to me as it has happened to all of us. There's sign walkers, right? And then there's people that snake deals, and then there are customers who just simply don't get it. So what are the main reasons that we lose sales? And I'm going to write these down while we chat here. So there's three main reasons that we lose sales, all right? Three reasons. By the way, they're all solved by the same thing. Reason one is I call them sign walkers. These are the snakey salespeople who couldn't make a sale to save their life. So all they do is they go find someone who signed a deal and say, I'll do it for cheaper. Okay, so how do we protect against signwalkers? Number two. Shoot, I just said these and I just slipped. What was the second one? Third one. Hold on. Wait for it. Man, I wish I could rewind. Someone drop in the chat. I just said this. Am I having a brain fart? Signwalkers, we just have cancellations, okay? Because they don't get it. Three, One in. Oh, that's right. That's what it was. The customer didn't get it. Sorry about that. This is the joy of doing these live. You guys get to see all the errors. Hey, Garrett says I'm a huge fan of your work. Your letter landed me three inspections today alone, Garrett. That made my day. That's awesome for everyone that's out, that's watching here, and I'm sorry, I'm interrupting myself. This chat always gets me. You know, someone commented on one of the videos that it was really rude that I was saying to go out and, like, work, and every state's different, guys. Be smart, be safe, follow the rules. But it's working, Garrett. Great. Great job using a letter on someone's terms to call out. So awesome to hear. Awesome to hear. So back to this. Three reasons people cancel. There's signwalkers, contingencies, and the customer doesn't get it. Okay, now I'm going to elaborate a little bit on number three, because customer doesn't get it means a couple things. Sometimes a customer will be like, oh, I didn't realize you were going to be the contractor of choice. I didn't know I had to use you. Or they say, hey, well, I decided to keep the money, not do the work. Okay, so these are the three reasons, and I'm going to show you that this all boils down to literally one cure. So. But before we get into that, I want to share two stories with you. These are the two stories of when I lost deals that just stand out like a sore thumb. Okay? Number one was a guy who I signed up. Big home in a beautiful, very wealthy area. I was so pumped to do all the work. So I get everything done, I get them signed, and. And then I leave the house, and I'm, like, counting my commission. Like, that's gonna be a huge deal. We're gonna nail this one. And he calls me up and he goes, adam, I just read your contingency. I didn't realize I'm binded to all this and that I have to use this. He screamed at me. He goes, we're done. We're done, we're done, we're done, we're done. Dude, I swear. I swear. It was like a. It was like a comedy sketch. We're done. We're done. And then I was just listening. I was like, okay. And then I just hung up. And I'm like, guess we're not doing that one. And I'm like, clearly not a customer I want to serve. Then he Rereads it. I tried to talk him off the ledge. And, and. Which was before the. The hang up, little after the screaming, explaining the process, which by the way, is what led to one of the parts that's in my pack is the three ways to communicate the contingency agreement. And then he calls me back, goes, hey, I reread it. I realize I really need you. Can we work together? By the way, I denied him. I said, absolutely not, because I don't want to work with someone who's going to treat me like that. So I walked away from that deal. Okay, second one was a commercial property. This was a big one. All metal building. We were getting siding, all roof, everything. And it was a kitchen supply store. So commercial building, Commercial kitchen supply store. Okay, so get everything signed. And then after we get the whole thing approved, which took a ton of work, by the way, property owner calls me up, business owner, and he says, you know what? My business is underwater. I just really want to use the money. And I was like, man, well, there goes my commission, right? So what does this boil down to? Boils down to one thing and one thing only, and that's communication. And I'm going to give you a few tips here on how you can do this, because when you do it right, this won't happen at all or nearly as often. Now, guys, this is sales. Anyone that tells you, do this and this will happen, I guarantee it. It's crap. This is humans, it's people. Okay? So what I'm going to show you is going to help you reduce the number of cancellations of these three, okay? Because again, it all boils down to cancellation. So. Excuse me, it all boils down to one thing, which is communication. Okay? So I'm going to write this down, I'm going to give you the strategy and then a clear list of do's and don'ts. So what, what is the one thing? The one thing is communication. Guys, I know this sounds simple because it is simple. What happened when I was losing deals was because I wasn't communicating clearly to my customers, they didn't know that I was the contractor of choice. They didn't know that there was a cancellation penalty. And I didn't communicate clearly that someone was going to come behind and knock on the door and say, hey, I can do it for cheaper, right? So when we communicate clearly and we set the right expectations, that chance of losing deals reduces. So what can we do for. And I want to hit this again. So again, one with signwalkers. So how do we Handle these signwalkers. I'm going to hit this first two is. Man, I just wrote this down. Customer doesn't get it. Let's just hit these in order. All right? So ultimately, we need to communicate. I'm starting from scratch. I didn't have coffee today. I've cut coffee out for the last two days. You can tell my energy is a little calmer. Switching gears. Here's three things. You gotta explain what the contingency means out of the gate. People need to know what they're signing. Okay? Means that this process is contingent upon insurance company approval, right? What does that mean, Mr. Homeowner? It means I'm going to go to bat for you. It means that you owe us nothing unless we get the roof approved. Okay? Part of this process, by the way, that I explain, because I want people to see the value of what we do. I say we do not bill for this work, okay? The only way that we could compensate it is by doing the work. There's a lot of effort that goes into this. Okay? Part of this, by the way, the reason I'm erasing is all kind of under point one, okay? All grouped together. And it allows me to go to bat for you with your insurance because your information is protected by law. So with this agreement, if I communicate with anyone, they know, hey, Adam with the rooster at IT is working with Kelly, and I can chat with him. And if there's any details about the claim or personal information, we can communicate, okay? So it allows me to go to bat number two. This is everything to gain and nothing to lose. Okay? This is a great line. Everything to gain, nothing to lose. Listen, this is a contingency agreement. If the insurance company comes out and they deny everything, this is dust in the wind, by the way. I always do this. Pretend we rip this up. Doesn't mean, you know, what's the thing, okay? I'm investing my time. We do not get compensated for this work. There's a lot of, like, work claim approved. We have a team. And either whether it's in house or outsourced, we have this team, right? However you guys do it, and you have everything to gain and nothing to lose. So worst case scenario, Mr. Homeowner, your roof that's there, it's going to be just like that. That's how it is. Best case scenario, the whole thing gets replaced. Okay? So again, really powerful line. Third, we become the contractor of choice. You need to say this. What? I found this right here. The homeowner not getting it. They get confused. They're like, oh, this contingency, what does that mean? If they walk away from the deal, which I've had happen, like, you show up, and all of a sudden they're like, oh, I've had someone else do it. I'm like, but why the hell did you do that? I put in all this work. Why did you think I knocked on your door, showed up three times, followed up talk with your wife, and then showed up for the adjuster appointment to hand it off to someone else? Think I'm just like a public servant, right? So we become the contractor of choice to do the work. Okay? This is how. And I make it crystal clear, this is how we get compensated. Because we go to bat for you, you have everything to gain, nothing to lose. We only get paid, and we do the work. Okay? Crystal clear. So when you hit these points, which, by the way, these three points are in a cheat sheet that you. That's inside my marketing battle pack along with the sample contingency agreement. I'm not a lawyer. None of that is legal, okay? It's a sample for a reason. Run it by your attorney. Every state law is different, and they're going to want to make it 20 pages. So you got to use your own judgment. So when you use this cheat sheet, and I've covered this before in other videos, you communic clearly on what it is they're signing, when they know what they're signing, the chance of them sticking to that agreement is much higher. Okay, so then we said expectations. Well, what happens for signwalkers? What happens? So again, this. This handles the issue of they didn't get it. So now what about signwalkers? How do you protect from that? Okay, we have third one was keep the money. So I want to touch on this. So signwalkers, I'm writing these down, so I don't. And two is keep the money. All right? So sign. Walker, the minute I sign and I say, here's the deal, Mr. And Mrs. Homeowner, what's going to happen? I'm going to put a yard sign in front. We have our agreement in place. This is what happens next. Again, wherever they're at in the four stages. Four stages of the claims process, whether the claim is filed, been denied, partial, paid, or check in hand, and I explain what's going to happen next. Now, chances are when that yard sign is in front, what will happen is some people might stop by and knock on your door and give you some false claims or misleading information that they'll somehow compensate you to get the Roof, they'll either want to eat the deductible or pay you somehow or use these creative angles that are one, illegal and unethical. Now, I just want to explain this process, because it can happen, has nothing to do with us. It's just how people are out there. So what they may do is show up at your doorstep and make these claims of, hey, I want to eat your deductible. But I just want you to be educated and understand what that means and what you'd be participating in. Because ultimately, when someone says they're going to eat your deductible, the only way to do that is, is to falsify the documents that are sent to the insurance company stating that the work is done. They literally forged the dollar amount to say they did it for X amount and charge this. That puts you and the contractor as willing participants in insurance fraud. Okay. And I'm sure you wouldn't want to participate in any insurance fraud, would you? See that? Use that line. I'm sure you wouldn't want to participate in any insurance fraud, would you? Right. So no one's going to say, yes, of course I do. And they're educated on what that means. So when you explain that to them that it will happen, the chances of snaking it won't be there. But if you don't say that and then someone knocks the door and says, oh, that guy didn't offer to eat your deductible, I'll eat your deductible, then you're going to lose it. Okay, so that's how you deal with signwalkers. Now, what about people that could keep the money? This is the toughest one of them all because so many people will have a cancellation clause in their contingency agreement. State legislation's cracking down on this, and the laws change everywhere you go. Now, when someone says that they want to keep the money, your contingency may say that they owe 20%, 10%, 8%, whatever the number is for your state. If that's not communicated, there's two issues at hand. One, you need to be willing to pay an attorney to go hold the toes of the fire of the person who's backing out of the deal. Now, if it's a $20,000 claim and you take 10%, it's two grand. You're going to spend more on your attorney chasing them than getting the money. And if it were me, I have this mindset like, if you're not my customer, that's okay. There's other people there. I'D rather not spend my time fighting with a customer who's going to be a grind and doesn't want to work with me if I could be putting that energy into signing another sale. So there is that to consider. Other people are like, hey, out of principle, I'm going to go fight this thing. I spent enough time in arbitration and with attorneys and things like that. That was my role. It's not fun. It takes time away from revenue. So there's the choice to just walk away now on massive deals, that choice gets a lot harder. So it's important to communicate this because what happens is this, that homeowner or property owner is going to execute that agreement. And on the backside is where all the fine print is, like, if you cancel this agreement, we don't do the work. We charge you 10% on the claim. If they don't read that, they're like, wait a minute, I didn't read the terms and conditions. So it's partly up to you to point that out. And at the same time, if you read through the fine print on the back of a contingency agreement and you might scare people away. So you may want to include which. Which is a piece of advice that you need to run by your attorney, but you can include a little checkbox similar to what you see online. Like, I've read and reviewed the terms and conditions on back, and then it's up to them to. To skim it. Now, the other thing that you can do outright is say, hey, remember how I mentioned that we become the contractor of choice? So I want, I want to just remind you this agreement is dust in the wind if your roof, siding, windows, gutters, whatever it is, isn't approved by the insurance company. But if it is, we do. We are. The contractor tries to do the work. Now, if for any reason that you decide to not do the work, we do, bill for the time up front. So remember I told you we don't bill for our time. And that equates to a percentage of the claim. Here's how it works, okay? So you can educate that. Here's the other tool. Okay? So again, educate on cancellation fee. And you can do this politely. Is that in the window? Yeah, it's in there. Cool. You can do this politely again. Remember I told you there's a lot of work that goes involved. We do not charge for it. The way we get compensated is by actually doing the work. There's nothing wrong with communicating to people. It's business, guys. People are changing money changing hands. We know this. So don't be afraid to say there is a cancellation fee. And the reason for that is to compensate us for the time it's so lost for us with what we put in. But we understand this stuff happens. At times we don't want it to happen. We do everything we can to mitigate it. We want to work with people who want to work with us. Okay? So that's step one. Step two is fear tactic. Okay? When I say fear, this is not manipulation. Fear. This is not false story. It is education. Because most people do not know that if they keep the money, okay, if they keep the money, do you know what happens? Their roof is no longer insured. Funny enough, most people don't realize that you want to keep the money and not do the work, your roof is no longer insured. I've had this happen multiple times, by the way. Not a lot, but I've have had it happen more than once. Where Ben out. Slam dunk deal. Roofs totaled. Great. Hail damage. Adjuster comes up. We take pictures. He goes, come on over. We walk over to his truck, he pulls up the case file. Excuse me, not case file. Claim file from two years ago. Roof claim work never done. Same shingle, same box on the same damage. Couldn't argue it. Roof wasn't done. So what happens? The guy says, can't write a claim. So hypothetically, if. Because a homeowner can't collect twice, it's important for them to know that you cannot collect twice on the claim. So for you folks that are down south, I know Arkansas and Texas both got tornadoes already this year, bad tornadoes. If you had a roof claim for hail damage and they covered it, you didn't do the work and pocket it. And then a tornado comes and rips the roof off, doesn't total the house, rips the roof off, they're not going to pay for the roof again. They already paid for it. It's uninsured. Most people don't realize that. So again, you can educate those folks that the roof's no longer insured. And that's a huge risk to them. They need to do. They need to do the work. If you're going to file a claim, got to do the work. You know, I understand. Which I've touched on before, using actual cash value amounts towards deductible. So if they get window wraps, you know, gutter extension kickouts, you can take the ACV amount on that and apply that towards a deductible because you're not invoicing or something. Excuse me, you're not invoicing, filing for depreciation on those items, only the roof. So that is. That is a. Okay, so again, this is. It all boils down to simple communication. Go through those three steps I just showed you, okay. Explaining what the contingency agreement means and says, this is part of the battle pack. If you want, there's a link in the description and a sample contingency in there for you to reference, by the way. So you want to explain those three pieces and then you want to touch on what happens if they want to keep the money. And reminding them that people will walk the yard signs. Tell them that it will happen. Communicate, communicate, Communicate and you will secure deals. All right, so quick thing I wanted to hit. So I was looking down at my notes, just some do's and don'ts, and then we're going to wrap this one up. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop them in the chat like Garrett did. Garrett, super appreciate that. And by the way, if you're joining in late, Garrett said that he's a huge fan of my work. Your letter landed me three inspections today alone. Freaking love it. Awesome. Awesome. Garrett, if you're still on live with us, I'd love to know which letter you're using, if it's the one from the COVID 19 specific material or just one of the standard ones. And which one. If you're able to drop that. All right, let's go over some do's and don'ts. Do's and don'ts. Okay, Do. Explain the contingency in detail. I'm just going to write for contingency and then write three steps. Okay. Those three points that I hit up front and that's number one. Okay. Don't do handshake deals ever. No handshake deals. Okay, do. I'm going to write warn. Warn them of sign walkers. Warn of sign walkers. Let them know that it will happen. Okay. Don't leave the house without your follow up set. Okay. Never leave without having that follow up. Crystal clear. All right. You want to make sure that they know exactly what's happened. I still comments. I'm going to touch on those in a minute. So I don't get off track here. Warn them of sidewalkers and don't leave without the follow up set. Do. Explain the cancellation. Don't breeze over the terms. Okay. I'm going to call them TNC for terms and conditions on the contingency. I used to do this because I was afraid to go through it. I didn't want to Scare people away. It's important to skim through them. Everyone's familiar with executing. See how I don't say sign, tell you not say sign executing agreements these days. Sign a cell phone contract, you sign your fricking life away. So do explain the cancellation and don't breeze over the contract. So simple do's and notes, explain the whole contingency and the three steps of what they're signing. Explain that those sign walkers will be there and explain the cancellation process in advance. Okay, and again, you can, you can mention the not doing work and the, the actual fee that you'd collect. I have collected these a couple times. That commercial property I just told you the story about in the, in the beginning of the video, I did end up collecting a fee off that one and it was tough. I'm glad we didn't have to get attorneys involved. But we handled it amicably. And then don't do handshake deals, don't leave without a follow up, and don't breeze over the terms and conditions. You do this, guys, you'll nail it. All right, let's turn our attention here to the comment. So Michael says, is it only one claim for life on a roof or if it happens multiple times in two years, what would happen? So, great question, Michael. My mother's roof personally actually got held on twice this year with two separate claims, but the work was done. So she had a hailstorm, roof was done and two months later hailed again. Total the roof. Again. So two claims because the roof was done. So the answer, Michael, is that yes, in an act of God, you can have multiple claims and they can get redone. The only time there's an issue is when you do not do the work. Okay, so what I have also seen happen, just to touch on that is separate claims for separate instances. I only ran into this a couple times, but I made it a point to educate my homeowners. When you call in that claim, make sure you say this is for storm damage, not for hail and not for wind. Storm damage. The reason for that is some slimy insurance companies came out and said, well, you said that it was for hail damage and I see wind damage. So I'm doing one claim for hail and one claim for wind. And all I did was go on Noah found weather reports, saw high wind in a different date, use that date for it. And we didn't argue it charged the homeowner two deductibles for two separate claims. Total bs. No idea how that got through. Snaky, snaky. Snaky business. So explain the fact that it is for storm damage and again, as so long as that work is done, you're fine. My understanding is if it's between like roof gets totaled, they pay for it. Storm comes again, if there's additional damage caused by that second storm, it would have to be opened up on a new claim for that storm. So Michael, I hope that answers your question. If it doesn't, go ahead, drop another comment, repeat says, hey man, I'm enjoying the content. I just got hired by a roofing sales company and I'm just learning so much about the process of these videos. Super stoked to hear that, man. Definitely go through. I did a video on the process, the hail claims process from start to finish and then I always recommend any newcomer to watch the four stages of the claims process video. It's a phenomenal video that goes over how to approach your pitch to each of those. So glad to have you here and glad you've been learning a lot. Thank you everyone for joining me. I'm going to just do a quick summary of what we covered so everyone has actionable stuff to leave with. Excuse me, actionable stuffs. That's not plural. Actionable stuff to leave with. So number one, communication is the cause for every cancellation with rare exception. Okay. I'd say 95% of cancellation is communication. Follow these do's and don'ts communicate that contingency. Contingency agreement, clearly have your follow up set. Okay. Let them know about cancellation and warn them about. I call them sign walkers. Gosh, I can't stand people that do that. And hey, just a quick like public service announcement to all roofers, guys, we can all get along. There's enough work for everybody. And do you be a good human, take good care of people. Don't get me wrong, still work hard, still win the business, still out compete and outsell for sure. But do it the right way. Don't go walking yard signs and doing all that garbage. Play on the up and up, okay? Always play on the up and up. You don't need to bash competitors and you don't need to steal business. Just do you do good work and you'll get compensated for and you'll sleep well at night. So yeah Michael, you're very welcome and appreciate you being here. If you guys aren't already on my insider's email list, I recommend you join. You'll get a copy of my ebook. I've got some awesome content that will go out to you on that list as well as well as notifications of when these go live and I'll work on getting my email issue sorted. Those come on time I think that delivered after this whole thing went live. And by the way, if you haven't done it already, you're welcome to check out my marketing battle pack. I back it with 100% money back guarantee. Inside you'll find all of my proven and when I say proven I literally mean it. I wrote this stuff, I used it. I have done one on one consulting with companies across the U.S. garrett who joined and said he's a huge fan of the work, of my work and that one of my letters landed him three inspections today alone. Another guy, Jason, landed four deals last week using it and another gentleman wrote in and it made him a couple of million dollars in sales the year before. So all that stuff is there. You can print it at your home computer. If you have questions, let me know. I also have an expanded pack of COVID 19 specific marketing material in there as well for you. So thanks for joining me today. Last two things. One click the thumbs up button if you liked this video tells me that the content's rad, it's helpful and you want to hear more. So click that thumbs up and then subscribe and request those notifications. You'll see when I go live I'll be doing these lockdown lives again through the lockdown, so we'll see how long those last. Thanks you guys for seeing that. I just saw the little thumbs up come in a couple times, so appreciate you guys for being here. If anyone has any questions, if you have any comments and if there's anything that you want to see that I haven't covered yet in these lockdown lives, email me adamaroofstrategist.com or drop a comment on the videos. These are all catered 100% to what you guys want to see and what you want to hear. It's not about me. This is about you and rising up to the occasion to support us all through this. So thank you all for taking time out of your valuable day to be here and I hope you left with a tremendous amount of value and some insights to help you keep those sales that you work so hard to land and keep commissions that you deserve. So you guys rock. Thanks for being here and I will see you tomorrow.