Adam Bensman (the Roof Strategist) presents three low-cost recruiting strategies for roofing sales teams: 1) place hiring ads where ideal candidates actually search ("run your ad in the wrong place"), using attention-grabbing headlines that sell transformation; 2) create referral incentives with an upfront referral bonus (example: $1,000–$1,500) and a "stick" bonus paid after a performance threshold (example: 20 sales) to encourage retention and mentoring; 3) recruit from everyday encounters (servers, hotel staff, bank tellers) by approaching people who demonstrate sales/customer-service aptitude. The video targets owners, managers and team leaders and includes links to additional resources and ad templates.
Questions this video answers
$500–$1,500 (speaker's estimate)
$1,000 or $1,500
About 20 sales
Earned about $19,000/year initially; made first six figures in eight months
Chapters
Hiring season is here, and this is the time of year. I'm driving through a neighborhood as we speak, by the way, it is littered with yard signs. And this time of year, everyone is is in reaction mode. We have so much work, we don't know how to keep up. We've got competition everywhere, and it's feast or famine time. And I'm located here in Colorado. When I get on Facebook, I look at my newsfeed and I see hiring ads popping up everywhere. Keep up, join our team. We can't keep up. And just like the NFL, what we do in roofing is we recruit from the same pool of people. We are trying to say, okay, I need a roofing salesperson. I'm going to look in these areas. I'm going to recruit from these industries. And most everyone is doing the same thing. So how do we differentiate ourselves and bring in more candidates who are actually a good fit for our company, who not only are good fit, they're not going to poison our company culture. They're going to actually want to go to work. They're excited about the opportunity and changing their lives and that they're actually going to do well in sales. Well, that's what we're going to be covering in today's video. So if you are someone that is an owner of a company, if you are a manager, or if you're a team leader who's in charge of recruiting, this video is for you. Because I'm going to be sharing with you three very simple strategies that are virtually free to help you differentiate yourself and bring in candidates. Now, before we jump in, if you're new here, welcome or welcome back. Adam Bensman here, the roof strategist. And thank you for spending your time with me today. Everything that I do here on my 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 yet done it, hit the thumbs up in the subscribe button and don't be shy to share video with your team. Now let's talk recruiting strategies. First, we want to identify step one before we get to the strategies to identify who's the right fit for our organization. And I see that in roofing sales, there's kind of two schools of thought. School of thought, number one is, you know what, I'm going to do these group interviews and I'm just going to bring in anybody because my mission is to say, hey, I'm going to do a group interview. I'm going to bring in a whole Bunch of people and hopefully a few good people stick. And then camp number two says, you know what, I really, that doesn't really jive with me. What I want to do is focus on finding the right talent who's a good fit out of the gate. And I'd rather hire with laser precision on company culture and personality and whichever way you do it. Which by the way, my camp is camp number two. I'm way more into laser focused recruiting and the reason for that is simple. Because to me, when I'm bringing someone in to work with our company, I'm. They're gambling with their life and I want to make sure that I can actually put them in a position to succeed. I don't look at it short sighted to say, hey, you know, you make it or you don't make it because someone's livelihood on the line here. So I really want to make sure it's a good fit both ways. And then on the other side, on the, on the purely self serving side, I don't want to pour my time and energy into someone if they don't really have a good shot. Okay? So I want to find out who's the right type of person. We have different types of company culture and there are companies that have had really good success with folks from one or two types of organizations. So I'll give you a few examples. And for more of this, as we get pulled over here for more of this, there's a link up top for a video that I've done called the nine best industries to recruit from. And in that video you're going to learn again those 9 best industries to recruit from. And that that's really important because you are now able to identify who you've had good luck recruiting from, what types of industries, what type of people. Now step number one, strategy number one is this. Most people will run their ads in one place and that is the sales section. Well, here, hear me out. For example, let's say that you've had really good success with restaurant workers and bartenders. You're not going to have a restaurant worker or bartender. Good lord. There's a lot of signs here that has a desire to get into sales. They're not going to be jumping on a deed looking at the sales section like gee, what else is out there? So creative strategy number one is to run your ad in the wrong place on purpose where that candidate's gonna search. So if I know that restaurant workers and bartenders are a really good opportunity for me, what I'm gonna do is run my ad in that section where they'd be searching for a job. And I'm gonna let my subject line or the headline of my ad read tired of waiting tables and wanna triple your income. And when someone reads that and they're actually tired of waiting tables, then I've captured their attention and lured them in and that excites them. So that's my first mission. All right? Now the subject line is super important. You can't do something boring like outside sales, door to door sales, roofing sales. You got to sell the opportunity and the excitement. So again, your subject line or your headline in the ad is really, really important and run it in the wrong place next. One of the other really big mistakes that I see people making is they their ads will are mind numbingly boring. You're trying to get someone to change their life, to join your team so you can invest in them. Like, how exciting to like. Like my story, for example, where I came into this business earning poverty level wages, $19,000 a year and change, and I made my first six figures in eight months. Like that transformation, not only on a financial side, but like who I became was, was just incredible, absolutely incredible. And for most leaders, owners, team leaders, sales managers, that's really what it's about, is helping people change their life. And our ad needs to send that message. If our ad is like, join our roofing team, your job will be to meet with homeowners on their property and then you're going to help them go through this process and get a new roof. It's like, no, that's not, that's not exciting. Sell the transformation, sell the dream. That's what your hiring ad is supposed to do. And by the way, in my recruiting program that's included in my training center, I include copy paste hiring ads to target different types of people. And they've been working really well with fantastic results. So again, tip number one is to run your ad in the wrong place on purpose. Now tip number two, create a referral incentive for members of your team. As Jim Rohn says, we are the sum of the top five people we spend the most time with. So if you hire a candidate who's doing really well, chances are he or she knows other good people who are also interested in changing their lives. So what you can do is say, hey, I know that for me my time and hard cost on running ads is going to be between, let's say five hundred and fifteen hundred dollars to bring in a new candidate. So what I'm going to do is Incentivize my team to say, hey, if you can bring me someone who's a good fit, just like you, who wants to join this industry, I. I'm going to give you $1,000 or $1,500 as a referral bonus. And then what you're able to do is put in what I call the stick bonus. Because ultimately, we not only want people in the door, but we want to make sure that we're putting our time, energy and money into this person such that they succeed. Because at the end of the day, the only way we make money is if our sales reps are actually changing their lives. So what I do is that stick bonus is generally after a certain number of sales. I know, for example, that if I can get a sales rep, 20 sales, he or she's not going anywhere because they have experienced a taste of that success. They know. They know, like, okay, I believe in myself, I can make this work. And I'm seeing the money coming in. So what I'm going to do is incentivize that person with a stick bonus to take that new rep under his or her wing and support them to succeed and then put another bonus on the back end. So again, they've got the referral bonus up front and then the stick bonus on the back end if they stick around after so many sales. All right, now, strategy number three is to recruit from your day to day life. And I practice what I preach. In fact, the latest member of our team, her name is Kennedy. And I wanted to recruit her after seeing her in action in another sales role. And I literally, the minute I heard her inact, I said, I want to hire Kennedy. And now Kennedy is part of our team. And one other time I did this, it was at roofcon on a sales and recruiting panel. This two years ago and the night before, we were at the Steakhouse Charlie Steakhouse, one of my favorite steakhouses, by the way, in Orlando. My server had upsold me to this dry age ribeye, and it was like a $30 upcharge on this one steak. So after I ordered, I was like, you know what? I'll just stick with the regular one. And the server sat there in silence and stared at me. And I loved it. I was like, all right, first, I'm going to stick with my order. Well played, sir. And second, you know, if you want to take these skills that you've acquired being a server and apply them in an industry where you could make 150, $250,000, write your name and information on the back of the receipt and then hand it to me at the end and I'm going to connect you with some people. And not only did he write his info, he walked up to me and asked for an introduction and I set him up for an interview with one of the companies that I'm working with in Orlando. And the reason I share this is that when I was on stage and I share this strategy about recruiting from your day to day life because you get to again experience people, I had a picture of that receipt to show like look, this works. I did this last night. And you can find gems of people in places that you wouldn't expect. Customer service roles at your bank, renting a car, going to a hotel, going to a restaurant. So there you have it. Three recruiting strategies to differentiate yourself. Number one, run your ads in areas that you know people are going to look. Remember to watch that video of I'll put a link to it at the end on the nine best industries to recruit from. Number two, create a referral incentive. And number three, recruit from your day to day life. So that's all for this video. And if you want more or want help in your recruiting and training efforts, you can learn more about my roofing sales success formula platform that can guide you through it all including pay plans, hiring ads and more. And there's a link in the description. So that's all for this video and I'll see you on the next one.
