Roofing Sales Are Harder in 2026 (Here's Why)
In this video Adam Bensman explains why roofing sales have become significantly more challenging in 2026 and outlines a strategy to succeed. He identifies three macro‑level forces: (1) the widespread adoption of "good‑better‑best" roofing packages, which multiplies the number of options homeowners compare and creates decision fatigue; (2) heightened competition from tech‑savvy entrants, e‑commerce style roof buying platforms, and private‑equity‑backed consolidation that raise industry sophistication; and (3) low consumer confidence driven by inflation, high interest rates, and geopolitical uncertainty, which leads homeowners to shop more, delay projects, and demand reassurance. Bensman argues that the traditional transactional, price‑driven sales approach is no longer viable. Instead, roofers must shift to a consultative selling model that uses deep discovery questions, custom‑tailored packages, white‑glove service, clear communication, and appropriate financing options to differentiate themselves and win business. He provides concrete examples of discovery questioning and how to package the "good‑better‑best" options to match each homeowner’s specific criteria.
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Roofing sales are harder in 2026. Here are the 3 reasons why and how to win. My name is Adam Bensman. Welcome or welcome back. I'm so glad to have you here because one of the conversations I had just this morning was a roofing contractor explaining the experience his salespeople have in the home is a knife fight. And of course, it's not an actual knife fight. He's describing the emotional experience that his team is going through because the market is down. And what that means is that there's less opportunities that roofers are fighting for. This, well, fuel is added to the fire when leads are down, costs are up, and there becomes a frenzy and a panic with this scarcity mindset. Where's my next opportunity going to come from? I need this. Some deal is better than no deal. These are the thoughts that are going through roofers' minds. So how many of them are responding is by slashing prices, discounting, and racing to the bottom, many of which are reported to me as I'm competing against a bid that is lower than my material and labor cost. It is unsustainable, and it could be one of the reasons that you might be observing roofers closing their doors. I'm seeing this across the country, but it's not all doom and gloom. When we truly understand the market conditions we're facing and most importantly, the buyer that we are serving, we can adapt our processes to provide a better experience, one that stands out and one that wins business. And that's what I want to do with you here today. So let's rock and roll right into this video, kickstarting with number 1 on the list. The number 1 reason why sales are harder in 2026. And it is this: the more common usage of good, better, best roofing systems. Now, the good, better, best proposals were very common in the home improvement space for, gosh, as far back as we can remember. But in the roofing space, it was far less common and typically only reserved for more sophisticated retail-driven companies.. But now whether you're doing storm damage or retail or hybrid company like many, by the way, moving to the hybrid model, these good, better, best options, of course, presented in the other way, best, better, good, are becoming more common. So what— why does this matter? Because if we just start thinking through the market and we see less opportunities, more roofers competing for them, and good, better, best becoming a bit more of the norm, that means the homeowner that got 3 estimates isn't just comparing 3 estimates. They're comparing 9. And as you'll see in these later trends, homeowners that might be cross-shopping even more might be getting 3, 6, 7. I've heard of 12 to 17 estimates. Yes, both true numbers that have been reported to me. Now we're talking about 36+ estimates to start comparing. Now, what does this lead to? It leads to decision fatigue. Now let's move into reason number 2. The competition is getting stiffer. Now, what do I mean by this? We can take a look at the newer wave of roofing company owners. Now, in the past, roofing company owners were very typically one of two camps. One, they grew up in the trades. They may have taken over a family business or they were in a sales position and said, hey, I can do this better on my own. And again, some of them, when they— when I say grew up in the trades, another part of that category might have been an installer. That started off installing roofs and said, I want to go start my own company. And these were bootstrap businesses that were built on grit and hustle. But now we are seeing that there's so much attention on the roofing industry because it can be a lucrative business model. And as a result of that, the evidence is the fact that there are tech CEOs and tech people coming into the industry with not only software designed to capitalize on the business of roofing companies, but they're seeing innovative ways to create a modern roof buying experience, whether it's through virtual sales, unique marketing practices, unique service experiences, instant quotes, these e-commerce models, buying a roof online. All of this is creating this buzz of folks that want to come in and possibly even run national roofing companies. Pair that with the very obvious injection of private equity and private equity platforms growing and more consolidation in the roofing space. And of course, these private equity platforms are run by very high-level entrepreneurs and CEOs with very significant financial backing. So the level of sophistication of the roofing industry went from the grit and grind of the guy or gal that want to start the roofing companies to now competing in a more competitive marketplace. Again, we pair that with the depression in the market right now with less opportunities, and it becomes a bit of a perfect storm. So what does this mean for you? It means that our experience for homeowners, the experience that you give homeowners, needs to uplevel because it is one of the key ways to differentiate yourself and hold this distinguished authority in your market is to create a memorable experience that's unlike anyone else. From the time you first make contact to the experience in the home, through the install and beyond. But we'll talk more about that in just a minute. Let's get to reason number 3 that sales are harder in 2026. Reason number 3 is low consumer confidence. Now, the Conference Board, if you Google this, the Conference Board, they have released the U.S. Consumer Confidence Report. The last version I looked at was updated June 30th, 2026. If you're interested, you can Google and go take a look for yourself. I'm going to share with you my interpretation of the findings. What I saw on this chart of the US consumer confidence, even though it's reported as a slight uptick, it's all relevant, right? You can see that confidence scores were booming. We had 2020, boom, they plummet up and down. And right now we're sitting pretty reasonably close, the way I interpret it, to the 2020 lows. Now, low consumer confidence is a direct result, and I'm referencing some notes I took here. To the cost of living, gas prices, geopolitical conflict, which we have some of at the moment, high inflation and interest rates. All of these create low confidence for consumers. Now, what's very interesting is for us to take a look, well, what happens when there is low consumer confidence? This is kind of bordering into the territory of a study known as behavioral economics, which is how people behave with all of the conditions going on in the world, this, this societal conditions and environmental and the economy conditions. And there are 3 trends that result from this overall sentiment of uncertainty, which is a reflection of low consumer confidence. Number 1 is a high tendency to comparison shop more than ever, which could be one of the reasons that we're hearing of homeowners getting more estimates bids or proposals than they have in the past. They might have done a one-call close, call the company, sign the first one, maybe 2 or 3. We're seeing that expanding more and more and more. And again, compounding with the best, better, good or good, better, best options, we're seeing just a lot more comparison shopping. Number 2 is delaying commitments. Now, this one was really interesting because as I began studying these behavioral trends that can coincide low consumer confidence market conditions, I started, you know, I'm hearing delay commitments.
Huh.
This sounds eerily familiar to the conversations that I reported in a previous video about the 3 trends that, that roofers are whispering about right now. And those trends that roofers are whispering about, one of which was that homeowners have delayed projects. I talked to a couple of people in Florida at the FRS Annual Convention that have done 1 repair, 2 repairs, and a replacement. Or they're getting calls from homeowners they provided estimates to 3 years ago. So again, delaying commitments. I'm getting anecdotally the stuff being validated through the conversations I'm having. And then number 3 is homeowners seeking reassurance. They want confidence and clarity. And there's many people that believe the idea in sales is being like a transfer of certainty or a transfer of confidence, because of course, any time we as consumers, you and me, go to buy anything, whether it's a voluntary purchase or necessary purchase, from buying a new car to getting surgery, we want certainty that the car is going to run and be reliable. We want certainty that the surgery is going to be— going to be done right and perfect. I'm going to be healed up quickly. Certainty is what we want. So all of these trends lead to the answer of, well, how do we win? What do we do? And I want to share with you my predictions for the industry and what I would be doing. And here's that, okay, is shifting from transaction selling to what's called consultative selling. Now, these words are thrown around in sales really willy-nilly, and I just want to back them up with what I mean. Transaction selling is viewing a homeowner as like a number on a spreadsheet. All right. Lead comes in. We're going to run out. Here's our cookie-cutter process. We're going to go through this presentation proposal. They're going to get this package. This is the way. Now, a consultative sales approach involves a deep level of understanding. This means a proper discovery and asking lots of questions. And when we can ask lots of questions and discover where the homeowner's at and how we can best serve them, we can provide, well, the answer, in my opinion. Which is a custom tailored solution to fit their exact problem. So instead of boilerplate, here's the roof, we have a custom package that provides a solution to the exact situation and circumstances that are relevant to our homeowner. Now, this— the— your ability to understand and present the most valuable, timely, and in certain plan possible will be the distinguishing factor. And I know the question, the question might come up and say, Adam, listen, you just did a video, which I did, by the way, on preparing best, better, good packages, which I highly recommend you go watch. I've done videos on the 3 different ways to increase your close rate, one of which is the introductory or discovery questions. I recommend you watch that one as well. But you might be wondering, well, man, how do I provide a customized solution if I have good, better, best options? And that is not as much of the package, but how we package the package. Here's what I mean by that. Through having a consultative sales process, our intention through the questions that we ask in a sales process we curate is that we provide a white glove, custom tailored solution to the homeowner. Examples: 1, we have to understand the problem. 2, we have to understand the decision-making criteria. One of my favorite questions, by the way, to ask a homeowner is, how will you evaluate which contractor is best for you? Because as you ask this question, followed by my favorite question, by the way, which is, what else? You will likely discover that the homeowner has very specific criteria. I'll give you an example. Hey, Mr. Homeowner, how will you evaluate the contractor that's best for you? Oh, I'm looking for someone who's local, has good reviews, and a fair price. Which is again, just a boilerplate common answer to what many people want. And I might follow up with what else? And I might discover, hey, you know what, actually I read that these Class 4 shingles could get me a discount on my insurance premiums.
Okay, great.
So you're interested in Class 4. What else? Actually, I had my home remodeled, my kitchen. Then the project was a nightmare. I didn't know when people were showing up. They should like, projects got delayed. I just really want someone that communicates well.
Okay, great.
So you want a local company, great reviews. You're interested in a Class 4, and then sounds like clear communication. What else? You know, actually, I work from home virtually on Zoom, and, you know, it would be really great if I could find someone who could do the roof on Saturday so it doesn't disrupt my workday. Okay. Oh, completely makes sense. What else? You know, that's it. And I'm asking this, what else? Or tell me more until I get to the end. And now what I just discovered is that the homeowner wants their roof replaced by a local company and someone that offers a warranty at a fair price. They want a Class 4 product with a Saturday install. Now imagine if I didn't ask the follow-up questions of what else? The amateur salesperson would be like, oh great, you described us.
We're a local company. We've been in business for 7 years and we have great reviews here.
Buy from me. But instead I can curate and I say, hey, I do have these good, better, best.
Mr.
Homeowner, with everything you shared, this package, let's just say it's the better package or maybe the best, is likely the best fit for you. And we can install on Saturday. And by the way, you mentioned great communication. Let me tell you a little bit more about our process, how we serve homeowners. You get status updates automatically every step of the way. You have a dedicated project manager. You've got my phone number. The crew will never show up without me telling you first. Yada, yada, and I can explain the information that's relevant to them. And what this allows me to do is take this boilerplate pitch that many of us have and simply extract the little 3, 4, or 5 pieces that are relevant to the homeowner and deliver the package that will best suit them in a way that is truly custom tailored to them. And when you pair that with, again, depending on which dealer you work with, a financing option, should they be qualified, again, you have to work with your, your dealer and present which options might be best suited for them and for your company. This is how you stand apart and win. So while everybody else is panicking, you know the moves to make in 2026. Thanks for joining me in this video. And if you want help putting together your Good, Better, Best package, hop into this video and I'll see you in the next one.
