Targeting the BEST Doors to Knock: Best Practices for D2D Roofing Sales
Adam Bensman (the Roof Strategist) teaches door-to-door roofing sales tactics focused on which doors to knock and how to convert inspections into opportunities. He gives clear "do not knock" rules (1) homes with a yard sign indicating an active crew and (2) roofs that were very recently replaced (visible debris, fresh paint on pipe jacks, yard sign still present) — plus a third practical avoidance: neighborhoods where you are the repeatedly 20th+ roofer that day. Despite common heuristics (e.g., skipping newer-looking shingles), he argues you should generally knock most doors that aren't excluded because inspections can reveal hidden damage (example: marginal hail on a near-new roof that shortened lifespan and led to an insurance payout). He emphasizes building neighborhood credibility by being visibly thorough on roofs (neighbors watch and refer), shifting from "cold" to "warm/hot" canvassing, and preferring to catch homeowners outside (mowing, washing cars) when possible. Video closes with CTAs to related playlists and resources.
Chapters
Well, what door should you be knocking on? I get this question a lot and it happened this week. Guy emails me. He says, adam, my trainer, told me to not knock on three tab roofs if they have drip edge because it indicates that they're a newer roof and I should only focus on older roofs. He's working storms, by the way. I said, wow, that's a first. But I get this question a ton. I just finished a training with a company, new salespeople. So, hey, which door should I knock? How do I cherry pick the roofs that I focus on? Because the risk you run without having a clear approach, which I'm going to be teaching you in this video, is, is wasting your time because you're just like, huh, do I knock on that roof? No, go to the next one. Go to the next one. Then you spend all this time, if you actually had, like someone monitoring your time over the schedule, like, here Adam goes again. He's approaching the door. Okay, that's two minutes of analysis wasted. He goes on to the next one. Another minute. Oh, I realize he just doesn't want to get out of the truck. He's burning more time. And this is what happens. So you need to have a clear approach, a clear strategy on what doors to knock. Is it all of them? No, but most. And I'm explaining why in this video. And hey, if you're new here, my name is Adam the roof strategist I and my entire channel is built around providing you, the salesperson, with powerful personal strategies that you can use to make a killer income in roofing sales. So if you haven't done it, click that subscribe button and you won't miss a thing. Your income may depend on it. All right, let's jump into today's video on what doors do you knock and how do you make the most of your door knocking efforts. There are two things. Two reasons not to knock a door, and I want to get those out of the way right now. First, if there's a yard sign placed, the yard, don't knock the door. I might get hate comments on this, but guess what, guys? I believe in business with integrity. Stealing someone else's job is poor salesmanship. It represents the company poorly and it creates animosity among the team. Competition is okay. It's healthy. May the best man win. It is not appropriate to go knock on her door and say, hey, I see you're working that company, and then start badmouthing them. Or say, I'll eat your deductible or do any of that slimy crap. That is not sales. That is desperation in your buying business. And plus, it sucks when it happens to you. And if it is happening to you, I'll put a link to a video up here or here, wherever YouTube decides to throw it on how to protect your jobs from getting snaked by competitors. So rule number one, to not knock the door is if there's a yard sign in it. If you disagree, we can have a conversation in the comments. Number two, if you see that a roof was recently installed recently, meaning very recently. If you see fresh paint and spray paint on the pipe boots, excuse me, pipe jacks. If the yard sign is still there, any evidence of debris still in the yard or in the trees or whatever else that happens from a roof getting installed, then you know, don't waste your time on that roof because it was just done. But when you notice that there's no yard sign and the roof was not done, in my opinion, it is fair game and you should knock it. And then you're thinking to yourself, I know it, I know it, I know it. You're saying, adam, I don't want to waste my time. You know, I'm working smaller hail, and I can see it's a dimensional shingle. And you know, I've only had good luck with re tab. Well, guess what? There's an exception to every rule. But I want to plead a case as to why you should knock on that door. And here's the reason. You knock on the door, you get the inspection. Number one, you have no idea what you're going to find. What if you find wind damage that was only visible when you're up there because those shingles weren't sealed or they're creased? Okay. What if you find that there's hail damage and that roof actually is older than you expected and the soft metals are destroyed? What if you find like I did on this one client of mine or customer, I knocked on the door, I got up there, and I didn't think there was going to be anything. It was 60 square roof. Do the inspection. It was near new construction, new roof. And I saw all the soft metal showed hail. It was really small. So I get off the roof and I go to the customer, and her name is Janice. And I said, janice, listen, I'm going to shoot straight with you. The hail damage is very marginal. Do I think you have anything to worry about today? I don't. But here's the deal. This is a darn near new home. Two years old, and you expected this roof to last 30 years. Right. Well, with that hail damage, there's a good chance, even though it's marginal, that the lifespan of the roof has been compromised. It will be shorter. That's why the insurance company covers it. Right? Because those granules that get struck where the hail strikes and the granules over time will shed off. You might see them coming out your downspouts, which, by the way, have you. She says, yes, saying, okay, well, now that all that gets exposed to the sun, the UV rays, which will then dry rot the shingle. So instead of 30 years, you might get 20 or 25. That's why it's covered. It's a roll of the dice. You have everything to gain by going down this route. Nothing to lose. What do you say? They rolled the dice. Adjuster comes out, pays for the roof. I got an incredible commission out of that. Homeowner got a brand new roof, and now with a brand new warranty. Okay, so it worked out for them and I didn't expect it. These things happen. But then you're saying, well, it's marginal. The insurance companies are getting strict. Well, here's another reason why you should knock on every door again, that has not recently been done. And there's no yard sign, goes like this. So I'm out east. I'm in Virginia training a company. We get up on the roof. And by the way, I no longer travel to companies if you ask. But I do offer one on one. I don't travel. I don't have the time for it anymore. But we were up on this roof. Okay, I want to get that out of the way. I've been getting bombarded in a great way, which I greatly appreciate with opportunities to work with folks like you one on one. And I'm up on the roof with the salesman that we're training. We're doing the inspection, and the minute we get down and we start walking back towards the truck, neighbor walks right out. Because guess why? Neighbors have eagle eyes. They watch exactly what's going on with the neighbors. And most often, people who like their neighbors or at least get along with them have some semblance of trust. So if that neighbor trusted us to get up on the roof, what do you think this neighbor thinks? Well, guess what? She walks right over, she goes, hey, I just saw you up on my neighbor's roof. Which I don't remember her name. And you know, I like Peggy, so we'll call her Peggy. So I saw you up on Peggy's roof and I said, yeah, we were. And then we start the Conversation, Boom, we get up on her roof. So while we're up there, I'm realizing, as it's the middle of summer, we have all the eyes in the neighborhood on us because we are opening up this area with really small marginal hail, and everyone's curious. I saw this roofer on her roof and his roof. What's going on? So we spent a little extra time up there, being real thorough, making sure that people could see us. And then we started to get names. And all of a sudden, on our training day, we batted well. I don't know. Batting percentages, is it 1,000? Batting a thousand? Is that perfect? Whatever it is, we went 10 for 10. Every door we approached, we got up on the roof because of the credibility, the trust. So if that neighbor trusted Adam, I should too. This is how people think. So even though we didn't get claims called on either one of them on every single one, because we didn't find damage on every single one, what we did find was a great lesson that through this relationship, you're literally. Excuse me, through the inspection, you're literally building a relationship. Even if you don't see it, because they see you, they see your truck. There's credibility. So now when I get off this roof, even if I don't see anything, I can go up to the neighbor, and I talk about this a lot. My job is to make door knocking not. And door knocking sucks when it's cold, right? So you show up, and you're like. You're like, hey, my name's Adam, the roof strategist, and I'm here with so and so company, and I'd like to offer you a free inspection because I think your roof might have been. And then it's just cold, and then you're a robot, and that sucks, right? But instead, what if door knocking, which is what I teach, and I teach this a lot in the videos in my program, your complete sales strategy is to go from cold door knocking, which is that opening up a neighborhood no one knows you, no one's seen you, to warm and hot door knocking, where it's familiar, where you're not introducing yourself out of the blue. You're starting a conversation. So I get off the roof, and I say, hey, you know, I'm sure you saw me up on Peggy's roof, even if they didn't, and say, I just finished doing an inspection up there. And I don't know if you were aware of that recent storm that came through, but it actually has done some relatively significant damage to homes in the neighborhood. I found some on Peggy's. And the reason I'm stopped by is simply to ask you, how's the insurance process been? There's your open ended question in the slap formula. And if you haven't watched my videos, the slap formula, click up here and learn how that can take your canvassing to the next level. So you ask that open ended question. They're like, what insurance process? And you say, glad you asked. Boom. Or they'll say, hey, we were denied or we had partial payment or we have a check. We're ready to pick a roofer. Either way, you can now present to their answer. So by using the opportunities to be up on these other roofs, you're building credibility, you're developing trust, you're developing brand recognition. But most importantly, you're creating opportunities to make door knocking not suck. Because you're not being stopping by cold. You're stopping by to start a conversation. When you can make the shift in your mind from I'm a cold door to door salesperson to I happen to be in home services and the way I drum a business is starting conversations with people. When you have that dialogue shift in your head now it's easy. Just walk up, talk to anybody. And I hear this a lot in salespeople I got in this business because I have no problem talking to people. I'm really conversational. I connect with people. My. But then you put them in door to door and they freeze up and they freak out. So just change the dialogue in your own mind and you're there to have a conversation. And when you use these opportunities, it goes great. All right, now another trick for you. I. And everybody's different. I loved catching people who were outside. So one of my tactics, if I didn't want to go in a neighborhood, especially the Neighborhood, you're the 26th roofer here today. You know those ones. I know it, it hurts. It's tough. So what I would do is try to catch people when they're out because I can deal with that discomfort. I will stand next to that lawnmower while they have their ear and I will wait for it to turn off politely and I'll smile and I simply wait to have the conversation. And yeah, it's a little uncomfortable. But guess what? He who speaks first loses. I did another video on that called Shut up and listen. Another video for you to check out. I'll link up here. So in that video, I teach you the power of silence and just waiting. But to me, I loved catching people mowing the lawn Washing the boat, washing the car, or gardening because they were in their element and it was less of a disruption than meeting them at the door. So occasionally I would drive through and I would cherry pick these deals. Now, other people, I had a guy on my sales team, he goes, he could not sign a deal. He couldn't get an inspection for the life of him by catching someone who was outside. But that's the only other exception. The third. So here's the three reasons to not knock doors. Number one, if there's a yard sign. Number two, if the roof was just done and you can see evidence of it, debris, fresh paint in the pipe, boots, yard sign still in the yard, whatever it is. And then the third one is if you continually are hearing you're the 26th, 27th, 10th roofer here today, then I like to find people who are outside. I know this is more difficult as we get into winter. I'm looking out my window at 3 inches of fresh snow. I get it. But when you're in prime season, that's the time to do it. And still people, you know, we're coming into winter here, the people are still out, they're getting Christmas decorations up or doing yard work or maintenance. But you will catch people while they're outside. And it is a great way to have that conversation. Alright, so let's wrap this one up. When, excuse me, which doors are the right one to hit and should you cherry pick? And the answer is, generally speaking, hit every door. Why? Because you don't know what you're going to find and you are building a reputation in the neighborhood and can use that opportunity to do what? Make door knocking not suck instead of being cold. Hey, I'm here to do this. You're there to start a conversation. Hey, my name is Adam, the roof strategist. I just hopped up on Peggy's roof. I don't know if you saw me up there and the reason I'm stopping by is boom. So now you're there to start the conversation. All right. Now the only times to not knock, if there's a yard sign, if the roof was just done, or if you're totally getting teeth kicked in. Just time, time, time, time, time. Again, switch your approach. Try catching people when they're outside. Hope this video helps you make the most of your time out knocking doors. And. And if you'd like more on this topic, click here to watch this playlist on acing your pitch at the door. I'm going to teach you my slap formula canvassing and other ways to help open up that conversation during your door knocking efforts. And if you're new here, click here to download a free copy of my pitch Like a Pro Roofing Sales Training Video Library. Free library coming your way. More videos on acing your pitch at the door. And remember, go make sales Adam here, the Roof Strategist. Subscribe. We'll see you soon.
