The #1 Sales Skill NOT Being Taught to Roofers
In this instructional video, Adam Bensman argues that many roofers lose sales not because of a bad pitch but because they over‑talk and fail to listen. He introduces the PAUSE framework—Put away your pitch, Ask open‑ended questions, Uncover what’s underneath, Summarize, Earn the right to recommend—as a step‑by‑step method to shift from pitching to discovery. Bensman explains each component, provides concrete open‑ended questions, follow‑up techniques (e.g., “What else?”, “Tell me more”, echoing the last words), and demonstrates a full role‑play where a salesperson uses PAUSE to uncover a homeowner’s true needs and then tailors a recommendation. The video emphasizes that earning the right to recommend allows the salesperson to present only the most relevant solutions, increasing closing rates. Bensman ends with a call‑to‑action to join his Roofing Strong Alliance training program.
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If you're not closing enough roofing sales, it might not be your pitch, even though that's what most people think it is. In fact, you might actually be trying to say too much. So in today's video, I'm going to share with you the number one sales skill that can help you close even more sales that I don't see people really teaching. Hey, my name's Adam Bensman. Welcome or welcome back. I'm so glad to have you here. If you've been following along or if you're new, you'll find that I love frameworks and formulas. Like my SLAP formula for pitching at the door. Say hi, break the ice, let 'em know why you're there, ask an open-ended question, present to their answer. My ARO formula, which is acknowledge, reassure, overcome, to overcome any objection. But I've never developed a formula just like this one that I'm about to share with you. And this, my friend, is the most valuable sales skill. Listening. See, most sales training is focused on what you say and how you pitch and talk tracks, but what they fail To address is our ability to listen. I've been in the home with sales reps many times, and I'll never forget this one. I was down just outside of Austin, Texas many years ago after a hailstorm, and this salesperson was so excited to have me shadow them. And I remember being in the home and he runs through his presentation. He has an iPad with a beautiful presentation and a deck, and he crushed it. He nailed every single slide just perfectly, but he left the house without the sale. And to him, he was perplexed. And to me, I knew exactly why. It's because he failed to listen. Now, of course, to listen, we gotta ask the right questions, and this is kind of a combination of things. So in today's video, I'm gonna share with you the PAUSE framework, P-A-U-S-E. This is to help you develop and fine-tune your listening skills as a salesperson, because the problem, which I'll share with you to diagnose, help you diagnose your problem, then we'll move on to the solution, is the fact that we are having a tendency to word vomit our pitch. Which is all of these amazing things about our great product, our great— or excuse me, our great company, great product, great service, great warranty, blah, blah, blah— onto the homeowner. And it becomes a bit robotic. Everyone hears the same thing. So instead, we're going to use the PAUSE framework. P stands for put away your pitch. And this is a reminder. It's a check to our gut. Like, listen, I got to just get out of my, I'm here to pitch, I'm here to pitch, and I'm waiting for my opportunity to talk. And instead, put away the pitch. A, ask an open-ended question. I personally am not a big fan, with very rare exception, of leading questions. Some people call them tie-downs, right? The obligatory yes. Do you see why working with someone like me would be really helpful? Yeah, not that. I'm talking about the proper discovery questions. These are the things to uncover what's going on for a homeowner and what's really important to them. So I'll give you a few. Some of these you may have heard, but one of them is, what's the problem with your roof? You know, that's an honest question to ask, especially in a retail environment. People aren't calling you out because they want to spend time with you. They're calling you out because there's a problem, and the answer is going to help give you insights into what the problem really is. Is this the fact that the roof was damaged by hail and the insurance company was already out and they're sitting on a check? Is it the fact that the roof is old, needs to get replaced sometime soon, but there's not a lot of urgency? Is it the fact that there's an active leak or an area of concern where water's penetrating the home and staining the ceiling? Or maybe they got a letter from their insurance company saying, if you don't get your roof replaced by this date, we're dropping you. All these are different circumstances to present to. Now you're starting to see a little bit of overlap in the SLAP formula by asking an open-ended question, but I want to give you a few more. And there's no like right one or best one. It's the one that helps uncover the root of what's going on, which I will get to next. So a couple other questions to ask. Where are you at in the process? How will you evaluate which contractor is right for you? Those are just a handful of open-ended questions you can lean on. And by the way, if you've got others, drop a comment and share it with me. Share it with others. I'm learning all the time and I'd love to hear your input. So now that brings us to the U, which is uncover what's underneath. One of the key points of listening is the fact that when you ask a question and someone gives you an answer, it's oftentimes And I'd probably say more often than not, it's not the whole truth that they're sharing with you. Now, this isn't because people want to lie to you. It's not because, you know, they don't trust you. It's, it's like this self-preservation, right? You're the person I don't know. You're the salesperson in my house. So I don't necessarily know if I want to play all my cards, so to speak. So a simple way to uncover what's underneath is to ask follow-up questions. My favorite one. Is what else? So if I were to say something like, you know, how will you evaluate which contractor is best for you? They might describe, you know, I just really want someone local with a good reputation who's going to give me an honest price and do great work. I'll say, great, what else? And then they'll start sharing maybe some other experiences that they may have had, which, and again, say, hey, you know, open-ended question. What other home improvement projects have you done where you've hired a professional? Oh, I hired a general contractor because we remodeled our kitchen. How did that go? It was great. What did you like about the contractor? What did you not like about the contractor? What do you wish went differently? And now we're going to start to uncover more information. So my favorite way again, what else? A couple of other ways to get people to share more is to say the exact line. Tell me more, or tell me more about that, or what do you mean? And then another one is to simply repeat the last few words that you heard them share with you. If they said, hey, you know what? We just started this process. I'm not quite sure. I really don't know what to look for. You were just getting a few estimates. Getting a few estimates? And then you'll notice they'll share more. Yeah, you know, you're my second person out here and yada yada. So, U is uncover the deeper elements that they haven't shared, because what they share first is not the whole story. Ask follow-up questions. This brings me to S. S is summarize what you've heard. Again, very similar to the ARO objection handling formula. R stands for reassure, to let people know that they're normal. But now we're taking a slightly different approach. When I summarize what I'm hearing, I'm going to go through a role play and give you an example of what this may play out like in real time. Maybe on the next sales appointment you run where you put this skill to use. So I might, again, P, put away my pitch, ask an open-ended question like, hey, Mr. Homeowner, thanks for giving us a call. You know, what is your process for evaluating a contractor? Oh, you know, I'm really looking for someone who's local, who's going to offer me an honest price. Great. I'm going to move into the U, uncover more. What else? Well, I really want someone who, you know, communicates really well because my My kitchen remodel just went south, and it went over budget. And the guy just—he would show up whenever, whenever he wanted, and I didn't know when he was coming or when he was going, or he'd say he'd be there and then he didn't show up. Oh man! You know what else? So actually, you know what? I found out that that our insurance—we could get a discount on our premium if we go to a class four shingle. I'm not really sure what that is. Okay, that's great. What else? And then they'll say something like, you know, I work from home and I'm on video conference all the time. I'd really love to do this roof because, you know, it's going to be loud on a Saturday when I'm not at work. Excellent. Tell me more. You know, that's about it. And now I move to S, which is summarize. So I'll say, hey, thank you a ton for sharing that with me. What I'm hearing from you is that, and by the way, I'm going to share some details that they didn't share, but just to Spruce up the role play. So what I'm hearing from you is the roof is pretty old. You just found a leak. You want to get it replaced in the next 30 days or so. You had a not super great experience for a previous contractor due to communication. So what you're looking for is a company that communicates really well throughout the process, especially so there's not any financial surprises. You're interested in a Class 4 shingle because you heard you can get a discount on your insurance premiums. And ideally, you'd like to find a contractor who can serve you by doing this install on a Saturday so it doesn't impact your work schedule. Does that sound about right? Yes, it does. Great. Now I move on to E, which is earning the right to make a recommendation. And in sales, we are changemakers. Our goal and objective, our duty, is to be a maker of change. We take someone from a current state, which is someone who is not super thrilled with the condition of the roof, paying more on their insurance premiums and they have a leak to their desired end state, which is having a hassle-free roof replacement that is communicated well throughout the process to a point where they've got a roof that they can rely on and likely or hopefully savings on their insurance premiums because they went with a Class 4 product. So now since I've put away my pitch, I'm going to come back. I have earned the right to make a recommendation. I'll move forward with my presentation process. But what I'll be doing is taking all the ways that I might present to a homeowner and grabbing just the parts that are relevant that I can make a recommendation to them based on everything that I heard them share, which means that my process for this presentation is going to focus on how we communicate as a contracting company, how we use automatic updates and redundancy, how we ask for their preferred communication method, whether it's email, text, or phone call. I'm going to explain how we can do the install, if you can, on a Saturday to best work around their work schedule and get into an agreement that maybe it could even be on a Sunday if you operate 7 days a week. And then I'm going to spend majority of my time on the Class 4 shingle so I can present the exact solution they're looking for without going off the rails into all these other things, because I'm earning the right to make a recommendation. And by putting the PAUSE framework to use in your very next sales appointment, you're going to find that your sales go from pitching or word vomiting and trying to make a sale to instead seeking to understand someone before recommending the best path and giving them exactly what they want and doing a great job for it. I hope this helps take not only your sales skills and your relationships to the next level, but I hope it helps you close even more. Thanks for joining me in this video, and if you want to work with me or my training in the Roofing Strong Alliance community, click the link in the description to learn more and apply to join, or go to rsa.pro right now.
