The D2D Pitch Used By a Roofing Industry Legend

Here's the door-to-door script used by industry legend, Dan Walrack. He's refined it over the last 20 years, and you're about to hear it. But before we get into it, we gotta cover something really important, because as you know, door-to-door laws and solicitation laws can vary by state and even local ordinance. And so does the regulation around how contractors can serve homeowners through the storm damage process. So it's important that you consult your attorney before putting any of this to use on the doors, to make sure you're compliant at all levels. I'm so glad you're here. Now let's rock and roll with Dan Walrack.

I tell people all the time, the 18.7 is a great number, right? I mean, phenomenal, right? Residential. I study more and I look more at the 595 separate homeowners without one negative review. That's— that's to me more important than anything because that shows that, you know, your community base, you worry about your homeowner, your customer first. And the money's great, you know, you know, as well as I do, the money's always going to come. You know, you be a good human, you take care of the people that take care of you. You're loyal, you're honest. If you can't do something, you say you can't do it. If you can do something, you say you can do it, right?

Yeah.

But the key is to make sure that the homeowner is happy and make sure that you're taking care of your homeowner, taking care of your— the people that take care of you. So, yeah.

And not many people have the same philosophical approach that you do to to sales, right? It's like, what can I get? And I think there's a, the distinction is instead of so many salespeople, what can I get? How do I close? Like, it's like, how do I get the wallet outta their back pocket to win the deal? And if there's a, again, what can I get versus what you said, what can I give? 595 customers and not one bad review is mind-blowing. There are many roofing companies that won't do that volume in 3 years, 5 years, some even 10 years. And they will get negative reviews. So let's jump into the psychology, Dan, of a— as far as I don't know if there's any like official record book, but I'm pretty sure at least for my record, you're the top producing residential salesperson that I've ever encountered, I think, in the industry. Do you have any idea of where you—

I have never heard of anybody touching that number. And, and it's funny when people say a year, I tell people, well, you want to say a year, I can say 8 months because in Minnesota we don't do shit in November, December, January, February. So, you know, but what I tell people all the time is, you know, the accolades and the, hey, this is who Dan is, he did 18. I want people to more know the fact that I take care of my homeowners and the fact that it's a system and process that I work with that I do that is how you get to that number. It doesn't just happen in one year, you know what I mean?

Yeah. No, it never does.

The sales is something that $18.7 million was a factor from the 15, 20 years before that of what I put in process and taken care of. And with Tiffany and my family and my wife, you know, everything like that, we've all started this 27 years ago. Right. And this isn't something that, oh, storm hits, Dan just went out and did $18.7 million. It wasn't just Dan doing $18.7 million. It was a process that we set up a long time ago that being a member of your community, doing the different things, the little things around your community, the little things around your, your, your village, if you want to call it.

Yeah.

That, that when this special storm hit, when this circumstance hit, is why I did $18.7 million. It's because people understood and people, people knew that, hey, what does Dan do in the community? Dan's the roofing guy in the community. If there's a problem, issue, concern, we call him. Yeah, you know, and I think a lot of that stems with when I talk to different companies, a lot of that stems with is when I first started this, I had this, I had the job mentality. I used the mentality that every morning I had to wake up every morning that I had a job to go do and I'd be back and there's my job. At some point in, in the career of doing roofing, I guess if you would ask me 28 years ago if I was going to be a roofer for 28 years, I would have said hell no. But anyway, I changed that mindset from a job mentality to a career mentality. I had to figure out, okay, if this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life, how do you be the best at it? You know, and that's something I am. And I don't know if that's just my personality or something, but I'm a very competitive person. And I don't like to lose. And so what I figured out is, hey, if I'm going to do something, and this is gonna be my career, how do I change that mentality to say, hey, I'm just going to be the best at it. And I love how CNAC and Zurn have their Master Your Craft. Well, that's technically what I did. I mastered my own craft. And it's something that you have to not only start and you have to have that psychology and that mentality to understand that what I need to do is I need to do something different than everybody else that's in my craft, right? How am I going to set myself apart from everybody else? You know, I hear all the time, oh my gosh, we're in a saturated market. There's 900 roofing companies in our market. There's not enough work for everybody, which I call bullshit, right? It's the difference is, is you need to be different than those 900 other companies. And how are you going to do that? What are you going to do differently that sets you apart from everybody else? And that's what I think I performed or perfected in 27 years of doing this is being different than everybody else. Even though we're all doing the same agenda, we're all doing the roofs, we're all doing the sidings, we're all doing the same. And, you know, outcome, the end. How do you get to that point?

Yeah.

And that's, and that's something that I train and teach with people all the time is it's a mindset, you know, and you got to have the right mindset. And I told you, we'll talk about this later, is about the pitch, right? You know, everybody's like, oh, you must got the great pitch. You got a great pitch at the door, da da da. I tell people all the time, it's not the pitch that sells the job. It's your psychology of understanding what that homeowner's needs are. That's going to sell that job. And the key is to listen to your homeowner. People, sales reps struggle to do it. Sales reps are lazy now. And what they do is they're so concerned and they're so hyperfocused on, oh, I got to say this, I got to say that, I got to say, oh, the company's this, the company's that, instead of actually just sitting there and talking to the homeowner, being a good human and listening to what their needs are. That's where the thing is.

I couldn't agree more, but I'd love to get into because I know I'm curious, I'm sure others are as well. What's your opener at the door? Because listening you can only do after you're in conversation. So what's your script or process for starting that conversation at the door?

Well, and there's different, there's different scripts I do. For example, if I'm doing a job in the area, this is something I talk a lot to people about. And Tara, I'm sure you've heard this, is what I like to do is I like to knock on the next door neighbors and I call it a 6-pack or an 8-pack. And so it's basically 8 houses around. And now I'm a firm believer that knocking doors, knocking warm doors is much easier than knocking cold doors. So I hate just showing up on a street and just start pounding doors and it's an area I don't have a warm lead into. All right. However, what I like to do is on a warm lead, and I like— I call them warm because it's an 8-pack. So the person obviously seeing your job, I always knock on the door and I talk to the homeowner and I say, hey, well, here, let me, let me go back. Let me go back. It's a whole process, right? So how I, how I do a normal job site is when the roof's going on, I make what is called watch us works. It's basically a flyer that I have. That's a card that says, hey, we're in the area, we're doing a roof and siding or gutters, whatever in the area. Come by, spend by, you know, check on our job site, say hi to me. Here's the homeowner doing it. And what I like to do is I have those filled out in the morning and the time between 7 and 8:30, 9:00, I go out and I put out about 100, 150 of those all the way around my job site. I don't knock on the door, don't do anything. I just put the flyer up. And the reason I always put that flyer up in the morning of my job site is two reasons. Number one reason is I put them up so no other contractor goes on and takes them down, which is important. But secondly, I do it is for the fact that I like to put those up first thing in the morning because then what I do is about 9, 9:30 is I drive around and see if those hangers are still on the door. If they're still on the door, that tells me a couple things. Number one, the homeowner's not there. Number 2, they're not woken up yet. Or if it's gone, that means that somebody was there. That makes an easy door to knock on. So then what I do is I go and knock on the door and I— especially the houses in my 6-pack, 8-pack around my job— I knock on the door and say, hey, my name is Dan with Build Strong Exteriors. Just letting you know that if anything blows in your yard, right? Obviously everybody says anything blows in the yard, please let me know. I'll spin by, easily pick it up. Here's the kicker that nobody does that I try to train people on, is I say these words exactly. I say, by the way, who's doing your roof? Simple question, right? Simple question. By the way, who's doing your roof? Because what you're doing is you're opening up that dialog with that homeowner because they're going to say one of two things. And it's about 80, 85% of the time. This is exactly how the conversation goes. They're going to say either, what do you mean? Or they're going to say, Josh Mozo, my roof, whomever, you know. If they, if they say, hey, that Joe Schmo is doing my roof, then what I say is, well, here's my card. I understand a lot of companies out here just do roofing. Just to let you know, we do roof, siding, gutters, windows. So there's other trades out there that we also do. We don't like to step on any other person's toes as far as what, you know, what they're doing. For example, I'm a firm believer in roofing etiquette and in roofing etiquette. If somebody's got somebody signed up, I'm not going to sit there and try to, you know, take them from somebody. I don't believe in that. Hey, you've done the work enough to get that person signed up. They felt comfortable with you. I'm not going to steal that job from you. But if you just do roofing, I don't mind coming in doing the siding, the gutters, and the other parts of the trades. I'm fine with that. Secondly, what they'll say is, what do you mean? And what they're doing is they're opening up that dialogue because then what I say, my exact verbiage back is, well, Mrs. Jones, your next-door neighbor, has got hers approved by the insurance company. I assume you have the same damage, correct? Because now what they're going to say is they're going to say, well, we haven't even had ours looked at. And then what you're going to say is, that's kind of funny because I'm next door. I'm going to be here all day running my job. I'm the QC on my job. It take me 5 minutes to pop up there, let you know if you have the same damage as Mrs. Jones. Because what they're going to say is now they got that fear of missing out going through their head, going like, I wonder if I do have the same damage as Mrs. Jones. And they're going to tell you to pop up there, take a look. And then when you're up on top of the roof and you're in there standing out in their front yard, you're going to say, ironically, you have the same damage as Mrs. Jones. The next step is, and that's where you get the person signed up.

Yeah, that's beautiful, dude. It's, it's funny that you mentioned the, the Watch Us Work, the WOW flyers. Another language I wrote down here, you wrote, I like knocking warm doors, not cold. We are very aligned on that philosophy. It's what I teach in the Multi-Touch Marketing approach. And what I would love to get into is the— because that script is awesome, by the way. I hope all of the folks who are watching right now and listening wrote that down because I look at the analytics and people will rewind. So if you didn't rewind and watch that, write that script down.

I can guarantee you in 20+ years of doing this industry, And I've been using that exact verbiage. I probably sign up 70 to 80% of my Nextdoor neighbors. It's kind of a running joke at our company that I never leave a street without at least 2 or 3 signatures on it. And the reason that is, is because I use that exact verbiage I just said to you every single time. And it plays out just like that in the conversation with the homeowner. Mm-hmm. To the point where when I go do national trainings and I go around to different companies and we use that, They're dumbfounded how easy it is to sign a homeowner up when— and they're like, oh my God, they're saying exactly what you said they're going to say. I said, dude, I've been doing— I've been knocking so many doors that I can tell you exactly what they're going to say.

You know, it's powerful just to see with, you know, so many sales folks. I even remember in one of the RSA sessions, I had a sales rep be like, do you have any tips to like freshen up my script? And I'm like, What does it need freshening up for? And I realize it's the salesperson that's getting quote unquote bored with what they're saying. But when you're like, I've been doing this 22 years, here's the words to say, it works.

Yeah. So I mean, if they literally just copy that verbatim, those words and just say it at the door.

Yeah.

I mean, I can guarantee your sales are gonna go up. Because people, the key is to put the person in the mindset of wanting something.

Right.

Right. Not needing something, wanting something. And how do you get that mindset of them wanting something? Let them give it to themselves. Yeah. They don't want their next-door neighbor to have something they don't have. Right? And I'm not pushing my agenda on them. I'm just letting them know, hey, I'm sitting next door. I'm here to help you out. I can see if you got the same damage that she has.

Yeah.

Right? It's so easy. I mean, it's so— and then you're not that pushy sales guy. Then you're not pushing a script or pushing a pitch on somebody. Because, like, I can tell you another experience I had just in, uh, Arizona. I was doing a training down in Arizona and I went out and part of our training is the second day is I go to knock on doors with people, right? And we're out there knocking doors and it was a pretty saturated market, like they say. I mean, we're working on the second year of a two-year storm. So a lot of roofs and things have been completed and we're out knocking doors and you're getting a lot of doors slammed in their face. You're getting a lot of like, hey, we've already had our roof done, blah, blah, blah. And then finally I just said, I put a halt to it. I said, are you guys hungry? And they're like, what do you mean? I said, let's go have lunch. And they're like, where do you want to go to lunch? So we drove them to a golf course, right? It's in— we're in Sun City. So we drove to a golf course, went inside the golf course, and we stopped in and had lunch. Now there was a couple leagues going on at this golf course of older gentlemen. And we're sitting down at the golf course and there's probably 50, maybe 55 older gentlemen in there having their mimosas and Bloody Marys and their lunch and everything like that. And we're having lunch and I'm an extroverted person. So I, of course, spark a conversation, start shooting the shit with some guy. Next thing you know, me and 3 guys that I'm knocking doors with are sitting in a group of 55 older gentlemen talking about roofing, and they handed out all their cards and they got 9 appointments off that at a golf course as opposed to knocking on doors. And I told them, I said, the reason you guys got those appointments at a golf course and not at the doors is now we're discussing what we do on their terms. And not on our terms. Our terms is knocking doors and trying to get in their door where everybody's already got that front and everybody's got that mindset of, oh, a door knocker. I don't want a door knocker on my door. Oh, how am I gonna, how am I gonna get rid of 'em? Whereas now we're on their, on, on the golf course where we're just sitting there shooting the shit, being a good human, talking, communicating, letting them know that we're a real person and how we can help them. And then you can explain yourself cuz you basically have 15, 20, 25 minutes of undivided, undivided attention that you're sitting there having a discussion with those people about what you do. And that's how you build that in. So it was huge. I mean, I was like, this is how you do it.

Yeah, it's beautiful. I love it, man. What would you say would be your pitch after? Because obviously once you have a build day, it's a lot easier on the watch us work. But for those times that you do have to enter a neighborhood cold and you're the first one in there, what is your script or process look like at that point?

Well, and a lot of, a lot of that will vary on The first question I ask a homeowner, I say, hey, Mrs. Jones, my name is Dan with Build Strong. I understand your area here has been hit by a hailstorm. I'm assuming you've had a bunch of people knocking on your door. Is that correct? Why I say that is because I want them to come back at me with the objection of saying, yeah, you're the 15th person that's knocked. Then the first question I ask them is, why haven't you chosen anybody? You know, because I'm trying to build that communication. I'm trying to build that discussion up. I want to understand why they haven't chosen somebody. Is it because people are too pushy? Is it because they don't think they have damage? I want that objection that they're going to give me because that's how I'm going to lead my, my pitch and that's the direction I'm going to take it. Right. And so I ask them, don't be afraid to ask people the question, why haven't you chosen somebody? You know, there's got to be a reason. I mean, is it because there's 15 people up there and you don't think you have damage? Well, have you had a professional person actually give you an assessment of the damage? Have you done a walk around with that contractor? Have they showed you exactly the difference between mechanical damage and hail damage? Have they shown you the difference? I'm sure anybody can go up there and tell you you got damage, but have they actually walked you around that property and explained the entire process to you? And that's— and what I tell people all the time, I said, here's what's going to make me different than everybody else that's knocked on your door. And in doing that, you're inviting that person in, you're educating that person in to being a part of the process as not opposed to the process. Do you see what I'm saying?

Yeah, it's beautiful. Your sales philosophy is focused on listening and not saying, and it's magic.

I mean, I barely, I barely talk to my homeowner about the process until we're having that discussion when we're doing the inspection. Yeah, I just want to feel that person out and understand that person and see where that person's coming from and see what their concerns are.

You got to give a prescription. Listen, understand, prescribe a solution. You know, that brings me— I didn't— Dan, what do you see changing in 2026? And how are you adapting?