What NOT to Wear in Roofing Sales: How to Dress for Success

What do you wear in roofing sales? Well, that's what we're going to talk about in this video. Answer the age old question, what should you wear? What shouldn't you wear? How do you present yourself appropriately? How do you present yourself in a way that actually feels like you and how do you do so in a way that communicates the right message to homeowners that you're professional and they can take you seriously without feeling inauthentic? Well, I get this question a lot. So in this video I just want to rip the band aid off and dive right into what not to wear first. And then let's go through from top to bottom, from hats to what you wear up top to your pan or maybe shorts and your footwear. Now, if you agree or disagree, I'd like to hear from you in the comments because even on stage, I was at a roofing conference. I was on a panel. Someone had talked about what to wear. There was discrepancies among the folks on the panel. I invite different viewpoints and just remember, you have to match your market. I ran training in la. I've run trainings in Portland and Seattle metro areas which are very different than Columbus, Ohio, which is very different than Springfield, in Minneapolis. So wherever you are, you just got to kind of dress to what your environment is like. I'll give you an example. In Colorado, I could absolutely get away wearing this when I'm selling as long as I was put together and shirt tucked in and looking sharp. But I might look like a weirdo wearing flannel in another market. All right, so you just need to match your market. Now we're going to get into that in a minute, but first I want to talk about what not to wear. And I realized I didn't welcome you yet. So let's start there. Welcome or welcome back. Adam Bensman here, the roof strategist. And I am jazzed up to be shooting videos today and to be joining you and thanks for spending your time with me. So everything I do here, if you're not familiar yet, is designed to help you and your team smash your income goal and give every customer an amazing experience. And if you haven't done it, I invite you to join me inside our new free training center. It's available at therooftwriters.com and enter your name. Email. You'll get a login link. You can click the link in the description. If you're on the fly, just text the word free F R E E to the phone number listed below, which is 303-222-7133 all right, let's first talk about what not to wear. Because part of giving homeowners an amazing experience is connecting. And remember, it's partly how you wish to be carrying yourself to how they're going to be receiving you. And as we right before I get into like what not to wear, which there's three main things, then we're going to talk about what to wear. I'm someone who is, I would like self categorize my style as like upscale workwear. You're never going to see me overly dressed up. I like button ups, I like jeans and slacks, and I like casual shoes. And it kind of just works for everything. I've had some people come up to me at trainings when I'm wearing a roof strategist branded sweatshirt saying, you're not dressing up more for this. I'm like, what do I need to be in a three piece suit? Like, it's just me. And then other people say, hey, I really appreciate that you're dressed in just a sweatshirt. It shows that you're confident, makes you really approachable. So the reason I'm sharing that is you can't please everyone. I'll show up to one event, which this actually just happened this last week, and I had someone say, that's what you're wearing. And it was a roof strategist crew neck sweatshirt that was co branded with Owens Corning's logo. And they're like, that's it. And then the next time I'm there, he's like, man, I love that you're just here and confident in a sweatshirt and you're so approachable. So again, you can't please everybody. You're too dressed up, you're too casual. There's just no way around it. So at the end of the day, you, you get to decide what feeling you want to send to your homeowners based on how you dress. But we have to get rid of the no nos because in my opinion, like people that say, well, that's just me. I respect that. I truly do respect people say, well, that's just me. And at the same time, I wish to challenge folks who say that to say, I understand that it's just you, but how do you strike that balance of being just you but also being received openly by the folks that you wish to serve? Because again, being just me, if I smelled like cigarettes and booze and garlic and I didn't dress, I didn't wash myself and I smelled like BO and I had a sweaty stain hat on and a stained sweatshirt and ripped jeans in my shoes with the laces untied. If that's you use you in your personal life. But I would try to dial like upscale you for your work life. And I just want to air this out because I see it a lot. Well, that's just me. So that being said, let's get in right now to what not to wear. First things first, what not to wear. Branded apparel from any brand name of your choice that's spread across the chest. Don't wear that. If there's a logo on your clothes, it needs to be your company logo. Of course, a small little Nike or under Armour things a different story. But I don't want to see like Hollister, Abercrombie and Fitch or whatever brand that you wish to broadcast to the world. That's casual Apparel does not have a place in the workplace. And I know the workplaces are customers homes in this respect. So get rid of the branded apparel. All right, number two, ripped tattered clothes. I know that like it's, there's like the style with the jeans with the holes in it and the ripping and all the things. I personally find that that is a, like a personal expression style piece. And I would recommend that you not wear ripped clothes to work. Okay, bringing me to number three. Any clothes that are stained, including sweat stains, including hats, which I'll talk about in a moment, get rid of them. And I have my sweatshirt. My branded sweatshirt was a hoodie when I was selling in Wisconsin, for example, where the winters get cold, it gets cold before the winter. So I'm often bundled up and I had my work jackets, I had my sweatshirt and one of my sweatshirts which I loved, I wore one day. It was disgusting out and I was like helping the crew and I was carrying some bundles and doing some cleanup and everything got gross and stained through the stuff that was all over the place. Because this happens, right? Because we are in construction. That sweatshirt, I didn't even realize I go to put it on. I'm like, wow, I literally look like I work in a mechanic shop. Which is no fault to people who work in a mechanic shop. That's not how we want to present ourselves. So if your clothes are stained, old, sweat, stained, tattered, whatever, get rid of them. Okay, so there's purposefully tattered and then there's beaten up. And if they're beaten up, ditch them. Alright, so that's what not to wear outside that. Let's go top to bottom. Top hats. Yes. Or no. My view today. If you asked me, I'd say no. But you're going to say, adam, you're a hypocrite. And the answer is, I'm not a hypocrite. I just change my views. Go back, watch all my videos. I'm wearing a hat and everything. When I was selling, I wore a hat all the time. But I became a bit more aware when my hat had a giant sweat stain on it. Sheena was like, you got to stop filming videos with the roof strategist hat with a sweat stain. It's gross. So I tried washing it, still was stained. Put it on a few days later. Pure coincidence. I'm on a sales call. Cameras aren't working. We're shooting the breeze. Leadership's telling me how funny it is that their top salesperson is running around with this gross, dingy hat that they cannot wait to get off his head because it's so stained and disgusting. Meanwhile, I'm literally wearing mine, and I'm like, they can't see because the camera's not there. And at that moment, I was like, wow, people notice. And I just. It didn't really click to me, you know, Call me stupid, by the way. You can't be like, ah, you're in sales. You should have known this. I was too blind to it. I'm like, do people really care? And the truth is they do. They notice it, even though I was blind to it. So hats clean hat with a company logo acceptable in your market. Now let's move on to our top half in Colorado. This is like Colorado casual. It's a flannel, by the way. When I was in Wisconsin, I did wear nice flannels tucked in. Some people are going to say that's ridiculous. Why would you do that? It worked in my market in Colorado, I could get away with this. I probably couldn't in a different market. So is that my first choice? The answer is no. My first choice is company branded apparel. You've seen me in my roof strategist shirts in all my videos. And this is the exact style of shirt that I was wearing when I was in roofing sales. When the button was here, I could keep my pen in my shirt, which is where I like it. And these are a great, great apparel piece when it comes to roofing sales. Tuck your shirt in. That's all I ask. Just tuck it in. You know, I'm wearing an overshirt right now, which doesn't need to be tucked in, and it was designed that way. And it's a different style but these untucked just look sloppy and like you didn't try. All right. Now when it came to higher end communities, higher ticket sales, multifamily sales, commercial sales, churches, things like that. Multiple decision makers. I more often than not dressed up in a button up with a collar shirt. All right, so there you have it on your top half. When it comes to sweatshirts, I will always go with a little bit more formal. Although I know many companies do use sweatshirts. We are in the trades after all. But sweatshirts, so long as they're clean and look good. All right, let's move down to your bottom half. Jeans, khakis, chinos. Shorts. Jeans, Khakis. Chino shorts. Sounds like we're about to like bust out a new song. Which one do you do? My opinion, anything but shorts. Shorts. There's one exception to the rule. If it is truly a scorcher, if it's 110 degrees and you're out pound indoors in Texas in the middle of summer, I think you get a pass down there more often than not. I will do everything I can to avoid shorts. I don't think it sends a super professional image. Call me an old fashioned old man if you wish but showing up with like your socks showing hairy legs and it just doesn't, it doesn't have that professionalism that I would want to broadcast. That's just me. I do know that plenty of people do wear shorts. Plenty of folks are going to say it's so hot. You would change your mind if and let me just share this with you. I used to work when I was in college with the US Forest Service in Colorado when it was summer which gets really hot and I was required for safety to be in long sleeves and long pants and I was huffing through the mountains, carrying backpacks, trekking 10 to 20 miles a day, sweating and sweating and sweating. So I do know how hot it can get. I do know how annoying it is to be covered up and at the same time I just. My preference is always to jeans or khakis and chinos which goes into that one. Jeans. Just make sure that they look clean, presentable, no rips, no tears, no bedazzling. I know that people like bedazzled stuff these days. I would just leave that stuff for the casual time and not work. Jeans. Excuse me, khakis or chinos, that's up to you. Some folks will you need to be in khakis or chinos. I disagree. We're in the trades. Look like it. Alright. If you show up wearing a three piece suit to sell a roof, I'm going to be wondering how you're going to climb the ladder with those wingtip shoes. That's just my opinion. Agree or disagree in the comments below. So there's your bottom half. Avoid shorts unless you have that brutal, brutal, brutal heat. But I know that there's folks that just like wearing shorts and that's okay. All right, footwear, let's get down to the bottom half here. Footwear, what do you wear? Truth be told, pretty much any shoe with a decent sole, whether it's a trail runner, whether it's a sneaker, whether it's a tennis shoe or a running shoe are all going to have enough bite on a shingle. Or once you get to 7 to 812 or steeper always. My my recommendation is to have a roof specific shoe such as Cougar Paws and the reason is safety and confidence and look and look in the park. But forget that that's secondary to your safety and confidence. If you're into the boot look and you want I'm a big leather boot fan and moc toe boots specifically with a wedge sole are going to have good bite and they'll have a usually a steel shank to help climbing ladders so you have a good fir and they don't collapse while you're climbing that ladder. Now you've probably had that happen. If you ever climb ladders and flimsy shoes your feet kind of fold over it. So it's nice having like a moc toe. Like a if you want to get nicer boots like Red Wings Classic moc toe or Thorogoods moc toe. You know Danner makes the bull run I think or the with it with the Christie wedge sole. So any of those wedge sole boots look really sharp. You can dress them up to be that elevated workwear and they do well on roofs. And again if you have any other contributions, drop a comment below. So there you have it. From top to bottom we've got our company branded apparel or a button up shirt. We have it tucked in with a belt on jeans, khakis or chinos is just fine. Avoid shorts and on your footwear you can go sneakers or a work boot and again a moc toe boot. And then keep your cougar paws for the steep stuff hat. Try to ditch it if you need it because the sun just keep it branded, keep it clean in whatever you do, do not wear your shirt you brought back from Cancun. Any other company branded apparel, anything stained stinky or fatigued, get rid of it. And the last thing I want to close with is how you show up and what you look like is your choice of how you wish to broadcast yourself, whether you want to be more upscaled and dressed up, approachable and casual. Whatever you do, so long as you're clean and put together, I don't think you can go wrong. And remember, not everyone's going to agree with what you do, but you get to choose. So for my attire, I am upscaled workwear that is my comfort zone that feels like it matches who I am and broadcasts the right message of approachability, being grounded and down to earth and not trying this whole status play of look at my fancy three piece suit and my nice wingtip shoes and whatever it is. Again, that's just my personal opinion. So I'd love to hear from you. What do you think is the items that you should wear and most importantly, what should you absolutely not wear? Drop a comment and share it with us. That's what we love about this community. So thanks for joining me on this video. If you liked it and you want more, jump into our free training center. And if you want to just continue with me right here, hop into this video. I think you're really going to like it and we'll see you on the next one.