Disrupting an Industry - The Future of Estimates and More w/Travis Harvego

Foreign. Hey, everybody, it's Jim Johnson, your host with Contractor Radio with another amazing episode that's focused on helping you, the contractor, the home service guy out there that is in hand to hand combat each and every day and each and every week helping homeowners solve their problems and beautify their homes. I'm excited about our guest today. I love talking technology. Some of you may know that I had some involvement in technology prior to getting into coaching as the founder here at Contractor Coach Pro. So I have an affinity for. I always like to stay on the cutting edge of things. And we have an awesome guest that is absolutely on the cutting edge of things, especially for you guys that do roofing. We'll talk about that today, but before we do, we got to keep those lights on, so. So we're going to play a little message from one of our sponsors.

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So one of the things we always talk about in our coaching is how do we differentiate ourselves from everybody else? And that's why we partnered with Atlas and they're one of our sponsors. They do help you become different as a contractor out there in your market. So if you haven't checked them out before, get with your local rep and find out a little bit more about how Atlas will make you different than the other contractors out there. Speaking of being different, we're always looking for those things that give us this unique tool or this unique ability to separate ourselves from the competition. It could be a proprietary sales system. It could be something unique that you're doing in your marketing, and it could be some something that you offer on your website. And so today we're bringing in the president of Rufal.com I believe that's a new addition to his titles. He's done a lot in this industry. Travis Harvigo. Welcome aboard to Contractor Radio. Great to have you.

Hey, thanks for having me. Jim, I really appreciate you having me on today and talking about Ruflo and Wolf Quilt Pro. So thanks for having me.

Yeah, I'm excited to get into it because we actually had you guys. You were a sponsor of our mission conference, and we go through and we help a lot of contractors build out their mission for the coming year. And I got to talk with you a little bit more, and I kind of had an idea of what Ruthful.com was because the actual founder of it, I guess, is the way to think about it. Maybe the guy with the big bright idea. His name's Joe Hoffman, and he was one of my clients at Accu Links whenever I was in the software world. And the one thing I know about Joe is he is an absolute sponge for information. And he's always, like, trying to get the edge on the next guy out there and stay ahead of the curve. And so this rueful thing is kind of a natural thing for us. Kind of cool to know a guy from more than 10 years ago starting to do some things like this. So bring us up to speed. What, what's your background and how did you get here and kind of. How did Rufal become a thing?

Yeah, so Joe Hoffman, Hoffman Construction. I worked for him over Huffmover construction for about 10 years. So we. I basically started with him as like a canvasser, like door knock work my way up into, you know, project management, sales, sales management, you know, production management, and then general management, you know, so kind of work my way up the ladder all the way from kind of the bottom all the way up to the top, which is kind of pretty rare in this industry. Most guys like to jump around all the time and grass is always greener over here. But, you know, working for Joe, he's a very innovative guy and he's always, you know, put great processes in place and success in place for this employee. So, like, you have a path to success, like, you reach these milestones, these goals, like, these are the next positions that you can go to. So he's always been very, very good about, you know, keeping his employees and everybody happy. So he's been someone great to work for. And so, you know, I was on the leadership team with them. So there's five of us on the leadership team over there. Hop over Construction. And we were thinking about the next way to be innovative. And we actually went to a conference. It was for. And we wanted to present some great idea that we had. It was to do with virtual reality. And we lost to somebody who did A disk assessment. And we were so devastated because we had the most amazing idea out there. Like, how does somebody beat us on something that's so old? And this is so new and innovative. Like, we're talking like the VR goggles, right? Like, you know, and so we lost, like, so, so what is. Like, we're innovative. Like, we are. We were like, so what's the next biggest thing to come to the industry, right? So we go back and we look at it and we say, okay, five years ago we had paper files, right? And everything was in a paper file. And then we have CRMs. Like everybody has a CRM now, right? Years ago. No, some people did, some people didn't. And we look at measurements. We used to have to hand measure everything, you know, and then. And now we have aerial measurements. There's nobody hand measuring roofs anymore, right? So there's so many things that have evolved throughout the roofing in the last five to 10 years that we're thinking about, like, what's the next biggest thing to come? And we're like, you know, the in person sale, right? And how is that transaction going to look, you know, down the road? We look at like cars, right? You look at things like carvana that came out where people can go online now and buy their car, have it shipped to their house, or even like auto trader. Like who goes to a car lot anymore and goes and looks at cars? No, you find a car, you go there, you buy it, or you just buy it online. So like the consumer doesn't have as much time anymore, so they have to have convenience. And also when we have the younger generation coming up, let's be honest, they don't like humans, right? They just want to be able to interact with technology and they love technology. So just looking at the in person sale, we said, okay, let's look at e commerce in the roofing space. And what does that look like? So that was the idea on a whiteboard. Back in 2019, we started whiteboarding. Like, what does this look like? How could we go and sell direct to consumer without having like a sales rep in the house? And so we whiteboarded it and we built and we said, okay, let's do it. Like, I think we can do this. Let's do it. So then we started building it and then we launched it July of 2020, right in the middle of COVID right? And so it was kind of like.

Timing was pretty good.

They were like, you planned this? Like, no, we really did not plan this. Like, we started building this thing eight Years.

We're the ones that planted the virus. Okay. Now we know we finally pinned it down.

Everyone was blaming us for the virus. Like, you guys wanted this because this is what you're doing. Yeah. It just happened to be pure coincidence.

You know, Now I got to go back and look where Joe was traveling to back in, like, November of 2019, right?

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So we launched right at that time. And so again, we were selling direct to consumer. That's what Ruffle.com was. That's the concept behind Rufal was going direct to consumer. So we launched our website. We built all the possible tools for the consumer to go online and be able to get their roof. So anything from an instant estimate to getting, you know, their final price, their final quote, visual fertilizers, everything possible on there that. That they needed to do to be able to buy their roof online. So when they did that, they went there, they entered their address, right? They got the instant quote. If they like what they saw, they went to the kind of the next steps, the checkout process. They're able to go through a visualizer, upload a picture of their house, you know, all these different things to where they can say, okay, I feel comfortable with being able to buy this roof online. So that's what we did for about two and a half years. And behind that was basically proof of concept to is the consumer ready to buy their roof online? So we looked at all the data, and we say 70% of our business came between 9 and midnight. So that says that the consumer, that's when they're available, and that's when they actually have time to actually sit down and say, hey, let's make this decision. So when you look at, you know, years ago, one person probably worked in the household. Now most both people work, they're busy, they have kids or whatever. So when they put the kids to bed, they're like, hey, what else can we do to get something done? Oh, we got to get this rift on. Well, let's see if we can do something online. So instead of going online, booking an appointment for a sales rep that they have no time for in their house, they can just buy it right there online and have that convenience. So that's what we did. We sold online. We worked with local contractors to facilitate the work. So we went out in every market that we went to, we went out and we found local contractors that were highly recommended from manufacturers and suppliers. We went out to them and said, hey, here's what we're doing. Here's the concept. And so they all loved it. They all loved the concept because essentially they were just getting sold jobs. They said, here's a sole job, go out and do it. Here's how much that, here's how much we're going to pay to do it. And they all love the concept because again, they were just getting sold jobs. They were sending crews out there and just going to get the work done. So we formed those great partnerships so that we were able to do it. So we did it online two and a half years, did about $6 million in work. And again, we had no locations, we all remote, we had nobody on the ground, everything was all digital online.

So was somebody meeting like in a virtual, you know, like a Zoom Meeting or FaceTime or something like that with these folks to facilitate the conversations?

Yeah. So when it came down to like finalizing their price, they essentially had a choice to basically we did two different AB tests. We said, do they want to be able to put their credit card in and make a down payment or do they want to finalize an order with somebody like over a zoom meeting? So we did both ways. So I would say 90% of the people did want to have that zoom meeting just to confirm a couple of things. That's where they felt more comfortable. So they were able to either book a time for later or as long as it was. I think we had our people working till about 10 o' clock at night that they were able to jump on and have that zoom meeting right then and there and say, okay, here's what you got, here's all the information, here's everything, here's the timeline, like give them all the expectations. And so they had everything. They said, okay, let's move forward. This was just so easy. We were able to do it. So that was like the roadmap and that was like what we built out to say. E commerce is a thing in this space and people love it and they're willing to do it. And now again, we were brand new, we had no reviews. Right. Like, we were essentially like a no name contractor. Right. And people were like, hey, we'll do it. Because we just love the concept. We love the ability to be able to come here and be able to buy online with the convenience of what you know we're doing. And then we gave them access to a customer portal which was next level to where they were able to track everything in real time, like from delivery orders, trucks, on the way it's been delivered, you're on the schedule, crew's gonna be There this day, like, we set everything up so that they were very transparent with what everything was going on. So they knew exactly a timeline as far as what was happening. So they didn't have to call us. They logged into their portal and they had the updates right there in real time with everything that we were doing. So the clarity to the homeowner as far as what's going on was big because they never met us. I mean, they met somebody over zoom, but I mean, they never really met us in their house. So with giving them that access. And then also as we were doing the projects, we were taking photos, some cases, videos that we were getting uploaded in real time so they could see exactly what was going on throughout the process. So it was. Transparency was really the biggest thing. And that was kind of really what we valued ourselves on, was like, we're going to show you our customer experience. So when you hire us, here's what you're getting. Like, here's the experience. Experience that you're going to get. So that was a big thing that we did, too. That's what we preached to a lot of contractors too. As we talk about, you know, Reform Pro is kind of our experience. Like, this is what we did, this is what we learned, so we want to pass the information on to you. So we did that. And then so we said, okay, all right, the proof of concept is there. We've done this. And we said, okay, let's release this to contractors. And really what triggered that sooner rather than later was I was at a conference in April and there was some companies there talking about what their future was. And they were like, we're going to look at generating leads and selling jobs and then give them to you as the contractor. And the room exploded. Like, the contractors were all upset. They were like, I can't even believe that they're telling us this. And so someone stepped up and said, hey, Rufal's already doing this, guys. And they're like, wait, what? They are? So then after that, there was 20 to 30 contractors that came up to me and said, hey, we need what you have and what's that going to take to get it? And so I was like, made a quick call to Joe and I said, as of today, we are starting production on getting this in the contractor's hands. So by the next day, we are working on taking the technology and basically white labeling everything so that we can put it on their website. So that's where the start of Roofpole Pro started was at that moment in time when that Demand was there and they're like, hey, we need this because we see what's happening in the future. That was really what triggered it. Like we need to do it immediately because we then knew that there's other people in the space that are looking to do this. Like Angie, right? So Angie roofing, right? Everyone's like, oh my God, Angie has a roofing company now, right? Which they kept that hidden for a couple of years, I believe, or a year or whatever. But you know, Angie is selling direct to consumer now, right? So Angie is there doing similar things where they're able to buy right online, right? But then they're also selling all their recycled 20 contractor leads to you that they've already kind of went through and had the opportunity to sell.

So yeah, we missed them. We'll sell them to you.

Right, exactly. We couldn't sell them, so you can go ahead and have them. Right? So there's other people in the space that we're looking at doing it. And essentially, you know, so then we launched Roof Quote Pro in September. So September was our soft launch. We started, you know, building it in April and then in September we did our soft launch. We basically had, I think it was 68 contractors at that point signed up. But basically it's like a pre sale when we launched it, just to learn from, from them as we launched it, like get the bugs worked out, things like that. So we launched it for about two months and then November 1st was our actual hard launch as far as like, you know, launching the product to contractors. So with that we basically said we took the technology that we built and now we are embedding it onto contractors websites.

So, so can it do all the same things like the tracking? Like, hey, you came in as a lead. We met with you on, you know, maybe online, maybe you put your credit card in. You actually did decide to go with us. And so the tracking part of that, is that in there too?

So that's part of our roadmap. So when we built this out and we look at contracting or roofing right in this space, we say, what are roofers ready for? So if I go to a roofer name and say, hey, here's all the E commerce tools, let's go do it, they're going to be like, you're crazy. We're not ready for this. Right. So it all starts with contractors first off knowing what their numbers are. So if you ask a contractor and you say, what's your price per square? Most of them would say, I have no idea. Like I Don't know. Right. So they have to be able to know that. So we're releasing this. There's six different phases that we're going to release this in. So the first step is the instant quote part of it. So we released the instant quote part of it and that's the part right now that's available to contractors is the instant quote. And then we move to the next level which is going to be like payments or finance. So in January we're releasing finance and that's the next piece to where we're working with finance partners to where the homeowner can get essentially pre approved with their finance company right there through our, through our technology. So by the time that, that LE or contact comes in, that homeowner is already pre approved. So to answer your question, not quite yet. Are all the pieces there? It's on the roadmap, but we have to work towards it so that we can walk the contractor towards like this, you know, the cycle, the evolution of what this is. Because if we release it all, they're going to be overwhelmed and say nope, not doing it, no, there's too many pieces here. Right. So we knew that. So we said let's release it in phases and slowly we work towards essentially the end. You know, being that basically no touch or video conference whatever, where you're selling jobs on your website that's working for you 24 hours a day.

That's pretty darn cool. This is, you know, in all honesty is something that I was thinking about before the pandemic thing. I went, hey, you know, you mentioned the company Carvana, right? Like hey, you can buy a car that's 50, $60,000 online. Which I sat there and went, would I do that? I don't know if I would. But Carvana makes a guarantee, right? They say hey, if the car shows up and it's not what you expect it to be, send it back. So there's a, that gives you a bit of confidence that you might not have otherwise, but they're making, you know, five figure sales online. We're used to Amazon, you know, a two figure sale up to $19 or $25, maybe a three figure sale, $100 or something like that. But, but these bigger purchases are starting to be something that we're more likely to do as long as we have the right information. It sounds like you guys are providing that. How has the reception so far been like as you've put this roof quote pro out? What are the results? Like, what's actually happening? They're putting it on their website. I look at it as, like almost buying a widget for my website. I'm like, hey, I'm going to buy this widget for my website. How's it working for them so far?

Yeah. So again, it comes down to, again, educating the contractor on this process. And so that's the things that obviously that, you know, we learn. And as we, as we do this, right. So some contractors have taken this thing and have crushed it. Like, we have a contractor who's generated over 800 leads, 800 contacts with using it because he did it the right way. And they do a lot of marketing timber. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, so he is pumping things to the site and it comes out. He's got a great marketing department. They have the right ads out there. They're targeted, they're meant for conversions, like, as far as, you know, what they're looking for. So it really comes down to, again, like, us taking the information that we're learning from these contractors and saying, okay, here's the successful people. So we need to take these bits and pieces and say, here you go. Here's what's going to make you successful to be able to make this thing work. But it does come down to a lot of it is driving traffic to it and finding the right customers that are looking for some sort of instant quote. Because some customers are, you know, they may not be. So you got to find the right traffic that wants to convert. But then we have other companies that are, say, storm companies, right. And they go out and knock doors or do mailers and they put QR codes on there. Right. They leave. They leave a QR code on there. The homeowner scans it, and then they get their instant quote by scanning a QR code that they've left at their door. And so we have a customer. Yeah, we have a customer who does storm. And he. He's at 100% sales rate as far as some things that he's done. As far as for the customers that have essentially did it and converted and actually went through the whole process, he's closed 100% of them.

So I know you don't want to meet me. Click this QR code and get it figured out.

Right.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah.

Are there any limitations like how many people can request a quote or anything like that? Seems like there's some measurement technology behind this. Is it, Is it your technology? Are you guys leveraging another platform? Platform? Is there limitations to how many measurements I can get? Any of that kind of stuff.

No, there's no limitations on measurements. It's unlimited measurements that, that you can get or pull. It's our own technology. We're pulling from seven different data sources that we're pulling from to get the data as far as the measurements. And we tested about 3,000 to 4,003 and 4,000 properties. And as far as comparing them to say you will view whatever you want to compare the two to our measurements, we're about 96 accurate with our measure measurements. So pretty dang accurate as far as our measurements go. So, yeah, but there's no limitations as far as how many you can do. It's completely unlimited. So. And again, like that guy who's had 700 people come through it, like, it doesn't. It's all. It's all the same price to us. We do not. We don't limit the number as far as how many quotes or how many instant estimates that you can generate, you know, on your website.

That gets my mind going. So. So there's a bit of a trust but verify aspect of it too, right? Like, hey, we're going based off of the information that you've provided for us and technology can generate for us. We need to verify that just to make sure it's that accurate. So when this is what I've seen in the past from some of these, and so you tell me what your experience has been, because it's not the only one that exists out there. There's companies that have done this for themselves on own, their own, like, proprietary version of it, and I've tested them to just go and play around with them, put in my address and stuff, and I get this quote back. And the quote's really low, right? Like, it's really low. And I put in the stuff that I wanted and all that stuff, but it's, it's. I know what roofing prices are, and roof that's 27,000 is coming in at 19. I'm going, all right, is there something shady going on there to just get the guy out in front? Are the people using. Are they being accurate with their numbers and stuff like that? Is there any. Any of that kind of stuff that you're seeing in what you're doing with roof?

No, for the. I mean, for the most part, everyone is doing their, you know, proper, you know, price per square, because the one thing you don't want to do is be misleading to the homeowner any sort of way. And what we allow in there, again, the contractor is fully in control of the products that they see. So we have over 800 different products in our database that they can choose from, that they can show the homeowner anything from asphalt roof to tile to metal to whatever is in there that they can show the customer. But they're also setting their own prices. And so the last thing they want to be is misleading. Now, what we do allow in there is you put in there what's included in this price and then what's not included in this price. So as you put that in there, you're letting the homeowner know that as far as their expectation is like, here's what's included. But if you have XYZ of these items, this price will change. So we do allow that in there. So every contractor is different as far as what they're going to allow as far as what's included, what's not included. So that's a big piece of it as far as like the homeowner understanding that this quote right now currently is what we call a quick quote or an estimated quote. But these are some factors. If you have these, it may change this price. Now, as we go down the road to E commerce, we release other features such as integrating with measurements measurement companies that essentially give them their final measurements, essentially verified measurements, things like that. So typically they can wait a couple of minutes while they're going through, say, you know, the checkout process or going through a visualizer, whatever they're doing, while everything else is running in the background to get like their final price to where it is verified, where they can go online. But again, that's a little bit down the road. Right now we're really focused on them knowing their numbers, them being able to know what their prices are per square, them being able to enter it and be accurate so the consumer can get more clarity as far as what is this going to cost? Because again, this is pretty much the only industry you can't go online and figure out what approximately it's going to cost. You have to have somebody in your home come out and tell you what this is going to cost. So again, by having that it does one or two things, it's either going to eliminate the consumer who's not ready. Like, they're like, no way, way more than I expected it was. I need six to eight months. So don't even waste your time coming out here right now, or the consumer that says, yes, that's what I was expecting somewhere in that area. I really appreciate you giving me some sort of price because I've been online for three hours now and have found nothing. So I really. And that's what some of people tell us is like people remember them when they come out to the house because they're like, wow, you're the guy who already kind of gave me some sort of price as far as what to expect. So again, it all comes down to how the contractor presents it. But I've not seen anything as of yet as far as anything that's out there. Like people, you know, blow balling just to try to get into the home because that could be even worse for them where they could lowball it and then they go out there like, Whoa, this is $10,000 more than, you know, what it was online. So everyone's been, as far as what I've seen is very, very, you know, precise what their numbers are because they want to be, you know, realistic with the homeowner and they don't set that different expectation. So but again, by having those options there, as far as letting them know, clearly, if you know you have these items, expect to pay them.

So give me three things that contractors are doing that are making this Roof Quote Pro, which I love the name by the way. I mean, come on, kind of like Contractor Coach Pro. I don't have anything to do with it. No affiliation at all. I just like that you guys went with that kind of naming convention. But give me three things that if I'm going to do Roof Quote plus and put it on my website. What are the three things that these contractors are doing that are getting it to be optimized?

Yeah, the biggest thing is, number one, having landing pages. So we give you two different ways. You do either a slide out widget that lives on your site all the time or you do the embedded version. So with the greatest success that we've seen has been with the embedded version. So you're creating landing pages, like your own custom landing pages that are designed to get conversions. So when they land on those pages, they're getting conversions directly on those pages. So that's one of the biggest things that we've seen as far as making those pages and then a little piece right there too that we've also noticed is that when you do do the embedded version, it is helping out with your SEO a little bit. So if we did a search for instant Roof quote, we have seen some people that have our technology show up on like the first page of Google. So the embedded version really does help out. And also, again, it's about conversions. The next thing is marketing. So how are you able to to drive the traffic to your website. Now, some people can just get a bunch of organic traffic because they've been around a long time. You know, that their name is well established to where they can just get it naturally. And it just comes to them, you know, just all the time. But really, it comes down to being able to drive the traffic. We have to let the consumer know that this exists. Most consumers have no idea that this exists. Right. So we have to be able to get the word out there that this is a population possibility and that they have to know that it is real and that it is there. So that's the next biggest one is, you know, getting the traffic there, having your pages set up so they can get the conversions on there. And then the last thing is how you set up everything within your widget itself, as far as from your pricing, the products that you offer. Offering them. The maximum number of products that we have, you can show up to 8. So it's really optimizing as far as that customer experience with inside of the widget itself, really tweaking those things. For example, showing financing. Like, we highly recommend that every contractor shows a price per month. Because a homeowner sees 20,000, they're like, yeah, no, but if you show them $200 a month, they're like, maybe, yeah.

Maybe it becomes a little bit more reasonable.

More reasonable, right. So it's really working with our onboard specialists. We have an onboard specialist that helps you set up this technology, you know, within your company and just making sure that you have everything optimized as far as that customer experience. When they actually get to this part of your page and they're going through it like, okay, I can see where this is reasonable. Yeah, let's go ahead and have this contractor come out, you know, and give me this, this final quote, because I think that we can get this done for $2 a month. So those are really the three biggest factors that we've seen so far, is getting those things dialed in. And so with those, I think that people can be, you know, very, very successful.

So now I know what kind of contractor. Like, if I'm listening to this show today, driving around, getting some. Some windshield time, getting some information for improving my game, I should probably have those three things at least as a resource for me. You know, we know how to generate leads. What are you finding? Like, it shifts back and forth from, like social media, especially with Facebook, but some Instagram and stuff like that, and Google, like SEO and that side of stuff. Are people having better results like. Like Running Facebook ads to it, Are they having better results focusing on the Google side of things, or have you noticed?

I think it's been kind of 50, 50. And again, it really comes down to being ad specific. So we've seen some very good ads that have been very, very good because of the verbiage that they use. Like, I think somebody used the verbiage one time that was get your quote in 26 seconds. I don't know where he came up with it, but it was highly successful. But so it was even. It was under 30. Right. So it really comes down to the, the verbiage and the wording that they use on these ads to get the customer to be like, what's this? Like, I didn't know that that was a thing. Like, so let me go. Let me go and check this out. This is interesting, right? So it's all about however you're getting their attention, right? So Facebook's gonna be people scrolling, right? They're scrolling. Like, that's interesting. Let me click on that. Right? They go there, they check it out. Google's a different audience, right? It's direct searches. They're going there for a reason to search for this. Right. So I think we've seen it really both ways. It just really comes down to how you market it and how that you're going to come across to that consumer, because it's going to be a total different ad from Google to Facebook. And the companies, obviously, that we've seen be more successful, they're very creative in those ways.

Yeah. One of the things I, you know, as I was looking at this type of thing from back in the CRM days, right. When CRMs first came out, we were one of the first ones for this industry. It was this whole new thing. It was like you had to get people to actually understand what it was before you could actually sell what it did. Right. And it was a bit of a challenge. And I think you guys are kind of running into that at this point of, like, getting people to realize what it is. What we found through that is we had to have somebody that was, quote, unquote, like, the champion, right? Like this person that truly believed in it, that was like going to own it and make sure that that thing happened. Are you finding that with this is like, hey, at that company, somebody has to, like, take ownership of this, that, hey, we're gonna spend the money on it. We better make sure it works. Are you finding that with your experience?

Yeah. So you're talking about the contractors themselves. Is that what you're talking about.

Yeah. Cause contractors buy the cool shiny thing all the time, right? Like, we. We're good at selling that to them. But that cool, shiny thing can actually be a really cool, cool thing. It doesn't have to be like, shiny and onto the next thing if somebody owns it. I noticed that the people that were the most successful with ACCU Links are the ones that really dug in. They learned what it could do. They had people that were doing various pieces of it to make sure that it got off the ground. But somebody, one individual ultimately owned the success or failure of that thing. Are you guys finding that in the companies that you're working with is like. Like sometimes it's the owner, sometimes it's probably a marketing person, somebody along those lines, maybe a web designer. There's somebody there that's going, we're going to do this thing.

Yep. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's typically a marketing or a web designer or even. Sometimes even a sales manager that. That's kind of overseeing it. Number one, making sure it's optimized. Because we do release updates every two weeks. So every. We do updates twice a month. Where we're up, we're releasing new features. So just making sure. And we usually send an email out letting them know what those new features are so they can go in there and make sure that they're using all the possible new features. So, yes, somebody has to own it. So we always tell them this. When we do a demo with somebody, we say you can't just buy it, slap it on your website and expect it to perform like it's not going to work. Like you have to be able to go in there and optimize it. Somebody has to own it. When you have pricing updates, someone has to go update the pricing, which recently it seems like it's been like monthly. They keep increasing price prices, but so somebody has to essentially own it and be able to go in there and keep it updated and kind of make sure that everything's looking good. And also if it's a marketing person that. To make sure that they're driving the correct traffic there. So every company may be different as far as how they're going to own it or who's going to own it. But yes, somebody definitely has to be the champion or own this because again, you can't just put it on there and expect it to perform. You got to push people towards it and you got to do things with it to keep it optimized.

I was sitting there thinking about the door hanger thing. A lot of companies do the door knocking, right? I think mine would start off with your quote is ready, hit the QR code and they go in and do their quote. I think it'd be something really simple like that. And this idea that it's already ready, like, hey, it's sitting there just waiting for you to grab. I think would be maybe a good approach. While we were at the conference, we also talked about, like, well, why wouldn't I just find the ideal neighborhood and go do every house there and then go to them and say, hey, here it is, it's done, it's ready for you. I think there's some opportunities there that, man, you could really leverage this technology to up the game on the amount of people that convert into opportunities. So. So let's talk about that for a second. Somebody fills it out. They, you know, they put their information in. In. Are you finding a difference between that and the traditional marketing stuff that gets a lead for me or a door knock or whatever in closing ratios?

Yeah, I would say, yeah, a little bit. This. This consumer. I would say if you set an appointment with this consumer, the closing ratios are way higher because you know that they're interested, they've already seen a price. It comes down to when that lead comes through, if they're going to say, yes, yes, yes, let's set an appointment, let's talk about this project. Or it's like, no, it's outside of my budget. So I think that's really what it comes down. It really eliminates the tire kickers that are out there because they've already seen some sort of price. And so when you call them or try to set an appointment or do a virtual call with them or whatever, they're again, they're going to say, yes, come out. I've seen a price, I'm interested, I want to get this done, or no, it's more than I thought and I still need six months to save. So there's kind of two different parts there. Right. So traditional, maybe there's set rates. Right. Might be this number. Because, you know, you're not showing them a price. You're basically just saying you're interested, let us come out. So, yeah, the set rates might be down a little bit because again, you're going to eliminate some of those tire kickers, but essentially the closing rate is going to rise because by the time that you get out there, they know what they're spending. They're well aware as far as what they're going to be spending for this project. And so yeah, I would definitely say in the end the closing rate is going to be higher. But yeah, some of your other rates might be lower, but that's why they have to be able to watch it. You know, like you said, the champion that's owning it. Because these leads or, you know, contacts may be treated a little bit differently than maybe the other ones that you may have because again, there might be a lower this but a significantly higher this. So. But yeah, definitely, yeah, like I think.

100% of people would do a Google search, right? Or at least really close to 195% of people would do a Google search. Not a lot of people would go out to look for a quote thing because they don't even know it exists. Right. So that's not, not something that they're used to. And technology is growing in its usage. Like us taking the burden off, we're busy, we're looking for a way like, dude, I will never ever walk into a Walmart again. I'll pay the same price or more on Amazon to just get it to my door so I don't have to deal with the people at Walmart.

Right.

But that's not everybody. Do you guys have some kind of percentage of people that you think, think will use this technology versus people that won't?

Yeah. So again, we're not saying that the in person sale is going to go away. Right. That's never going to happen. Right. So it's more or less it's the convenience of the younger generation that's coming up that's going to utilize us. It's another stream of revenue for your business, essentially being able to have your website working for you 24 hours a day. So we actually are digesting a lot of analytics right now currently with this and end of this month actually we're going to be releasing analytics. So we'll have a lot of data as far as, you know, customers, you know, age of customers and things like that where we can really analyze it and say, you know, here's where we're at, you know, and really look at that data and see it. So I mean, it's hard to say right now. I mean, but I mean I, I.

Mean we would tell me that it would skew younger that is doing this because they're looking for things like this. I need to get, I, I'm too busy. I need to get this off my plate.

Yeah. So when we did ruffle and sold directly to consumers, it was, it was right. I would say that it was our customers, 80% of our customers were between 29 and 49. Right. So the kind of the younger generation, right. So yeah, so they, they were the kind of the younger ones, the more ones that are apt to technology. Right. So those were, those are the edges that you know, that mostly did it. So I mean our guts telling us, you know, as it goes more and more was that, you know, we see in five years from now we are predicting right around 20 to 30% of sales of roofs to be online. That's what we're looking at because of just basically the consumer that are, that are coming up. And the more mass adoption that we have to this with contractors, the more relevant it becomes, right? You look at Amazon, what percentage of sales happened through Amazon compared to, to when they first rolled out. Right. So that's kind of really what we look at. It just comes down to contractors adopting it and homeowners knowing about it to know that it's actually an option. And then that's where it kind of really where it takes off as far as more people just, just saying that it's kind of a normal thing that they do.

So you've given us a little look into the Future, right? About five years we're thinking 25, 30% of people truly purchasing online or just initiating the conversation online because they have.

A quote purchasing online. So as we roll out, you know, E Commerce, right. And we talk about financing and all those other pieces as far as buy, you know, buying online like we did, right. You know, direct to consumer buying online. I mean that's really what we're talking about. I mean I would think that getting an instant quote is probably going to be possibly as high as 50% if there's that much mass adoption. It's just the thing you do now, now, right? Go there, get what I do.

Approximately anything I'm looking at, I'm, I'm looking at hey can I get at least a ballpark number so I can know where I'm at and does that fit in my budget or not? Then I'm gonna go and go okay, what all the add ons gonna be that I really want that type of thing versus need. And I do a lot of that already. Whether it's, I've been looking at buying this. It's called a fly craft boat. I don't know if you've ever heard of it before. It's for fly fishing down rivers and stuff.

Stuff.

But there's like the base version and yeah, I can get a quote on that. But then hey, add on this, add on that and I see a lot of that, like you've got this base thing, it's this price, but I want to add this thing or I want to add that thing or I want to add this thing. And you start adding and subtracting and getting to what fits you and solves your problem. Is it going to be able to facilitate some of that kind of thought process in the future?

Exactly right. So we call that, what we call our checkout process is what that's called. So like basically you look at your different upgrades that you have. So as you click on different options, it's going to increase the price. So by the time you get down to the end, you're like, okay, it started at 16. But as I answered these questions and I wanted these upgrades, now I'm, you know, up to, you know, 20. Right. So yes, that's the thing that we would look at as far as like giving the consumer options, you know, for the different upgrades that they want. And so that's where we say like at least 50%. Because at that point, you know, you're going there, you have a really, really strong knowledge as far as what this price is going to be because you're able to go there and look at all the different add ons or upgrades that you're actually able to have and then they change obviously in real time. So yeah, that's definitely a future feature that we're coming out with.

Yeah. So can we, can we talk about how much it costs? Is that something that we can talk about online or do you want to like wait till they do a demo? That's cool with me too, either way.

No, we can talk about it. Yeah, absolutely. You know, we're very transparent.

Well, there's something that's like triggering in my head and I'm like, okay, I. How do I justify this? Right, so what does it cost for a year?

So $5,500 for the year is. That's unlimited. So that, that's our year plan. So basically you buy the year in advance, which obviously locks in your price, you know, for that, for that year, 5,500 bucks. We have other options too, as we kind of more flexible.

I got to generate 55 leads.

There you go, 55 leads up for the whole year.

It's $100 a lead. The average lead cost right now is about 285. Through all of our data, research and stuff like that, across all the different mechanisms out there, I figure you got another 50 bucks per one of those leads into advertising and Stuff like that. So maybe it's 150. Still makes absolute sense. Right? So I got to generate a few more leads. Maybe 60, 65 seems like almost a no brainer to me. And I'm looking at them and going, going, this is just going to become a part of our coaching. Like, okay, you're client with us. This is one of the things that we're going to put on your website, but we've already pre built out your landing pages. We understand about price conditioning and some of those things because I think one of the things that a lot of people would miss and why people would leave is they put in the number and they go, holy crap, that's way more than I expected. I'm out. Right? But the reality is they can't be out because they need to get something done. That's just a fact. They got to get it done. Whoever they ask are going to be in that same ballpark. So what I have to do first, I have to establish what the mean number is for my market. And so we actually have some tools that we can actually help people do that and probably add right to that landing page where they would see, hey, this is where it is right now in our market. Let's compare what it actually is. Get your quote boost. Boom. Oh man, it's lower. That's awesome. And so you, you've now conditioned them to go. That was expecting it to be this high number, but it was actually a lower number. I got a lot of ideas on how to like apply this to our coaching and really help our contractors do some pretty awesome stuff.

But even speed to lead, right? We talk about speed to lead, right. Whenever we demo, you know, a contractor, we talk about those things, right? How it can work in their business. So if you are able as a contractor to call somebody within 30 seconds of getting their information, more than likely, if they're even trying to bounce off your website because they saw a price, you're going to call them while they're still on there. And now you're having a conversation with somebody who's physically looking at your website right now. So we talk about a lot of those things, like what you talked about, right?

Hey, I noticed you're about to bounce off my website right after you looked at the price. Like that would freak me out a little bit. Cool too, right?

You get this opportunity.

Yeah, that is a big concept. And you're almost taking the speed, the lead thing out of the equation. Because if you look at the lead aggregators and we'll mention a Few of them, like Home Advisor and stuff like that, we all hate them. But one of the concepts there is how fast like that lead comes in. I mean, it's got to be immediate, and you got to hold them online as long as you can because there's 900 other people trying to call them and get them too do this kind of takes that out of the equation because they went, hey, I want to get my quote. You got a quote, Bam. Set an appointment. Let's. Let's meet. And there isn't necessarily really speed delete. It's already happened. It's almost instantaneous. I think that's huge.

Yeah, that's essentially. It's a, you know, it's a lead that's strictly just to you. Like, that's. That's it. There is not five other contractors calling them immediately like we're used to with other leads lead, you know, companies. I mean, it's only just them that, you know or your company. So they're really that speed to lead part of it doesn't really come into the equation because, like, yeah, we always talk about trying to call them as fast as possible while they're available. Because if you wait five, ten minutes, who knows, maybe they picked up the phone, they're talking to somebody else or they had to leave or whatever it may be. But at that moment in time, as it comes in there, you know, either on your website, like, so they are available for phone call. But yeah, like you said, they're exclusively leads. Like, they're only yours because they submitted their information on your website and nobody else's. Right. So, yeah, it's. It's. Yeah, it's the exclusively, you know, for that contractor, for sure. I got two. What's the value on that?

Yeah, that's huge. Right? It's just mine. That's really cool. Yeah, I got two more questions. Yeah, I'm in Dallas. Everybody in Dallas is going to want this. Is there a limit to the number of contractors that can be using Roof Quote Pro?

Yeah, so when we did our launch, we did limit the markets just to try to obviously build up urgency. Right. So a lot of the markets, yes, there is a limitation on them. So they vary anywhere from, you know, three to, you know, three to 12, I think is the highest. So, yes, there is limitations on some of these markets and. But as of it was only a six months, basically, that we gave it to them. Like, basically, hey, we're going to give you guys six months to get this tool. We'll only allow this many contractors in your market so you can get a head start on everybody else. And then once they're full, they're full. But we're going to open that up. I believe it's end of February, beginning of March is when that time is up. And then we open it up to a limited amount of contractors in each market. But until that point in time, there are some that have limitations on them to where there's only so many allowed per market.

So I understand the strategy now. I think I have to have this on my website in order to compete with the rest of the people in my market. That. Was that a fair understanding?

It's fair assessment, yes. Fair understanding. Okay.

I always like to get to like, what's the. What's the hidden gem behind behind the scenes? Right. And if you really think about it, that applies to a lot of things. Well, how many contractors have to have a Facebook page now? Like, all of them do. Everybody's got a Facebook page. And there's time and resources that go to that. That cost you money to make that thing happen. Same thing with an Instagram and all the other stuff that we've got going on. And I can name off 50 tools like that. I gotta have company camp because everybody else has company camp, right? So I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

I actually think that's a good thing.

That that makes it an expected thing. The homeowner is expecting at some point in the future that when I go onto a contractor's website, I can get a quote. Now, that works great for you guys, like, if you're the leading edge of that, but it also becomes the expectation. And so it becomes a tool that I need to have in my, my. In my tool bag. And if I'm. If I'm not up on the game, I'm not up on technology. I'm not thinking with a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset, that I hate this technology thing. I think you can really position yourself in a good way any more to that strategic attempt, because I'm sure you get some flack, right? Like, hey, you guys gotta. Got Rufal over here doing that thing thing, and then you got roof quote Pro over here. All you're trying to do is get my stuff so you can go sell them. You getting any of that?

Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, a little bit. Right? They're like, so everyone's a little bit confused, like, what is this company? Right? What is going on? What is rueful? What have they done? And everyone gets kind of a Different perception. So that's really the thing that we're pushing out there now to try to get people to understand as far as who we are, what our identity is and where we're going for the future. And so again, and we did this, the sale to homeowners, to go out there and say, like, hey, we did it. It can be done. We are a no name. Imagine your company being 20 years old with all these reviews. You have a bunch of trust. We had no trust. And we were able to do it right. So that's really what it came down as far as doing that. And then now we launch RIFQ Pro, you know, and so that's the product made by obviously Rufal. And we have other products we're going to be launching here in the very near Future other than RifQL Pro as we venture into other territories with our technology. But so with that being said, obviously, like I said, we move into the finance space is what's next as far as the consumer getting financed. And we kind of go down the line from there. But we have no intention of going back to sell roofs. That's not our intention. Our intention is to be here for the contractor to get the technology in the hands of the contractor. So that's the biggest message that we're to trying to push out there, is that we have no intention of going back to sell riffs.

Seems like a technology that has to be adopted at some point in order to offer the homeowner what they expect, which makes it more predictable and also quite a bit lower overhead than having a bunch of salespeople and all that stuff and staying after hours and that type of thing. I don't know. I think that's pretty smart. So, so well done. That's super cool. Anything you want to leave these contractors with as we, we close? I think you answered all my major questions. I think I understand it now. I get the, the intent behind it, which I think is really cool. Anything you want to leave them with?

No, I mean, again, I want to appreciate having me on today, you know, and doing this because again, we're all about getting the word out, people understanding, like what we are, you know, where we're going and we're really what our intent is, you know, down the road as far as, you know, getting this technology out there. But I. We did create a special coupon code for all your listeners.

Yeah, I almost forgot about it.

Oh, you can't forget about the coupons. Yeah, tell them all about it. Right? Yeah. So we have A coupon code. So it's CR250. So it's that CR250 is a code. So when you go on and to. To roofquote pro.com is the website where you can go on there and number one, either book a demo or you can just go ahead and buy the technology directly from the website itself. But that's roofquotepro.com that's where you can go on there and do it. But yeah, so once you're able to go on there and sign up for that, you're gonna be able to enter a coupon code. And that coupon code would be again, CR250. And what that do, that's going to get you $250 off of your purchase.

So now I get it for 5250, I got to generate 52 leads. Leads and a half. So to justify it, which I think based on the other guy, 803 months. I think we're doing good. I think we're going to be okay. Gets my cost of lead way down. Like that's always a big thing. We talk about how companies are profitable, how do we make our company more profitable. And there's one of two ways to do it. Either reduce cost or raise price. That's how you create margin. And this sounds like something that's going to. To reduce cost quite a bit. And maybe because it's unique and different, at least here early on, a way to charge a little more. Like, hey, I've got some technology that nobody else has. I think it's really cool what you guys are doing. I'm super excited to see what it does. I'm super excited really to kind of incorporate it into what we do. We are able to help contractors kind of put all these pieces together and literally like give them contractor in a box from the marketing side of things. You were at our conference. I kind of laid it out. The finance options and all the things that we have to do. How do they all tie together and work together? And it's neat to have them, but how do you optimize them and get the most out of them? That's where we're really key to that, like laying out those sales pages. We kind of know how to do that. We got a champion marketing coach. This guy's really good. And so. So I, I'm excited about what the opportunity is there working together.

So.

Coupon code CR250. Just in case you didn't know, CR stands for contractor radio. CR250. Save yourself 250 bucks go to Rueful. What? Roof Quote Pro. Yeah.

Yes.

There's a QR code. Best thing about the pandemic, we all know how to use QR codes now. So that's right there.

QR code. You can. You can scan that there, too.

You can tell a technology company, they always have the QR code of there.

And check it out.

It's worth your time to at least do the investigation. Go. Go meet with them and see how it works and see what that onboarding looks like. We're not gonna lie to you. Takes a little time to get it on board and all. And we got to put some pricing and we got some things we got to do. But if it gets my cost of. Of lead down, man, I'm all about it. Find that champion to do it. That'd be great. Travis, it's been an honor having you on contractor radio today. Thank you for introducing us to Rufal as well as Roof Quote Pro, and excited to see where this thing goes. I think you guys got something.

Yeah. Thank you again. I appreciate it.

All right. Hey, I'm gonna put you in agreement. Hang out for just a minute, if you don't mind. I'll close out the show. We'll come back. All right, cool. All right, everybody. That was Travis Harvigo with Rufal and their product Roof Quote Pro for contractors. A widget that you can embed in your website that's going to give you something that you can create more leads with. We gave you, like, 15 golden nuggets in there on how to actually do that. You can come back and actually watch this podcast if you want to go through those things and incorporate them whenever you hop on Roof Quote Pro and get it on your website, because it is the way things are going. We can't just sit here and deny that things are going this way, that technology is going this way, that big purchases are happening online. I think that's an absolute. I don't think that's something that's not going to happen. So my job is to get on board and get it figured out. You need help getting it figured out. That's what we do here at Contractor Coach Pro. We help you not only figure it out, but we help you optimize it. So if you're interested in talking with us about some coaching, you're on a mission to achieve something, and you need some guides to help you along the way. Think of us as like a board of directors in every aspect of your business. Leadership, culture, process, hr, finance, accountability, marketing, technology, sales, recruiting, production, training, we cover all the bases. We have specialist coaches in each of those areas to help you achieve your mission for the coming year. So, contractorcoachpro.com, click on book a Call, talk with one of our coaches. We'll do a free assessment for you, if you like. There's a free assessment button on there to tell you a little bit more about your company where you may have some holes and we're here to fill in the gaps and help you. You do some pretty amazing things and achieve your dreams. Thank you once again for hanging out with us on Contractor Radio. We look forward to our next episode. We'll see you then.