007: Part 3 of 3 – What I Learned Talking to 586 Roofers – Thinking about Money and Marketing

You're listening to the Roofing Business Partner Podcast.

This is the show where you'll learn the Minehacks strategies and process we use every day to turn everyday roofing companies into the dominating local authority with our ultimate roofer marketing method. You'll also learn how we use Facebook ads to rapidly and affordably scale up business for roofing companies and generate leads on Autopilot, putting you in touch with the right customers who pay the right price at the right time. Here's your host, Adam sand now, so let's get after it.

Welcome to the final episode of my three part series on what I learned talking to 586 roofers. For those of you who are just tuning in for the first time, in January I launched my marketing efforts for my yearly coaching program where I coach roofers on how to increase their business 40% step by step for 12 months. During that marketing campaign, most of my one on one clients sign on with my agency as well. So through that process I talked to a lot of roofers and this year it was the most ever conversations in total. And yes, that's actual conversations I had with owners of roofing companies or people responsible for the marketing for roofing companies. And I got a ton of insight that I've been sharing with my listeners over the last few episodes. So if this is your first time, make sure you go back and check those out. If you like doing it backwards, by all means listen to this one, but I sort of made them in this order on purpose. Either way, thanks for listening. So a quick recap and for those of you who have listened to the other two, I just wanted to recap and I would love for you to come on my Facebook group and share your experiences with implementing processes, standards and expectations and everything from the first episode. And I would also like to hear about your experience with the Sales and Marketing Roadmap, the freebie guide that you got to download from the last episode. So for anyone with questions, I have a little bonus for you. Take a screenshot of your phone showing that you're listening to this podcast, post it on your Instagram with the hashtag teachfirstsellsecond and tag me so I can see it. So you know, put my name in there, my Instagram is little sign and then Roofing Business partner all one word and I'll see it. Now I have a special prize for one lucky winner every month, so don't miss out on that. But I'd love to see what your questions are and I will answer you personally on Instagram. Now, getting Back to the 586 phone calls. Of all these calls, a certain number of people wanted to join the course or wanted to work with me one on one. On average, about one in four people that wanted the course were concerned about the price. Two in four were concerned about not having the time. The rest had a random excuse or reason from not believing in it to thinking Facebook is the devil. And a common one was concerns about being able to do all the techie stuff. And when it came to one on one clients, only one person I couldn't take on because of the size of my agency. One company was interested in bringing me on in some capacity, but we just couldn't find a way to get me involved. They manage renovation projects of all kinds, including roofing, and they have revenues creeping close to 380 million a year. We talked about everything from me taking a position there in the company as an employee or me being hired on as a consultant to train their people. In the end, we just couldn't have a meeting in the minds that allowed me to still pursue everything else that I do. I did learn a ton from these calls, and I referred them to someone else that has an agency that was able to meet their scale, scope of work, and their needs for implementing Facebook into their business. But the rest of the people that I didn't take on were because of incompatibility. And I just can't take on anyone to do Facebook ads right? Since I subcontract a very minimal amount of work and I micromanage every aspect of the campaign, there's just not room for some companies. Sometimes the owners just don't believe in how I think they should do it. Sometimes they're scared of video, which I really focus a lot on. Some are scared of what might happen if other roofers see their system or get an insight into their business. There's a lot of fear and negative stigma around Facebook as a platform for their business, right? In some cases, price was a factor and a few joined the course as an alternative to the one on one. But I think that was a smart idea. Generally, my sweet spot is roofing companies doing 2 to 5 million dollars per year. Last year I would have said 1 million. But I've really come to the conclusion that companies at that level are taking money away from something really important to pay for me. And companies much than 5 million will require more time than I can spare for one individual account. And that's why I'm seeking some strong partners in marketing. Two very well known roofing marketers are actually in my coaching program this year and I look forward to collaborating with them after they're done. But usually the companies that I work with need to be doing about 17% or so net profit, right? So anything more? We have a job discovery conversation about why and they're usually doing a great job with their branding, their content and their community and only need a good Facebook ads manager. So take note, they don't need half of what I do when they have a good brand, content and community. So you really need to focus on that in your business. Any less than 15% profits? They're falling into two categories from the last two episodes. They either need a consultant to help them find profitability in their operations or in their sales process before they invest in the kind of marketing and sales boost that my program will provide. So enough about me, what about them? So what about the people who felt confident spending $400 a month on a course plus their ad spend, design work? And what made them feel confident to take that leap? And then what about the clients who invest 150,000 plus for the year of my setup and the retainer plus their ad spend on top of that? How do they think differently than the other people I spoke with? Unanimously. They had the other two common differentiators figured out that I talked about in the last two episodes. First of all, they didn't have the problems I brought up. They take the course takes time and money, and to hire me takes significantly less time but significantly more money. They were organized as a business with the right people in the right seats, confident that they could take the time to focus on this or that and they could handle the scale that I would put into their sales department. They also understood all their numbers. They knew where they could pull money from to make the investment without feeling like they were losing something important. The capital was more or less reorganized in the case of most clients and students. Students dropped a HomeAdvisor or another directory or flyer service. Clients cut back on Google spend, dropped an internal employee increase the pack on salespeople's base rate to reflect that there was an in house lead generator. But it all came down to the numbers. One of my clients knew that the bulk of their marketing efforts generate sales that came with a 60 day buying cycle. Meaning that if they cut, all marketing spend came to a complete halt. Right? They would still be generating sales and revenue for 60 days before they felt it. And I know this about most roofing companies because I own one, which is why I include a 60 day guarantee because I can usually replace one or two of their marketing efforts in that time and I generally put out higher quality leads from better buyers and this is in their words. So most look to cut back in another area to deploy that capital to my goal and then I want to be paying for myself by minimum day 60 so that they can redeploy that capital back into their old efforts or increase their spend on mine. I suppose it's a difference in how they think about money. The people who already overcame the obstacles of people process and good accounting. If they had the vision for using Facebook ads and branding to increase the revenue, they looked at the course or an agency search service agreement. More like deploying capital than spending money. Spending money implies that it's gone. Deploying capital, however, is like deploying an army of troops. The idea being that their mission is to come back with more loot than what they left with. And I can't share the name of this client because all of them signed like a non disclosure clause. But I really liked how they said if we deploy $150,000 of capital up to Canada, we look at it as coming back across the border again as 1.5 million. And that's exactly what we're on track to do. So if you're out there listening, Mr. A and Mr. Thank you very much for the awesome word track. It was really good. But now in the first episode of this series I told you that I missed a critical detail that has cost a lot of roofers from having the ability to take this course or this program. And it was because I didn't have a good understanding of what their objections were. But all these conversations really helped me get a very clear understanding of what you and likely many other roofers are kind of looking for. The biggest reason for the apprehension was that my my course is very big and the one on one is even bigger. It's a very intense one year program with a lot of action. It can be overwhelming. I learned that what I need is to be able to offer roofers an easy win. And I've never believed in easy money or get rich quick schemes. So I've never really presented that or looked for that or even pretended it was possible. But I realized that the problem is that when I show how big and powerful and incredible a long term, well thought out strategized Facebook marketing plan can be, it's very exciting. But it feels like it's a little bit out of reach or something like you're just not ready that you just might not have the time or the, you know, it just, you, you might not be successful with it. It's kind of scary. And roofers wanted to know that if I could speak in their terms, you know, they would tell me, you know, how many roofs they could get in 30 days or what they could do today to implement Facebook in their business. And so what I did is I listened. I found the answer to that question. I went through millions of revenue generating ads that I've run, thousands of dollars in ad spend, multiple accounts and multiple markets, spoke with a few experts, and they came up with a test for an easy win. Right then I implemented with two of my clients from, from last year that had a good, I had good experience in their markets to see if I could make something quick, easy, non techy, and that would generate an easy win for the client. Roofers told me if they could just get a taste of what this would be like, they'd be all in. But they can't just commit to spending $4,800 or $150,000 without a tasty piece of meat to tide them over. It isn't the best performing ad campaign I've built and it won't deliver much, but it can be repeated several times a year, I think, and I think it'll still be effective. Everything has to be tested, but it should get you a taste for Facebook ads out of the gate. And anyone can do it. I made it in a way that like literally anybody can do this. You need to do zero web design, like almost zero ad setup, a very simple ad setup. You don't even need a Facebook pixel on your website. And if you know me, that's usually my number one frustration is that roofing companies that try to use Facebook ads but don't have a pixel on their site. But you asked and I listened. So this is cheap and fast. This will take you a total of 2 hours of your time to set up everything. And I mean, probably less than two hours. But like, I'm accounting for you, you know, going really, really slow and being unsure of yourself and probably getting interrupted by your kids a bunch. So the goal here is to generate 20 quality leads for less than $1,100 total. These are not leads that you share with other roofers. These are not crappy, unqualified leads. These are people who want your company to do the roof and just want to know what your price is going to be. Right? So how it works is I set you up to first warm up an audience of homeowners in your Market step plan that I build for you. And now It'll take you 45 minutes to completely set it up and It'll cost you 210 to $420 worth of Facebook ads, depending if you want to take the aggressive approach or the kind of the safe approach. We use a specific set of tactics to use Facebook's audience insights to seek out homeowners who are thinking of replacing their roof soon. And yeah, this is designed for roofing companies wanting to find homeowners in the market for roof replacements. I guess I should let you know that I didn't focus on storms or repairs or commercial. I wanted to find an easy win that Most of these 586 roofers I spoke to could implement in their market, depending if they get storms or not, what time of the year and if they do it two years from now. And then that's when we start to sell. I teach you how to create an irresistible Facebook ads special offer for your warmed up potential customer that will drive them to request an estimate from you right now. These will be leads from people who have a fear of missing out on a special deal and really want your company to do their roof, even if it's a little more money than they thought it was going to be. And you don't need a website. We're using Facebook's lead ad system to generate leads, meaning people opt in or send you their information right from a form that Facebook makes right in the newsfeed. So they never leave the Facebook platform to request the estimate because they never leave Facebook. You don't need a pixel installed on your website for tracking. Now why is this not going to work long term? Well, for a number of reasons really. Mostly because we don't get into how to optimize the ad later based on the data that you get from reporting. This is kind of set it, forget it, run it once, turn it off, and then recreate it again another time. We don't really discuss the more advanced strategies of ad targeting because it would just be overwhelming and it would lose the entire point of where you get paralysis from analysis. And then it becomes what I've always dealt with, which is that people just get this overwhelmed feeling. So I kept it very simple. Lastly, because we're not sending them to your website, the conversion rates will be lower and you will lose some of the benefits of having the pixel, which I can't express how important it is. But you might be wondering what this whole thing costs. And there is two levels for the truly desperate roofer. With no money, I can only assume you got lots of time. So I'm offering a free guide explaining what you need to do to make this. But you're going to have to Google search the instructions and find your own way. Essentially, I'm giving you a map. You got to learn how to drive the car. You will be able to download this for free in the show notes on roofingbusinesspartner.com under this episode. Now, if you were going to pay for this, what would you say it's worth? 20 leads in a month with $1,100 spend and only two hours of your time, what's that worth for a motivated and exclusive customer looking for a roof replacement in your area? I could easily sell this course for a thousand bucks. I see other guys online teaching way more basic courses just on how to create a Facebook page and like run an ad, but zero strategy. And these are doing, you know, charging $499 to $1,000 every day. I could easily get away with selling this for 300 bucks or 200 bucks or 100 bucks would even be insane. And this is basically a deluded Frankenstein love child of two chapters in my 10 chapter course that I sell for $4,800 a year. So like 50 bucks a month would be a bargain. But remember, I sold an 18 day apprenticeship for $127 and although that comes with 18 days of coaching and this is a strict self lear in this guide is probably able to generate more revenue faster because it's a one trick pony designed to get you an early win. And because of that, I am selling this course for $19. No, not 90. 19. Right. Do not make the critical mistake of assuming that this low price means it's of little value to you. I'll even give you my whole business strategy behind it. Currently I could maybe take on one more one on one client. That's it. And that's maybe right. I have a class full of students that'll be taking up a lot of my time to help them maximize their programs. I don't have any more of my personal time to sell and my personal time is the most valuable asset to me and my ability to help you makes it the most valuable asset to you. So a lot of the information here you could go learn for free. And Gary Vaynerchuk, you know, is one person that talks all the time about how people need to stop spending $400 on some ebook that has information that you could find online on Google for free. And I don't want to be that cheesy Internet marketing guy, but I really think that if you get this easy win with your Facebook ads, you will be kicking down my door for the class next year. And I'm giving you an entire year to play around with one of my best tests ever for practically free. If one of my students or clients is in your market, you will see them doing something similar to this strategy and they're still going to do better than you because they know how to make sure none of the meat on the bone goes to waste. This however, you know you'll be leaving a lot of meat on the bone, but you can get 20% of the result from 2% of the cost and effort. But then you will finally get it. You will finally see that not all leads are created equal and that being on Facebook, generating your own leads from warm traffic that knows your brand and your unique company culture is the best form of business you can find. Better than word of mouth because you can control what these people think and see and hear about you. And you will definitely be getting on my email list for next year's course. So fair warning. So be sure to check out the show notes and get your special download link. But remember I also talked about a prize that at the beginning of the episode if you take that screenshot and you know of you listening to podcast and send me that question, I won't tell you everything, but the lucky prize winner will get something related to executing this strategy and how I can help you get even more for your money. So thanks again for listening. I'm really excited for next episode where we will be finally doing our first interview and I'll be interviewing someone I really respect in the roofing industry and I think he has some really good tips that are really badly needed in the industry. Plus he's a real character. So I can guarantee a ton of laughs on this one because we're going to do it right the first time. So see you next week and I look forward to hearing from you. All right, want to go get the free guide right now? Go visit roofingbusinesspartner.com getleads and download it totally free right now. And if you see value in it, get the 19 upgrade to step by step video instructions that you can follow along and get maximum success in the shortest period of time. Now if you found any value in this three part series, let me know about it. If it sucked, tell me on social media or email me at supportoofingbusinesspartner.com and someone will say sorry to you and tell me to get my act together now. If it was awesome, rate and review me on itunes or stitcher. It's super helpful to the success of this show, and it's much appreciated by yours truly. So have a great day, and we'll see you again next week.