Adam Sand advises roofing businesses to lead with their purpose ('why') rather than starting with what they do or how they do it. He cites Simon Sinek’s Apple example (start from why → how → what) to argue that customers buy why a business exists, making purpose-first messaging more compelling for selling roofing services.
A lot of business start out by saying, hey, this is what we do. So they start the conversation about who their business is by explaining what they do. So we install roofs and how we do it is by being a certified roofing contractor with subcontractors. And we're GAF Master Elite certified. Why we do it is because we want to put good roofs on people's homes. Now there's a story from Simon Sinek's book where he talks about from Apple, and Apple is different. Instead of going from what to how to why, which is like, we build great computers by making them beautiful and user friendly. And we do it because we want to make the world a better place of tech, make money. They start from the outside in, where they say we aim to think differently and our products are user friendly and beautifully designed and easy to use. We just happen to make good computers. Want to buy one? It's more compelling. The greatest companies in the world start with why and they work their way out from there. Because people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
