What Car Sales Taught Me About Closing Roofing Deals

When you're in sales training, you want it so that while you're doing the sales process, it looks polished. Every word has an intentional reason for being there, so that when you're talking, you're reading them, and you're going faster and slower and including them as you go. And the way that I like to explain this, when we were trained to be salespeople in the car industry, which when I partnered up with my friend to start a roofing company, I was amazed at how easy it was to sell roofs, because when you sell cars for a living, people will walk into a dealership, look into their dream vehicle to see what features it has. It's the exact truck they want. They drove there in the winter. They parked their truck in the snow. They got out of their truck, they walked into the dealership. Their truck is old and busted. They're looking at the new hotness. And you walk up and you say, hey, can I help you find anything? No, just looking. If we want something, we'll tell you. Like, they treat you like dirt and car sales. So when I went to my first roof sale and she invited us in and she asked us if we wanted soup and cookies while we were presenting the roof, I was like, what? Like, people want to ask you questions, they want your help, and you get to come to them, and you sit in their house. I was blown away at how easy it was. So in car sales, you can't waste a word. Like, every word has to have a reason. And so everything has to be practiced and scripted. And so some of the sales training that we went through and remember, like, you were literally selling the exact same car. Like, you can buy a 2020 Dodge Ram 1500 Sport with the hood, scoops, and the leather seats. You can literally buy the exact same car 12 minutes away in every direction from another dealership. You're literally selling the same thing. Like, there isn't even, like, a quality of install play. It's a manufactured vehicle with a warranty. It's literally the exact same thing. So we had to be good, and so we were beaten like dogs. Okay. To point where it was so practiced, when you got to the point, when you were done a test drive and you came in, you would sit them down at the desk, and then you'd go and you'd pull out a piece of paper and you say, okay. So typically nowadays, most of my customers are buying a vehicle on a monthly payment, because, I mean, who has $90,000 laying around a mattress, right? Ha ha ha. Typically on the Ram, like, that you're looking at around thousand dollars a month. Is that what you guys had planned? Pen down, shut up. Oh, $800 a month. Okay, $800 a month. And you write 800, and then you say, so usually when we're financing the vehicle, the bank is looking for some form of a deposit or down payment, usually around 10%. That'd be usually around $8,000. Is that we had saved. Pin down. Shut up. Oh, zero down. Do that. But if I could, is there any other. Any reason why you wouldn't take the vehicle home today? No. Okay. If with will was like, if 800amonth with 0 down will buy, like. And then you draw a line and an X, and you'd be like, sign here. Because I don't even know if I can do this, But I got to get my manager to approve a deal like this, because we're gonna have to figure out something to make it work. Can you just sign that? So I know I got kind of a committed buyer because there's a bunch of guys in line, and I want to make sure that I can kind of like, hey, I got a customer who's ready to buy. And then next thing you say is, so while we're doing the financing, we have to put a small hold on the vehicle, usually about $500. Would you be doing that on a visa debit card or mastercard? Hand out, wait till there's a card in it. And so we practice this. Typically nowadays, most of my customers buying a vehicle are doing sort of monthly payment because who has $8,000 lying in a mattress? Ha ha ha. A vehicle like that, you're looking at X dollars a month. Is that what you had planned? Pen down, shut up. Oh, lower than that. Okay, number right down. When the banks are financing the vehicle, they're usually looking for form down payment, usually around 10% on that vehicle. You're looking at X. Is that what you had saved? Pen down, Shut up. And you use the word saved because then it puts them in position to say, oh, I didn't save anything. I was just hoping to come in here with $0 and walk out with a $70,000 truck. Like, you got to make them think that, right? Everything is an experience. So then they go, no, I didn't save anything. No, we were planning on doing zero down. Oh, zero down. Okay. And then it's like, if with will. Okay, if with will buy. So you write if with will buy line x, and you get commitment, and then you justify commitment, right? Which is aligned with what they want. To get the hell out of here with their new truck. Then, as a manager, I didn't think commitment was putting initial on a piece of paper. A commitment to me. Was they willing to pull out their credit card and hand it to you as a sales guy, so that the minute they said yes, I ran 500 on their credit card. Now I had money, which means I had financial consideration, which means I had a legal sale. And the number one problem that I see in roofing companies is a lack of dedicated training. So there's two things you have to train on. Presentation and objection. Handling presentation. So a note on that. Where I learned the bar, the standard of presentation was that we wouldn't even do presentations on actual cars. We would do presentations on two trucks, chairs in the lunchroom. We had a thousand cars, but we're doing a presentation on a car. Why? Because you had to be able to present your vehicle, any vehicle that was chosen at the drop of a hat, without the vehicle present. So they put two chairs in the lunchroom, and they'd say, dodge grand caravan sxt. And in your head, you're going, okay, no leather seats. Stow and go seats. You've got Pentastar V6 engine. You're gonna have power doors, power liftgate. You're gonna have backup camera, but no navigation. You're gonna have bluetooth. You're not going to have heated seats unless you get the sxt plus. Is the sxt plus. Yes. Okay, s6. I got heated seats, and I got a remote start. All right. Then you would literally walk with another sales guy in front of the room of other sales guys so you know that the worst critics are in the room. So all the pressure of knowing that you're doing it, and you'd have to, like, pretend open a door and pretend to open a power door and pretend to pop a hood and talk about the crumple zones and talk about where the windshield washer fluid was and the battery and the fire blanket underneath the hood. And you'd have to talk where the oil dipstick is. There's even a very specific, specific way to open a driver's side door, because customers always want to jump in the car right away, and you don't get to present enough value in the vehicle. So you have this move you'd have to do to open the door, twist around it, and stand in their way, show them a few things, and then close the door. And then open the side door and get their kids in, then go to the back. Now, the kids aren't running off to the back of the car where they get run over by people coming in the parking lot open the power liftgate talk about the stone go seats show how easy it is get them to do it so they could see feel touched Then you get mama in the passenger seat and dad in the back with the kids because if you put the mom in the back now you're offending the mom Then you get in the car put on your seatbelts drive for five minutes so you get all like the out of the parking lot away from that left hand turn and you had a specific route that was all right hand turns so they experienced zero cortisol zero stress while they're on the test drive and all on the way you're asking yes momentum questions and you'd have to be able to practice that whole experience including the 5 minute test drive and the switcheroo in the lunchroom with two chairs because what you're trying to do do is you're trying to make them solution awareness.