Adam Sand argues roofing contractors avoid e-commerce because they haven't adopted proven online strategies. He uses Nike's shoe configurator as a model: let customers customize, pay a premium, get higher margins. Reducing friction through online pricing, scheduling, and guarantees builds certainty and lets roofers capture more revenue while spending less on marketing.
No roofer has, this just feels weird to say, but like nobody has the vision and the stomach for it to actually do e-commerce. You have to think, how do people build value in e-commerce right now? Like who is doing it right? Like what works to get more money online than in person? An example would be Nike. Nike allows you for a fee to buy the same running shoe, but you get to change some colors on it, right? Like you get to change the piping and the color of the Nike symbol. You get to configure your shoe. And that is largely what Rueful is trying to do, right? And what like a lot of these other companies are trying to do is you're trying to say you can do the whole experience and get exactly what you want from the comfort of your home without talking to a sales guy. Does it get more money? Maybe. Does it get the same money? Probably a little more likely. So if you want to create value, let's go back to the value equation. The value equation is a dream outcome multiplied by high perceived likelihood of accomplishment divided by reduced effort, reduced sacrifice, and a shortened time delay. That's the value equation. So if you want to create value, you have to satisfy that. Like my services, right? The dream outcome is you grow from $3 to $8 million and you make lots of money and you're locally famous, sponsor the kids' baseball team, and You're a baller, right? That's the dream outcome. So what is the dream outcome in roofing? The best thing that you can kind of say is like, your roof's installed in 2 weeks, it costs a fair price, you know, like it costs as much as you thought it was going to cost, or relatively to that. Then the high perceived likelihood of accomplishment, like they have to see Google reviews, like they have to know they're buying certainty. The high perceived likelihood of the dream outcome has to be like, it's going to be the right price. So the inversion of the dream outcome, the worst outcome would be, okay, I hire a roofer, they don't show up on time, they come to my house, they send a bunch of crackheads, they do a bad job installing my roof, they trash my property, they don't finish it, it rains during the day, they don't install it to code, and I hate the color. Like, that's the thing. And we as roofers think that everybody's like that, but I mean, at the end of the day, if we're being honest, not every roofer does a hack job. Certainly not the people with like 250 Google reviews. And there's way more of them out there than you think. Like Google roofing in your area, it's probably a bunch of roofers that have a 4.9 stars or better and 200 Google reviews. Your job as the contractor is to create certainty. And the way that you create certainty is with Google reviews and a good reputation and a website that looks like you care and responding to Google reviews. Like your online presence and your proposal process is what gives the sense of certainty that you're probably going to do a good job. So there's your dream outcome. Your dream outcome is none of the bad things on a time horizon for a price that they deem is fair. So then going back to how do we build value? You're probably gonna have to say that your customer, before they even get to getting a price online, like they want based on the website itself, like based on your website, they want to do it. 'Cause nobody necessarily wakes up one day and says, I want to customize a pair of Nike shoes. There's a bunch of marketing out there, Instagram influencers and user-generated content and influencers and TikTok videos, about people with customized Nike shoes, and now they want to use the configurator to make their own Nike shoes. And their conversion rate from configurator to purchase is probably 5%. 95 people use the $2 million software that they made and the, the $30 million factory equipment that they purchased, and the first 1,000 people, 50 people bought a shoe. For $200. Like, that's the math. And so in your reduced effort, reduced sacrifice, and shortened time delay, how do you satisfy those? How do you reduce the effort to make the purchase? So more of what they want and less of what they don't want. You will only be able to build a certain amount of value in terms of price. The job or the goal of e-commerce is that you spend less on marketing because people come to your website knowing that they can buy it online, and you spend less on commissions Because people come to your website and know they can buy it online, and you satisfy the concern that they are not losing anything by choosing to take that pathway. And by doing so, you guarantee that there will be no change orders, and you guarantee that there will be no bait and switch, and that you guarantee that there's no leaks, and that you will do it in like, you know, you give like say 30 squares we'll do in 2 days, 20 squares we'll do in 1 day. Like you guarantee the time in which it'll be done, and you guarantee the time frame in which you are going to get it done. Like I will be there in 2 weeks or less, and we will take 1 day to do your roof. Because as they go through analyzing the dream outcome, they're going to say, what's the catch? This is what I did when I built lots of programs. I look at it and I go, what is the dream outcome of a roofer? How can I create a certainty in the outcome? Like, what has to happen? Why do you think these webinars exist? If I'm going to make these roofing companies grow, I have to drag these into a meeting and force them to talk to me. Like, you know what I mean? Like, that was one of the things. I need them to know things that they don't know And I'm not able to physically go to every single one of them and make them know it. So I need to have webinars that are topic and content based. Oh, they don't like going to those. I guess I got to pay for a videographer to put the information on YouTube. Oh, they don't watch the YouTube videos. I guess I need to build an AI robot where they can literally just ask a question and they don't have to watch the video. But if they want to learn more, there has to be a link there to do it. This is reducing the effort, reducing the sacrifice, and shortening the time delay to make sure that the roofer knows what they need to know and has what they need to have in order to have the capability and to be the business owner they need to be in order to make the roofing company grow. Like, that's the value equation.
