Ryan Groth, President, Sales Transformation Group, Inc.
Making Roofing Contractor's Top 100 list is really a special honor. When looking at the list each year, I recognize market leaders who I know are doing certain things better than everyone else. To be fair, the top line isn’t everyone’s measure of success for building their roofing business. However, if you’re looking to become the best operator you can possibly be, just look at this list and you will notice a group of professionals that are inspired by the others on the list and are driven to innovate and share what they’ve learned to grow – which helps the industry grow. If you’re looking to find your company on the list – or want to find yourself higher on the list – here are five steps you can take to help you get there.
The first step your company should take is to designate a leader to oversee sales. After all, the list is about the top line number. The “Sales Manager” is one of the roofing industry’s most underfilled positions, however when filled properly it can be like switching out a four cylinder for a V8 engine. Finding a good sales manager can be difficult, but using the right tools you can identify the right competencies for the job. From my experience working with several Top 100 Roofing Contractors, grabbing a sales leader from a different industry can serve very well because they are accustomed to more developed sales structures, which translates very well in roofing. However, be sure to screen them by using candidate assessment tools such as the one provided by Objective Management Group based in Boston.
The biggest competencies that you’re looking for in a sales manager are a strong desire for sales success, commitment to do whatever it takes as long as it’s moral and ethical, the right outlook about themselves and your company’s future, taking responsibility (the opposite of excuse making), accountability, motivation, recruiting and coaching. Roofing technicalities are the easy part; they can learn that over time. Chances are, you as the owner have plenty of technical expertise, what you may lack is the sales competency – which is where the sales manager comes in.
The second step involves making service and preventative maintenance a top priority. Service repairs take the least amount of time to close, which makes the sale easier. When you can more easily sell to someone it’s more likely you will sell to many more people, which means you have a low entry barrier to build many relationships and have a chance to provide a great experience for the client. Once someone has worked with you, they can then refer you; and it’s only when you have referrals and repeat business that you build more and more trust in your market. As service revenue goes up, construction revenue should go up accordingly. Make sure that when you focus on service, you offer a preventative maintenance plan so that they see only your truck arriving at their property for years to come. You’ll be their trusted advisor and will be able to develop the relationship that perhaps cuts right through any red tape that could cause your bid to be shopped out, and require you to compete more heavily on price.
The third step is to get a grip on your sales pipeline. Too often I see a “bid it and forget it” mentality. They jump right into the presentation of the bid upon invitation without slowing the process down to ask great questions and listen. The only question that most roofers ask when they get to a lead is “where’s your leak?” They don’t learn what the real problem is, which is the compelling reason people buy. The best management of the sales opportunity is when there’s urgency present, before asking the real qualification questions, like what they think a roof costs and their decision criteria and timeline. Too many times I see “happy ears,” contractors getting all excited about an opportunity and not having a healthy skepticism. In fact, Objective Management Group has data on over 3,000 specialty contractor sales people and the findings state that roofing is in the bottom 11 percent in consultative selling and qualifying competencies out of 1.8 million sales people around the world. If we work at managing the pipeline, it can pay huge dividends. I’ve seen it occur myself while working with many of the Top 100 Roofing Companies.
The fourth step is to get a sales pipeline CRM program. Did I just say a curse word, CRM? AH!!! Yes, you need to be able to see what’s going on in your future sales opportunities anytime you want. However, if you really want to see revenue grow, you should score each deal in the pipeline, and hold everyone accountable to the appropriate expectations to drive more pipeline. Each deal should be followed up on until a decision is made along with a status of when the decision will be made.
The fifth and final step to help you get on the Top 100 list is to set goals. Goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time sensitive. Really consider what it is that you want to achieve and then reverse engineer what it’s going to take to achieve it. It would really help if your sales manager and you came up with a compensation plan that matched these goals and held your sales people and estimators accountable for performing these activities. I also want to be clear with something, just because you don’t have a true “sales person” right now, doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate these things. One of my favorite lines is “on the way to perfect, you pass up a lot of good.” The principle that I take from this (and teach my clients) is to get started and don’t expect perfection right away.
Ryan Groth, Founder of Sales Transformation Group, Inc., is a family man, former professional baseball player, and entrepreneur who became involved in the contracting business with his family as a teen.
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