Roofing Success
The Roofing Success Podcast is a show created to inspire roofing contractors to achieve optimal success in their roofing businesses. The host, Jim Ahlin, is the co-author of the book, "Internet Marketing For Roofing Contractors, How to TRIPLE Your Sales and Turn Your Roofing Website Into an Online Lead Generation Machine", and Co-Founder of Roofer Marketers, the Digital Marketing Agency for the roofing industry. On each episode, Jim will be sitting down with industry leaders to talk about their processes, the lessons they learned, and how to find success in roofing.
Roofing Success
The Biggest Roofing Marketing Mistakes (And Why You Should STOP Selling Your Soul to Google!) with Jim Ahlin
Unlock the full potential of your roofing business with proven marketing strategies that deliver real results. In this episode of the Roofing Success Podcast, Jim Ahlin shares his insights on how to build a marketing plan that works—without falling into the usual traps. Drawing on his experience working with hundreds of contractors, Jim explains how to set achievable revenue goals and create an omnipresent brand. He advises against chasing fleeting trends and stresses the importance of consistency and a solid foundation.
Jim takes us through the key components of lead generation and conversion, highlighting how to align sales targets with lead volume. He emphasizes the need to measure these metrics carefully so your marketing strategy supports your overall business goals. By defining your ideal customer and crafting the right message, you’ll learn how to choose the best platforms to reach your audience, whether you’re targeting storm restoration clients or retail markets. Understanding your customer’s needs, addressing their pain points, and overcoming objections like price and indecision are all essential.
The episode also reveals the secrets to crafting marketing messages that build trust, demonstrate value, and highlight your local presence. Jim covers everything from split testing to using Google Ads, social media, and traditional advertising. He also discusses the importance of a strong website that converts visitors into leads and appointments. With automation tools and an integrated approach to SEO, Google Ads, and social media, roofing businesses can stay competitive and grow in 2025 and beyond. Tune in for actionable advice on how to invest wisely in your marketing to take your business to the next level.
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What's the biggest mistake roofing contractors make with their marketing? It's not the budget, or the tactics or the tools. It's failing to execute on a clear plan. Today, we're tackling how to fix that once and for all. In today's episode, we're diving deep into what it really takes to create a winning marketing strategy for your roofing business. From setting realistic revenue goals to mastering omnipresence, we're uncovering the secrets to scaling effectively in 2025 and beyond. What I've learned from working with hundreds of contractors is that success isn't about chasing shiny objects or finding a magic lead source. It's about building a solid foundation, executing with consistency, a bit in the trenches, helping businesses overcome challenges like mismanaged budgets and unclear goals, and I'm excited to share what's worked for them and how it can work for you, too. In this episode, I'll walk you through how to set up achievable goals, build a marketing stack that works and execute like a pro. Walk you through how to set up achievable goals, build a marketing stack that works and execute like a pro. Let's make 2025 the year that you take your roofing business to the next level. So stick around and let's get started.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Roofing Success Podcast. I'm Jim Alleyne, and I'm here to bring you insights from top leaders in the roofing industry to help you grow and scale your roofing business. If you don't mind, today we're going to do something a little bit different. We're going to talk about setting goals, hitting your targets. We're going to talk about the fundamentals of marketing success. We're going to talk about, you know, maybe we'll get into some optimization techniques, some customer journey optimization, some website optimization, focus on and hopefully help you develop an action plan, because it's really in the execution of your business where success comes from. It doesn't matter how much you learn, how much you listen to the podcast. If you're not executing on what we're talking about on the show, you know it really doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:So I get asked a lot. You know kind of the hardest part about marketing your roofing company right and take some time to think about that. If you're a sales rep, think about you know marketing yourself as an individual or from your company standpoint. What's the biggest challenge that they're facing? And what I hear a lot is that there's so many options If you want to market your roofing business. There are so many options out there. Are we doing digital? Do we do what's the best lead source? I get that all the time. What's the best lead source, what's the best, what's the best man? There is no magic pill. There is no magic pill in this, there's no magic pill in marketing. There's no magic pill in your business.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of good testing and optimization and you know, we talked about that in a previous episode and went through some KPIs that you can measure and you know the concept of omnipresence and and really that's where it lies, right, you know the choices that you have. You have. You know all of your digital assets that you could, that you can work on. You have your SEO that you have. You have all of your digital assets that you can work on. You have your SEO. You have your Google ads. You have your website. You have your Google business profile. You have your social media. You have paid social media. You have organic social media. You have Google local services ads Google local services ads you could be buying leads from all of the big lead aggregators home advisor and you know ports and networks and all these places. I've seen some people having some success with next door ads. Now, right, so there's all these choices, all these choices out there and we're going to dive in and kind of talk about this.
Speaker 1:And on a previous episode I mentioned it. I really like to attribute this to the marketing stack. Right, you want to be building your marketing stack, not just executing on one marketing tactic. So the marketing strategy is to build a marketing stack. The tactics that you use to do that will vary based on, you know, the type of business that you're in If you're a store versus retail, commercial versus residential, right, there's going to be different things.
Speaker 1:But the problems that I always see people facing is that. Another problem that I always see people facing is that there's such a major investment in marketing, or they feel like they're making a major investment in marketing A contractor who, I would say, I've become friends with down in the DFW. I remember one time they I had them on a call, a coaching call in the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance and we were talking about budgets and they were like, man, I can't believe that I spent that much this year. And I was like, well, what'd you spend? You know $150,000, $175,000. Boy, that's a big chunk of cash, right. But on the other side of that they did over $5 million in revenue. So really they were investing like 3% of their budget into their marketing efforts. Now, that might work in a storm restoration market, right, like, we have to learn what works for us. We have to learn, kind, of the best practices.
Speaker 1:You'll hear a lot of people in the industry talk about the 5% rule 5% of your gross revenue goal as being that sweet spot. Well, man, if you're in a competitive retail market and you're spending 5%, you might be having some challenges, right? If you are a 100% door-to-door sales organization, be 5% might be too much for you, right? So that's why industry and industry averages and standards are kind of a unique. But we'll we'll get into that a little bit more. We'll talk about budgeting today a little bit more.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of you have have done marketing and there hasn't been much to show for it, right, there hasn't been that, that return that you expected you. You talk to someone or you talk to a marketing agency because we're the worst, right, I don't own one anymore. So I could say, but you see these examples of success and you see that man, you know someone did Facebook ads and they got, you know, $19 leads and they crushed it. Well, yeah, but what did they close? Right, like, what did they close? What's the net? What did they gross off of that. You know, you see, oh man, this company's crushing it with SEO. They're everywhere. Yeah, that's great, right. Or you see, maybe another company that's crushing it with TV ads or billboards or Nextdoor, and we get chasing these shiny objects.
Speaker 1:But when we tried, it doesn't work, like what happened there. How come it didn't work for me but it worked for that person? Was it the person I hired to do it? Was it the execution of it? Did we answer our phone properly? I've told this story multiple times and Chuck Toki's told it on the podcast too. But when he was the vice president of sales at Able Roof, miss Roof too. But when he was the vice president of sales at Able Roof, miss Roof, he talked about the process that they had in answering the phone when it was a home advisor lead and how long they would try to keep that person on the call. Right? That's where the efficiency comes in your customer journey, right? Not all of your marketing. Sometimes it a lot of. Sometimes it's not the channel, it's not the mix, it's that you have to have the execution through the sales process, through the appointment set, through the sales process.
Speaker 1:If you have a team of door knockers, you have a team of door-to-door salespeople and you start sending them Facebook leads and they got to. Now they're in a neighborhood knocking a storm, and I live in the Twin Cities area. Maybe they're up in Plymouth knocking a storm in the Northwest suburbs and you get a Facebook lead down in Eagan in the Southeast suburbs and they have to drive 50 minutes to go and run that lead, or they could knock on the next door. What do you think they're going to do? Right, so there's a lot of complexity in the outcomes of our marketing efforts, right, and so it's always a continuous iteration.
Speaker 1:It's hey, examining what our expectations were, then examining what happened and then making adjustments, but it's a challenge. So, you know, with that it really becomes challenging. Right, that's where the challenge is. Am I doing this right? I don't know about you, but as an entrepreneur, that doubt creeps in. Right, that doubt creeps in all the time. That imposter syndrome Are we really the right? Are we really that company? Are we really the? Can we really execute on what we do? Well, do we really have the team in place? Am I the right leader for this team? You know, so you got to be careful in everything that you do and in your execution of things, understanding, setting clear, clear expectations of what you want to happen, measuring them with data. You know we're all going to. You know, have our challenges.
Speaker 1:Some efforts are going to work better than others. Some efforts are not going to work at all for you. But if you don't have a clear plan and you don't have a clear way to measure that plan, you're going to fail. So we really want to have a clear plan with goals, targets, KPIs to measure with. We really want to be able to generate enough leads through the channels that you're marketing in to hit your revenue goals. Like I said, some channels may have a higher level of success than others. So we really want to set clear goals, because clear goals are the wind in your sails. Right, if you're out on an ocean or if you're out on a lake, a big lake you know you're on your sailboat. If you have no wind, you will end up somewhere right, you will hit land somewhere right, the ocean will take you, the current will take you and you will end up somewhere, but it may not be where you want to be. So you need to get the wind in your sails and that's having that clear plan.
Speaker 1:I recommend at least a one-year plan. So we're sitting here in November 2024, really looking at 2025, setting a one-year goal and then taking that goal and breaking it down into small chunks right. Breaking that down into quarterly, monthly, even weekly goals, adjusting for the seasonality in your market. If you're in a storm restoration market, or if you're in Minneapolis here, you know it's November, you know the snow will be falling soon, you know it's going to get really cold December and you know we may be able to roof into December this year. It's looking pretty positive actually. But going into January, I'm not expecting that right February, I'm not expecting it. March, maybe we're coming out of winter and we're able to get that done. You know, if you're in Florida and you know the hurricane the time of year for hurricanes you want to be making adjustments to your goals.
Speaker 1:But one of the key things here is having a stopping point. You need to have a stopping point with these goals. You need to be able to say, okay, this month we expected to do this. Our goal was to do this. This is what we were trying to achieve and we did this. We were above goal, below goal. Now you can work back and make some real decisions as to what. Okay, well, why did that happen? Right? So we want to make sure that we have clear goals. We want to have a revenue target. We want to work that backwards into the amount of leads that it will take.
Speaker 1:If you are a very experienced contractor, you know your numbers well. This is going to be much easier for you, right? You have it dialed in a little bit more. How many calls will that require? If you've been tracking your leads for years and you know your conversion rates down to your sales reps and who does what and lead source man, you're going to have a much better opportunity to get to your goals, to within a close variant of what you're going to hit this year. If you're brand new, you're going to have to make this up, right, like. If you're new, or if you've never done this exercise before in your business, you're going to have to make it up and make assumptions right. So what is your revenue target? You're going to have to make a revenue target. Let's let's be realistic with these revenue targets.
Speaker 1:I used to talk to contractors all the time when I was looking through for marketers who who told me yeah, man, we did 750,000 in revenue last year and our goal this year is 5 million. Where the heck did you get 5 million from? And why do you think 5 million is the number that you really need to hit? And do you have the team in place that can get you to 5 million? Do you have enough well-trained sales reps to get you to 5 million? Oh no, well, I sold the 715 or 750 as an owner and I'm going to just go, you know, hire a bunch of people off the street and hope for the best and they'll all you know, maybe they'll all close 500,000 and you know I'll go hire 10, 10 reps and and that'll get to 5 million.
Speaker 1:And don't have a hope and a prayer. Don't do this on a hope and a prayer. Do this realistically, right. Do this realistically. Think about and if you are going to go and get aggressive and hire 10 sales reps and you've never done that before be honest with yourself that maybe you're not. You know you haven't been a sales manager. Maybe you have. Maybe you have, but maybe you haven't been a sales manager of 10 reps before. Maybe you don't understand the day-to-day and how that works and and and what the execution of that looks like. So, making sure that you're honest with yourself about your goals. But set your goals right. Set your goals and then work that back into the amount of leads that you need.
Speaker 1:So, with the amount of leads that you need, what we're working backwards into is we're going to take the sales right. We're going to divide that by the average job that you're getting. I'm going to make my math easy. Let's say your goal is 3 million for the year and you're in an area that's very consistent month over month. So that's $250,000 a month. If your average job is 12,500, that would be 20 jobs per month.
Speaker 1:So not every phone call is a job, right, not every lead that you generate. When someone calls off of that yard sign, they may not have damage, right. So not every call that you get, not every lead turns into a job. So we got to work this backwards, right. We have to work this backwards into an average conversion rate. Let's say that your average conversion rate is 25% from someone that calls in to book job right.
Speaker 1:So maybe you you know, 75% of the leads that come in end up in an inspection, right? You do a home visit off of 75% of that. So now you have 75 leads that you're running and you, you know, now you have 75 leads that you're running and you, you know, you're closing 33% of those. You got 25 closed jobs, right, and or a 25% close rate, which which would, which would back into if you need those. Um, you know what did I say If you need, you know, the the 20 jobs a month, we just back that into it, right? So that would be what 80 leads a month Right? So we back that into it. Right, so that would be what 80 leads a month right, so we back that into it.
Speaker 1:And knowing your lead number is going to give you a leading indicator as to where your business is going. You have leading and lagging indicators in your business, so you want to be paying attention to these leading indicators in your business, like lead flow. If no one is booking an inspection with your company, you're going to run out of business, right? So we have to be following that lead flow from the beginning. So, understanding your goal, being honest with yourself about what you can execute on and then determining how many leads it will take you to get there, we have a clear picture of the leads that we need and the goal that we have from a revenue perspective. Maybe we've spent some time thinking about the people that we need to get to that revenue goal also, and being honest with ourselves. Right, being honest with ourselves is that we have the right people, we have the right team, we have the right goal for that team. Now we need the lead flow right and we have an idea of where we're going to get the lead flow from. We're going to be executing, you know, executing on on on this set of marketing tactics.
Speaker 1:I think what gets overlooked a lot is your marketing message. I think that that the fundamentals of marketing are missing in most of your businesses, and I don't say that to be condescending, but it's a very simple thing, and I want to talk to you about a very simple way of looking at marketing. So the first thing that we're going to talk about is the market, and that's the who, that's, the people that you are marketing to. Then I want to get into the message a little bit and that's what you're saying to those people, in hopes of that message resonating with them, for them to give you a call, and then we have the how, and that's where this message is going out right. Where is this message landing. Is it on your social media? Is it in a Google ad? Is it on your website? Is it on a billboard, right?
Speaker 1:How are you getting this message into your perfect customer? And so, really, first we have to understand our perfect customer right, like who really buys from us, because not everyone, not everyone, is your perfect customer right, and so so we got to have to think about that. In marketing, we call this a customer avatar or a buyer persona. There's ways to look at it in terms of you know, we're really determining who is this person right, who are we marketing to? And I would really encourage you to choose a person Like, choose someone that is that person in your business, right that you have sold a roof to man. If I had a whole bunch of these customers, this is this would be the perfect. This is my ideal customer, and what you're going to want to back out of that are demographics, pains and frustrations of that customer, the fears and implications that they have of those fears and their goals and desires.
Speaker 1:So we're going to take some time and think about that person in your mind and say you know, how old are they right? Are they male, female? You know, of course, they're a homeowner. That's an easy demographic, right? Are they married? Do they have kids? We want to get into this understanding of this person. What's their annual income? What are some other things about them? Are they handy or not handy? Or, you know, where do they live? Do they live in the, you know, in a more urban area? Do they live in the suburbs, small towns? Right? Where do they live? What do they like to do? Do they enjoy gardening crafts? Do they, you know, are their kids in Little League and soccer? And you know, are they easily frustrated, right? Like, are they family oriented? These are some demographics that we can think about.
Speaker 1:Then we want to think about their pains and frustrations, right? One easy pain and frustration is that the roof is leaking, right, they look up on their ceiling, they see a water stain and something's going on here. They look up on their ceiling, they see a water stain and something's going on here. Another pain or frustration may be you know that there's shingles on the in their yard, right? Man, what? Uh-oh, what's going on here, right?
Speaker 1:Another type of pain or frustration may be that they can't get a roofing company on the phone or to return their calls. Uh, I was calling. I was calling, uh, I was looking for gutters at our Lake home. Uh, this this this summer, and I, uh I started calling local gutter companies as a small town area, a small town area in Northern Minnesota, and so there's not a lot of, not a lot of people, not a lot of contractors and probably plenty of work for them. So you know, I'll give them a little bit of grace, but but I left a message with this gutter company and 28 days later they called me back.
Speaker 1:You know, may not get that in the big city and in major markets, but that's a huge pain and frustration and we've dealt with that. You know, around other services that we've tried to have up there, you know HVAC people and you know snow plowing and all kinds of stuff, and so customers face this frustration, frustration, they, they don't, they're not getting the phone call back. So what, like? It's an easy pain, pain point to solve, but understanding that they are facing this frustration, right, they need to get their issue resolved. They really need to. They're, they're too busy to deal with it. You know, I don't know about you, but I get so busy in my day-to-day that I miss things. I'm like man, oh shoot, I got to go back and do that. I got to go back and do that, and we need to get this done.
Speaker 1:The other thing that a big pain that they're having a lot of times is that they're worried about the damage that it could cause in their, in their property, right, the further damage that it can cause. So that's a big pain. Now that we've talked about their pain a little bit, they also have fears, and those fears and the implications of those fears, right. They have a fear of being ripped off or overcharged. They have a fear of paying too much for what they could have gotten of the same value. They have a fear of having their home damaged by faulty workmanship. They have a fear of being inconvenienced. They have a fear that it may cause a disaster in the house. They have a fear that the bill will be more than they can afford. And so, in really understanding these are the fears of our customers If you're a sales rep, you know this, right, this is what you're hitting on. These are the. If you're a sales rep, you know this, right? This is what you're hitting on. These are the problems that you're pushing on in your sales presentations, right? This is the stuff you're really digging into, getting them to feel that pain and understand that you're the provider, you're the solution to that pain or that fear.
Speaker 1:Then they have goals and desires, right. They have a goal to get their roof fixed, but they also want to get the issue behind them. They want to have a well-kept home. They want to take care of their family. They want to spend more time with their family, they want to travel. They also want the respect and approval of their friends and family. They don't want to make a wrong decision.
Speaker 1:In the purchase decision-making process there's really kind of I've heard it framed in this way that there's three core objections. Right, three core objections. One of them is price right. One of them is partner. They push it off and defer the commitment to their wife or husband, but really it comes down to not wanting to make a wrong decision. That's why they're stalling on that decision and that's that respect and approval of friends and family. I'm telling you it's something that people truly, truly interpret on a subconscious level. If they make the wrong decision and their cousin's like I told you to go with my contractor, you know. Their uncle's like why didn't you call me? You knew that I, you know, you knew I was, you knew I did decks, I could have done your roof right, like there's.
Speaker 1:Like, people want the respect of their friend's family, they want peace of mind. So really, that's what your customer is made up of. So, really, really, really thinking of and identifying that customer. And now, in understanding this, there's a there's no quote that I love and it's if you can see through Joe Jones eyes, then you can sell what Joe Jones buys. Right, if you can see through Joe Jones' eyes, then you can sell what Joe Jones buys.
Speaker 1:If you understand your customer and the pains that they're feeling, the fears that they have, their goals and desires, and you have a solution to that, it's an easy thing to sell if you express it to them. Well, so now we really understand the who. Now we need to talk about our messaging. So, really, in understanding those fears, in understanding their pain points, in understanding their goals, in understanding who they are as a demographic, we have to have a message to them, right, we have to define why someone would choose to do business with you versus the competition. We have to understand the benefits that you offer. That your target customer will resonate. Right, we're selling the vacation, we're not selling the features, right, we're selling the benefit. So we want to sell them a complete roofing system that they will never have to worry about again, right, like we have to sell them the vacation, sell them on the benefits of doing business with you, sell them on the benefit of, of, of. If there is a problem in the future, you don't have to worry about it because we will take care of it. Right, you know, making sure that they, that they know that you're going to give a clear, straight, straightforward estimate, or you're going to work with them in the insurance claims process and you're you're going to give them, you know, great customer, a great customer experience, satisfaction guaranteed. You're going to have a. You're going to inform them about your warranties, the manufacturer's warranties, your labor warranties, your workmanship warranties.
Speaker 1:You want to express, maybe, that you're local to the area, that you'll be around if they need you. Right, that there's affordable financing options if they need it. One of those big pain points is can I afford it? Right, they have a fear of being able to afford this. Right, you know, I think I used twelve thousand five hundred as an example. Or you know, earlier in the in the, in the conversation, and twelve thousand five hundred is a very low number these days, low number these days. It does not take much to get to, you know, a $25,000, $30,000 roof these days. And so you know understanding that there's financing available.
Speaker 1:You know, under, giving them the opportunity, right, they don't want to be inconvenienced. So, expressing that you'll be there the same day or the next day and have an estimate in hand or have a, have a, have the solution presented to them. Giving, making the. You know giving, giving money, offering money, saving offers right, there's no one, no one that doesn't like to save money. Right, expressing the way that you leave the job site squeaky clean and that you know there won't be any nails that their kids are going to step on when playing in the backyard. They're not going to get a flat tire driving into the driveway or driving into their garage.
Speaker 1:Expressing your experienced and proven track record. Experienced the track record, experiencing the. Expressing the values that you, that, that you, that you hold as a contractor. Right, a lot, of, a lot of contractors in the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance are now, you know, expressing how they've made this pledge to be one of the best and most, you know, credible and integrate, incredible contractors in their area with great integrity. Right, there's that that you're abiding by certain standards, that you have great service and you're guaranteeing that service that you will. You will take care of anything that comes up.
Speaker 1:And so, now that you have that message, you know who you're talking to and you need and you know what resonates with them. And maybe you don't know what resonates with them, right? Maybe you're, maybe you know if you're in an earlier stage of your business, you haven't done a lot of marketing. You haven't. You haven't, you haven't used a lot of marketing messaging. This is where those Facebook ads, you know, work or don't work a lot of times, and this is where marketing works and doesn't work at times.
Speaker 1:It's not magic. It's a continuous iteration. So once you have one message, you put it out to your market, right? You put that message in front of your market, in front of the who, and you see how they react to it. And then you put another message out there and you see how people react to that and which one was better. Which message did we get that was better? This is what companies do over time, all over and over again. We call it split testing. Do over time, all over and over again. We call it split testing but really getting that messaging in front of people.
Speaker 1:And so then we need to know the media right. We need to know how we're getting this, how we're going to get this message in front of people, how are we going to deliver that message of our quality and how we can solve the pains and how we can alleviate the fears of our customer. So, in that, the how are all of those marketing channels right? It's your website, it's your SEO, it's your Facebook, organic social media, it's your TikTok, it's your like, all of the ways direct mail, your trucks driving through their neighborhood, your yard signs, billboards, tv, radio All of those are just vehicles to deliver the message right. So you're not.
Speaker 1:I want you to understand that it's not. I'm going to do TV and it's going to solve my problem. It's television and I'm making this up right. Television on this specific show at this specific time of the day, is when my demographic this is how traditional advertising has been for years this is when my demographic, my who, is in front of the television, and so this is where I get to deliver my message. That's all it is right. That's all it is In the digital world. It's gotten so much more, so much easier to deliver that message. Right, if you're doing Google ads, that message right. If you're doing Google ads, you know that someone is typing in best roofing contractor city, state and you could put your message in front of that person at that exact moment when they're shopping. So digital really provides that direct, that very direct ability. More you know television, radio billboards.
Speaker 1:A lot of the people that see your billboard are not going to be your perfect customer, but you're kind of counting on a portion of them, right, like billboards. Get measured in traffic per day, right, oh, there's a hundred thousand cars that drive by here every day. How many of the people in those cars are your demographic? And then how many of those people in those cars that are your demographic look up at that specific timeframe and get that message? And then how many times do they need to see that to really take that in? Just because they saw it once doesn't mean they're going to call you right. So that how is so so impactful?
Speaker 1:I think one of the things to make sure that you're focusing on in your how and a good place for your message is your billboard, right, your website. That's where people are going to go to look and make a decision if they want to work with you. So that's a great place to have your messaging, and so, on your website, you want to have it set up with that marketing messaging right. So when they land on the website, you want to have it set up with that marketing messaging right. So when they land on the website, you want the messaging to be speaking to your perfect customer. If your perfect customer is someone who is looking for a cheap option and that's what you provide is a cheap option, then make sure that your website expresses that. If you are the opposite of that and you do not provide a cheap option, you provide an extensive amount of value. Make sure that your website expresses that right. If you have great financing options.
Speaker 1:You're thinking of their fears, you're thinking of their pain points. You're thinking of all of these things On your website. You can express that very easily. It's your domain, it's your area. To express that. Then, when you're doing your Facebook ads, have this in mind. When you're doing your Facebook social media posts, have this in mind. Social media posts. Have this in mind when you're doing you know next door. Or if you're posting in a Facebook group or if you're, you know, just as you're knocking doors, this is what you have in mind, right?
Speaker 1:Your door-to-door scripts touch on these things, right. They touch on the fears and implications. They touch on the pain points that the homeowner is facing. They're facing a problem with the insurance process. It sucks, right, and so we can really push on that pain point. So now you know, we know, understand how we're getting that message in front of people. Now we need to convert that lead.
Speaker 1:There's a big difference. This is where a lot of companies I hear it all the time, and unfortunately it's smaller companies that I hear this from a lot the leads sucked. Unfortunately, a lot of times, it was you that sucked. Unfortunately, a lot of times, it was you that sucked. And we have to really understand this and I don't want to, you know, speak poorly of people in early stages of business or people who have not learned how to implement a good process or maybe don't have good people on their team that can execute on these good processes. But, man, it's a big challenge.
Speaker 1:Like I told you, that gutter company that didn't call me back for 28 days there was a contractor, before I left Drew for marketers who was frustrated with their lead flow and we had a conversation about it and we looked through their leads and they're like. They said something that stood out to me when we call them back, they don't answer. When we call them back, they don't answer. When we call them back, they don't answer. Why are you calling them back? Why aren't you at their house, right? So the biggest challenge facing roofing companies to me is those unconverted leads, getting those leads set into appointments.
Speaker 1:And, and the first, the first thing that you need to be doing is answering your phone. On that initial phone call, you need to be booking an appointment, booking that home visit, booking that inspection. It needs to be on a calendar. The customer needs to feel as if they have their, that they're on the way to having that problem being solved. They have their, that they're on the way to having that problem being solved. So this is where the rubber meets the road, right? I believe that in marketing you have, you have your marketing coming in, but it's like a relay race with with your sales team, right, that there's a handoff of that baton, there's a handoff of that baton and that baton cannot be dropped If an appointment is not set on that initial phone call, the baton is dropped.
Speaker 1:If you say John will call you back when he has time to tell you when he has time to come to your house and do an inspection, you've already lost. And you wonder why they didn't answer when you called them back. They didn't answer because they called someone else and someone else put them on their calendar. That's the problem, right? So, and I've seen this oh so many times, so many times with so many contractors I mean, we worked with hundreds of contractors, hundreds of roofing contractors specifically. We listened to every phone call that came through their business and it drove me crazy of how poorly they set an appointment, how poorly they made you know how they treated that lead. Increasing your conversion rate on that appointment set can lead to outrageous amounts of additional revenue in your business. So let's talk about this a little bit.
Speaker 1:Some statistics on this are leads that go cold, leads that are not followed up within five minutes go cold. When I say that, I mean 80% of you will have an 80% less chance of ever getting ahold of that person if you're not on the phone with them in five minutes. So on that initial phone call, on that initial lead coming in. If they submit a form on your website, if they submit a free Rufo quote, a free estimate, if they send you a message on Facebook, whatever it is, if they are not responded to in five minutes or less, you have an 80% chance of never getting ahold of that person Never, because they have moved on in the process. If they come in I I I've seen it through the years 70 plus percent of lead flow and roofing comes from inbound phone calls.
Speaker 1:People make a phone call. Even if they click on a Google ad and hit your website, hit your landing page, most of them don't fill out the form. Most of them will call the phone number that's on that page and so calling that phone number is extremely important, or answering that phone call is extremely important. But if they submit a form, if they send you a message, the average customer must be followed up with in that case five to seven times before they will book with you, right. So you have to be constantly following up with them. Text message is very important.
Speaker 1:So automating this process is very easy with some software that you know we have Contractor Boost AI is what we used, and if you're a client of Roofer Marketers, and of Job Nimbus Marketing. You can. You know that's a solution for you. There are other options out there, but what you want is an automated response to these forms so that you can increase the conversion rate on every lead. It will make every lead you generate more valuable, and that's what we really really want to know. We want to squeeze the juice, and that's where the success comes from.
Speaker 1:You may have heard this before, but it's the person, the company who can pay the most for a customer will win. The company that can pay the most for a customer will win. It's that they, they. It gives them comfort that they can spend the most on marketing because they know how to convert that into a sale Like that's what they're. And they know that they'll not only convert it into a sale, but they will get referrals and they'll not. You know they'll knock the neighbor's doors and they'll pick up a couple of the neighbors and they'll turn that one into many. So this is now that you know that we have to turn that one into many.
Speaker 1:We have to track our KPIs right. We want to track our lead flow. We want to track our appointment set rate. We want to track our conversion rate, no shows on inspections right, we want to be tracking all the way down the funnel. If you're using software like JobNimbus, you know there's insights JobNimbus insights, you know, depending on the CRM that you're using, there's a lot of. You know different options for reporting, but you want to be call tracking. Call tracking is your most important thing from that perspective to understand your KPIs effectively. Like I said, 70% plus call in of people call in and if you're not tracking those and understanding where those leads are coming from, it's going to be very challenging. So, as we move into 2025, I mean, we've been preaching this, we wrote the book the Best Known Roofer in 2021.
Speaker 1:Having this all-in presence the companies that have this all-in presence they're everywhere. They're doing SEO, they're doing Google Ads, they're doing LSAs, they're doing social media. They're doing organic social media, they're doing social media advertising. They're knocking doors. Their trucks are wrapped, their signs in the yard, they're sponsoring community events. The marketing stack is video is the most important thing. Get on, you know, pull out this amazing thing in your pocket called a phone, point it at yourself and start talking and delivering that message to your perfect customer, saying things that will trigger their pain points and fears and alleviate their fears. Right, do this on an ongoing basis. It will make an outrageous impact in your business in 2025.
Speaker 1:Think about this in small chunks, if you're, if you're, if you don't have a lot of these things in place, right, start with the top three things that you're going to do. One of those might be to, you know, clean up our, our appointment setting process. We got to dial that in another. Maybe, man, we're not tracking anything. That's what I need to be doing first, but understanding it with your goals in mind and how much lead flow you need along the way. So that develops your custom action plan for the year. So I hope this is helpful. Right for the year. So I hope this is helpful. I really wanted to get this out to you as we're moving into the four, you know, into the, you know, towards the holiday season, because I really I know that this is the time of year that most people think about this. If you need anything, you know, drop a comment. Tell me what you think, tell me if you agree, disagree, tell me what your plan is. Right? You know we're getting everything back up and running on our YouTube channel, so go to the Roofing Success YouTube channel. Please subscribe there. Join the Roofing Success Facebook group. We're going to get very active in there over the next few months.
Speaker 1:This has been another episode of the Roofing Success Podcast. Thank you for tuning into the Roofing Success Podcast. For more valuable content, visit roofingsuccesspodcastcom While there. Check out our sponsors for exclusive offers, shop for merchandise and sign up for our newsletter for industry updates and tips. Also join the Roofing Success Facebook group to connect with other professionals and stay updated on the latest trends. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, share and leave a comment. Your support helps us continue to bring you top industry insights. The website link is in the description. Thanks for listening.
