Hook Better Leads: Home Service + Roofing Marketing

John Dye is a Supplementing King, and runs The American Contractor Show, and has been inside hundreds of contracting businesses learning about what works and what doesn't, we chatted about self-respect and authenticity  as well as what creates success, and the meaning of success.

Check out their website & show! https://www.americancontractorshow.com/

Some of the questions I asked:

You’re regularly inside a lot of companies - What’s the difference between a successful company? And one that’s not?

What do you see as the difference with the companies that are really set up to grow?

Why is Self-respect, Self-worth, In Contracting?

Why is Authenticity important in your marketing?

Is it bad to be SATISFIED? And Challenging yourself at odds?

What do you need to do get to the next level (if they were ‘stuck’ at 5M for instance?

How do you LOVE what you’re doing? How to you cultivate PURPOSE in a contracting business?

I sat down with David Taggart, none other than The Roof Papi, of A5 Roofing, and talked to him about his new venture (and the hardest parts about starting a roofing company.) 

Here are some of the questions I asked:

What are the 3 Hardest parts of starting a roofing company? 
1. How do you pay yourself, and how much do you pay yourself?
2. How to market to people in the wintertime / or other off seasons
3. Work / life balance - you can’t keep everyone happy… 

What are the most important decisions?

What are some basic business set up things you didn’t think about previous to doing it?

How do you start a roofing company?

Who should do it? // Who should not?

The weather tracking of the past is long gone. Derik Kline shares the secrets of the future for finding hail hits, and avoiding non-value added work.

The Timeline + Outline of some of our discussion:

-  Pre-1995 Leaks
-  95-2007 - Noah, Storm Prediction center
-  2008- Hail Map (Max Hail size)
-  2013 - Dual Pole Radar, Competitors are software companies, no weather companies
- What is it now?
- What’s next? - 15 roofs that hail damage. 
Weather technology next. 

Avoiding non-value added work.

Hailtrace's site: https://hailtrace.com

Our site: https://hookagency.com

Some of our notes from the episode:

This might feel like a ‘soft’ topic…
You might think this doesn’t effect your bottom line.
Having a positive mindset will effect every thing you do for positive 

What is the real cost of a Negative mindset ?

How can you have a positive mindset while leading a roofing company?

When something real + negative happens in your personal life- how do you avoid that bleeding in?
- Exercise w/ best friend at 630 
- Work is work - separate them. Work is not my life.

How can SUCCESS confuse some people about over-identifying with their business / identity. 

How can you help others on your team have a positive mindset?

How do you stop jumping in all the time?
- Not giving people answers

Why is letting people fail important to you?

How do you make sure people can bring mistakes to you?
- Therapy 
- Allowing people to fail
- Pain has to occur

Check out Mars website: https://mars-roofing.com/
Our website: https://hookagency.com

Mistake #1 - Not having a compelling vision to get excited about.

Mistake #2 - Owner not having been trained in sales themselves. (You have more authority to stand on - be respected) 

Mistake #3 - Putting your best salesperson as the sales manager

Mistake #4 - To grow you need to hire more sales people - (sales support) 

Mistake #5 - Not knowing your numbers (your closing ratio, your pipeline, your selling cycle) 

Mistake #6 - Not having a strong culture of prospecting. 

Mistake #7 - Thinking that you don’t need accountability. 

Check out Sales Transformation Group https://www.salestransformationgroup.com/

Hook Agency https://hookagency.com

We want to make it easy and just state: The Ideal Marketing Budget is 20% for Google Ads, 20% for SEO, 20% for Angi Leads, Thumbtack or Other Lead Aggregators – and the rest for marketing manager, print materials, video marketing and other miscellaneous efforts. But REALLY - you should assess what has worked for you in the past, and how could you double down on that. We talk about these things in detail in this video with Josh Swisher. 

Not everyone is meant to be a marketing manager, and it takes a certain unique set of skills. Greg Cadwallader from Secured Roofing and Restoration in Florida talks about key efforts, what to look for, and what to do with your time if you are a marketing manager or assistant for a roofing company to level-up the company. 

Love Angi Leads? Sound off in the comments! Had a bad experience? Share that in the comments. Besides $35-$85 bucks a lead, for leads that also went out to 3 other companies that you have to compete with – the real cost of Angi Leads is that it can drive your prices down and your customer service may suffer?

I talk to Dallas Werner of First American Roofing who breaks down the pro's and con's to different Roofing Sales Comp Plans:

10/50/50 split OR…  10% of the total collected

A Better Alternative? This is his preference which he explains in detail:
% Of the profits - Based on the margin amount (40% margin not mark-up, after we take out an overhead percentage.) Once its taken out… sales rep get 40% of that profit.

First American Roofing's website: https://firstamericanroofing.com/

Our Website: https://hookagency.com

Did you know that 91% of people say that will send a referral… 
and only 11% of people only ask for a referral!

Drive more leads with a platform that allows you to incentivize them easily for contractors – 
https://www.getthereferral.com/