Working your customer base!

And speaking of professionalism Jed boy im not the one with green paint all over my face. Real professional.

Jed Said:For the uninitiated here are is a sample of comments this dipshit is generating at NRG.

Okay,people,Here`s the story,I`ve gotten calls 3-4 tmes from this girl/s that say ,Hi I`m calling from Anchor roofing based in long island (well away from my area),We have requests for roofing services that we are unable to handle as we don`t work that area,please call me back at 1(516)442-2222,ext.300,so we can pass them on to you--Ok,I`ve learned some stuff here,So I google the co.+location,get website who`s calling from the # specified,also leads to website propursuit.com,Guy insists he`s the #1 website for roofing (in any state),just google roofing,he`s there,but in the yellow,which means he pays to be there,ok he has $,but does he have anything to do with roofing,or is he another service magic.etc. On his site claims cost of 250.00 per zone for 1st month,then following 11 months are free as promotion,I talk to the guy(refraining from use of chucklehead here),who says yes 250 then rest of year free,I say 250.00 per month ?,and he lays down rap I just mentioned,and adds to it that each year thereafter,it`s only 250.00 per year because he`s always gonna do the promotion,zone area equivalent to a county,approx. 250,000 people in zone--I do see where he`s gotten into spats ,and been thrown off roofing.com ,Sorry to be so long winded people,but I am really curious as to anyone possibly having actual experience with this co.,or even having some knowledge of it-I doubt I`m the only one here who gets solicited,really want to know if it`s on the upside or not,and bring it to our peoples atention if indeed he`s just a mooch with no redeeming qualities,Thank you for your replies -------------------------------

I get a call from them at least once per week as well. Got a message from them yesterday:

Hi, this is Jackie from Anchor Roofing in New York. The reason Im calling is my company has been receiving numerous service calls throughout the state of Texas for roofing work. Unfortunately Texas is a state that we do not service, so we were looking to re-direct. Please call XXX-XXX-XXXX...

Clearly I will not be calling them back... PITA! --------------------------------------

Ive gotten calls from that jerk too.

He is buying the exact match keyword roofing in Googles Adsense program.

So if someone types the wording roofing in Google, hell show up in the top slot. If you type anything with roofing , like roofing contractor he wont show up. Its not a good strategy to get leads. He is stealing money. If it was a good way to get leads you could outbid Whorey Corey yourself and save like 80%. The other pitfall is that he is likely to quit bidding for the keyword and go crawl back under his rock. I did a search for Anchor roofing on Long Island and one for his name and came up basically blank.

Hold on to your money, this guy is a complete ripoff.

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I agree,he has a local company that he said was signed/listed with him,I called my friend,and he was shocked,Told me he thought it was a ripoff too-I had those exact thought myself ,regarding the pay per click.

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I got a call from him once and I managed to pi$$ him off. I told him I would not talk to him about anything until he told me how much he charges for the lead. So he said he has the best marketing system of any roofer in the country and hung up on me.

I dont deal with tire kickers.... I dont charge per lead. Nice to quote a site called whocallsme.com I know it well... And for anyone here who just isnt smart enough to actually get it. Sponsored links on google are sponsored for a reason. BECAUSE MORE PEOPLE CLICK ON THEM!!!! Is any roofing company who deals with google direct and pays per click are they all morons too?? Is google a scam too or any other seach engine for that matter???? Is yellow book a scam because they realized that they had to take thier company online because nobody except backwoods hicks read the phone book! Why you think the yellow book charges 20k a year for a full page ad??? Because they have to and they prey on the stupid! I hold the #1 position in the US for roofing ands in every state roofing is typed in more by the general public. There is novoby in here that can dispute that!!! There is not a roofer in here that can outbid me for my position because that takes alot of $$$$ since the company that was in the position before we was a company called GAF. You might of heard of them. Are they a scam too???? Lets get one thing straight here. This site lists competitors of mine praising them on their homepage like e local roofers and its only for financial gain. Am i wrong Jed BOY? Whats the difference between a company like E local roofers and myself. They call companies too, they buy sponsored links with google to list roofers there as well. For every one of me that you say i am scum there are 30 of me at e-local. Do you really think Vickie gives a rats ass about whether or not you get leads from e local??? UH nope as long as she gets her referral check every month. So all of you get off your high horses and stop with the BS and lets be real. You post on a site everyday bashing me which makes you look even more foolish because this site is affiliated with companies that do the same thing i do. And for the record more keywords for my site are being bought as we speak and like i have stated all along you have no idea how many other websites i have listed organically all over the country. Learn who you are speaking with before you make comments about things you know nothing about. Funny i was referred to this site by someone who uses my service. My service is geared towrds helping roofers get more business not stroking your ego. I have generated millions of dollars in business for roofers all over the country and have help companies 1 by 1 as opposed to making each company feel like a number. Thats why i hung up on you when you called because i knew a mile away you were a tire kicker!!! Give me a little credit, i know when someone is interested and when someone is wasting my time. Rooferscoffeeshop profits off of you signing up with my competitors like e local. Prove me wrong any of you! All of these sites including this one are for money making purposes. Get a clue.

Whorey Corey I like that reminds me 2nd grade when the bully tried to pick a fight with me and then got his ass kicked!

Hey "dude"! This is a roofers forum for roofers communicating with other roofers about topics related to their day to day work adventures. This is not the place for you to sell your services. I think that is all Jed is trying to say. You are not coming on here and sharing anything of value to us. We dont need or want your service. He is telling you to advertise your services in the proper place and not in our forum topics and replys. You are wasting your time trying to push it upon us. Buzz off!! BOY!

Whats NRG??? And at best i see about 4 roofers in here and they are the same ones all the time... i dont come on here for 3 weeks and the first comment i make, jed you have to be a smart guy dont ya?? My rep in here isnt shot and never was. Dont know what you are talking about bud. Any roofer in here that reads this that is a U.S. based company and wants to increase or work thier customer base please contact me direct. I can help you more so than any other roofer or advertiser thats on this site. And for your information jed boy, the only reason I am not a paid advertiser on this site is because i already spoke with vickie and basically called her out on everything and people in here agreed with me. The only reason this site has e local pasted all over it is because she is paid a referral fee for having you guys sign up. Its true and anyonme is has half a brain knows that. Too bad i am above e local when it comes to roofing. Have A GREAT DAY!!! GO TO GOOGLE AND TYPE IN ROOFING. SEE WHOS UP TOP!

Very few Ciak! It has rained more this year than any year i can remember. Only had 1 or 2 storms back in the spring. Otherwise just rain every couple days all year long. And this happened after a record drought in 07 and slow economy in 08. So that recipe has made for a lot of work this year. One of the spring storms brought some nickel to golf ball sized hail in isolated areas. Was not a widespread hail storm but this is the largest metro area in the state so there was some work from it to go around. A few storm chasers even came from out of state but i dont think they got a whole lot out of it. We dont chase storms nor do we particularly care for dealing with insurance claims but we will when requested by one of our customers. But we do not start the ball rolling. They call us!

Ole willie Good for you man . How many of the leads are insurance related ?

I guess we all start to think like that at times. I was thinking that way last week after running about 9 repair leads in one day and not getting anything on the spot. It was the longest day i had worked in quite some time and im used to getting at least half of the leads i run. The next day i started off selling 3 in a row on the spot and then my cell phone began ringing from some of the 9 i had done the day before wanting their work done as well. lol

If anyone in here wants to spend less to get more.... talk to me... i know where folks go to find a local roofer online and 10 times more than any yellow book at a tenth of the cost. Give me a shout and ill show you.

"There just aren't many guys out there with your skill level!"

That is an understatement to be sure.

Hang in there Mike! :) We made it through 2 years of slow work. The last year not only did we not make any money but we lost a substantial amount of money. But as they say, "when it rains it pours". And thats exactly what happened in 2009. All year long. Add in a small hail storm and some wind here and there and We are on track to come close to an all time high in sales this year. I've been tracking it and it looks like we will end up taking 2nd place ( out of 13 years ) by the end of the year. Although beating the old record is not out of the question. When they say this business is feast or famine their not joking. When the work finally picks up over there you'll be at the top of your game again in no time. There just aren't many guys out there with your skill level!

Tico, I don't know of any "respeted" and "trusted" competitors! lol Saying the afore mentioned was the extent of my participation in that thread. I have heard numerous horror stories about partnerships gone south so i avoid that for the most part. Mike, We had our advert cost at an all time high when the downturn in work hit over here. I used all the credit i could muster up to cover all the bills every month and we barely escaped disaster. Several local companies did not make it. We did not get many calls in spite of still having a big advert in the book. Even though its gonna be slow for ya for a while i think you will be much better off that you cut back on the ad cost. Also to get a grip on things we cut back on every single thing that we could reasonably, without losing out on neccessities. It took some time but we got through it. Now is the time to get a little more money out of your repairs that were referred thus much less competitive. New leads will be extremely competitive so its good if you can make it up there. Terry, thanks for sharing that with me. We did the thank you cards for a long while, I still have a huge box full of them , but we stopped sending them out. It didn't really seem to make a difference although maybe we didn't keep it up long enough. I did the flier thing as well and got "some" work out of it but it wasn't worth the time and effort. We also ran a referral contest with prizes for the top 3 on the year but only a handfull of folks joined in on that so once again it wasnt worth it. I came up with an idea about extending warranties by a year for every referral but i dont think thats necessary as after all the trial and error so far has led me to believe that we will get our referrals without doing anything more than providing great service. But if there is a worthwhile way to increase them i would love to give it a shot. :)

We quit advertising in the yellow pages several years ago. The calls we got that were generated through them did not justify the expense.

Since we do a lot of slate and tile repair along with gutter cleaning, we have started to offer maintenance contracts, a set price for gutter service along with a roof check and repairs on a time and material basis. I include a cover letter with the contract offering $25 off the annual service for every referral that accepts a contract. Virtually, a person can end up getting their annual service free just by referring people in their neighborhood.

Try sending a "Thank You" card once a job is completed. Inside the card you can write something like "If you are not 100%satisfied with our work, please let us know, if you are, please tell others" and put several business cards in the card.

Print up a flyer telling what services you offer (repairs, replacement, gutter cleaning, soffit, fascia, whatever) and go to a plan that is around 20 years old. Put a flier in each door. Most of these people have no experience with roofers since it is the first time their roof will need replaced. Just make sure to emphasize that you have been in business for XX number of years so they know you are going to be there if they have a problem down the road.

These are just a couple of the things we do.