Coffee Is for Closers

What if you were only entitled to coffee when you "closed” the sale?

Have you heard the line “coffee is for closers” before? It comes from an iconic scene in the movie "Glengarry Glen Ross" that features an all-star cast including Alex Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, Al Pacino, Jack Lemon and Ed Harris.

Almost every sales organization I was ever involved in took time out to watch the film at some point in our training.

Have you ever seen it? If not, it's available via streaming on Netflix and I highly recommend you watch it.

The reason I bring it up is that a friend and I watched it again recently and for me, it was a blast from the past.

Setting aside the many "f-bombs" that are thrown about it’s actually a good look inside many, if not most organizations that operate a professional sales team, including I would venture to guess – yours. I also thought it would be an appropriate place to start a conversation with my fellow members of RoofersCoffeeShop.com as I’m a new content contributor here.

So here’s another question for you to consider. Are you familiar with the 80/20 rule? Also known as the Pareto Principle it says that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your activities. Flip that over and the other 20% of your sales come from 80% of what you attempt to do to generate leads and sales. The movie follows the 80/20 rule straight down the line. Out of five guys on the sales team, one is really doing well, the rest, often not so well… some of them will even be pathetic losers, liars and blame throwers.

If you think about all of the folks who’ve ever been in sales for you, faces from your past sales meetings may come into your mind.

But setting aside the entertainment value of this movie, (it's entertaining to me because of the years I've been in professional sales) there are many tremendous lessons for every roofing contractor who is seeking to grow their business.

So, here’s the big question. What if you were only entitled to coffee when you "closed?” When you moved your roofing business forward? When something you focused on today led to increased revenues and profits?

Here's what would happen. The effect on world-wide coffee sales would be direct and massive. Smart investors would be shorting coffee futures. And sales people (roofing business leaders too) would quickly assume their positions along the 80/20 spectrum. Some would continue to do well and never want for access to coffee. Others would never be able to enjoy a cup at all. And blame (you’ll see in the movie they blame the quality of the leads), would be deafening.

Here's another thing that's entertaining. Roofing companies trying to make the Internet work for lead generation are operating the same. When I assess five different roofing web sites there's one who's killing it, and four who are not. Of those at the bottom, some of them blame the people that are searching, some blame Google, some blame anything or anyone that's nearby.

Remarkably, almost none will stand in front of a mirror and blame the one looking back at them. For a failure in understanding the shift to Internet marketing. It is one of the few places where a person with a roofing issue is going to look first. This is a perfect example of the 20% driving 80% of someone’s results. Sadly, many have failed to invest properly in it.

Here’s what else is remarkable…

The roofing contractors who understood the shift most clearly are the same ones who are killing it online. If you were the dominant roofer in your market I'd spot it as soon as I begin searching. Here’s how:

You would be positioned well, probably in the #1 spot in Google’s AdWords. With a bit of digging, I could tell whether or not you are getting leads at an affordable cost.

Your website would offer a lot of quality information, combined with a clear and easy to understand call to action.

It would be easy to see that find that many of their clients review their work on Google and that those reviews are strong. When this happens, you have a legitimate chance to be ranked in the “3-Box” which are, in Google's opinion the most relevant local businesses listed on the maps.

You would also be ranked in organic search (the 10 blue links at the bottom of search pages) which is a very reliable source of prospects for a roofing company in any town, anywhere.

But, here's the thing.  If you want to dominate your local market in Google and get massive exposure to people who need help with their roof issues, you’ll need two things. First, you’ll need to have enough vision to grasp the potential of it and second, you’ll have to make the commitment to achieving it. It’s not difficult - but you will have to invest in it.

Scott A Dennison is a recognized Internet lead generation expert and the founder of Top Ranked Roofer.com For more information visit www.toprankedroofer.com.