Gear Up For Sales Success in 2025 - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Dean Curtis of ingage, Chuck Thokey Top Rep and Adelaide Opitz of Mighty Dog Roofing. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Intro: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Coffee Conversations. This is Heidi Ellsworth, and we are here to have some great conversations. Today it is on sales. I am so excited for this conversation, and for this amazing panel that we have today. Thank you so much for being here.

Really, when we're looking at sales, this is the team right here who are making things happen in the industry. We are going to be learning so much. I want to say a special thank you to Ingage who is our sponsor today, who is really enabling the sales technology. Using technology to take sales to a whole new level. To close more sales. To engage better. That was, I think, a pun intended, but I'm not sure. We are so appreciative of them.

Before we go on to introduce our panel, I would like to do a little bit of housekeeping. This is being recorded, and will be available within the next 24 to 48 hours. Be sure to share it out with your team, and everyone else in the industry. This is the type of information that really can make a difference going into this new year, or anytime of the year. To understand how we can bring the science. The mastery, I'm trying to get that word out, of sales into the industry and into your companies.

Also, as always, the chat is open. I see a lot of people in there right now. This is great. Be sure to let us know where you're from. What kind of company you have. The chat is open for your questions. Your comments. This is all about the conversation, and you are a big part of it, so be sure to join us through the chat function.

So let's get started everyone. I would love to introduce our first panelist. I'm so excited. Dean and I have had some great podcasts in the past. Some great information. So Dean Curtis, welcome to the show.

Dean Curtis: Thank you so much, Heidi. I appreciate you having us on here. So as Heidi said, my name's Dean Curtis. I'm the CEO of Ingage. I have the privilege of leading a team of professionals, who are really trying to help you as contractors, make the most of every opportunity you have in the home.

What we do is we help companies create professional, dynamic, interactive-sales content. Help you securely share it with the people who need it, whether that's your team or people outside your company. Your customers. Your partners. Then more importantly, I think, the ability to coach every rep to be the best rep. So we're really thankful to be here, Heidi and the opportunity to share a little bit about what we know. I'm actually looking forward most selfishly to talk with Chuck and Adelaide.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. Me too. I know. With all of you. This is the best part, let me tell you. Well, speaking of that, I am very excited to introduce Chuck with Top Reps Sales. Chuck, thank you so much for being here today. You and I have passed many times, and I'm just so excited to have you on the Coffee Conversation. Can you introduce yourself, and tell us about your company and what you do?

Chuck Thokey: Yeah. I'm Chuck Thokey. I own an organization called Top Rep. What we do is sales and sales leadership. We stay in our lane, and so, we work with a lot of roofers. Our clients, so we do all different trades, but 80% of our clients are roofers. From PEs, to we have a lot of franchises. We also have a lot of organizations, anywhere from a million all the way up to just over a billion dollars.

And so, we come in. We work with you. We also have many different ways that we train, but we make sales easy. It's not just about a one-call close. It's not about any of the how can we high pressure you? It's very low pressure. And so, if anybody has seen us on Facebook, you'll see a lot of the success that we've had across the industry. Thank you so much for having us on.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: We've been watching you. There's a lot going on. I mean, it's so important right now across the board, as we continue to grow the professionalism of this industry. Speaking of professionalism, I am just thrilled to have Adelaide here with Mighty Dog Roofing. Adelaide, welcome to the show. I am so excited to-

Adelaide Opitz: Thank you.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: ... have you here today.

Adelaide Opitz: Well, I'm so excited to be here, Heidi. Thank you for the opportunity. I've always enjoyed our conversations, and looking forward to more. So honored truly to be here, on the panel here with Dean and Chuck who are both fantastic voices in the industry. So thanks for having me, and I'm really looking forward to this session today.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. Can you tell us a little bit about Mighty Dog Roofing, and what you do there?

Adelaide Opitz: Absolutely. So I am Director of Operations here at Mighty Dog Roofing. I've been on the team for three years. It's really been incredible the amount of growth that we've been able to achieve over these last three years. We are a national company, but I always say that we are still learning just like everyone else. And so, having the opportunity to come alongside some great voices here, I'm looking forward to hopefully learning alongside everyone else here today. Taking back some tools with the team.

For myself and my background, I've been in the industry my whole professional career. I've spent a lot of time on the insurance-restoration side, so that's always been my bread and butter. Really, being able to lean in with Mighty Dog. Helping us build out and helping all of our franchise owners to achieve truly their entrepreneurial dreams of owning a roofing company. Really giving them the tools to succeed, and drive success in their business every single day.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. What a great industry. What a great profession we are a part of. It is very cool. To get other people to be a part of that, to have their own slices, that is so cool. Well, so what we want to do today, is we want to talk about sales and sales training. What's happening out there across the board?

So we're going to start really at the very high level of where we're at right now going into 2025. I mean, I don't think any of us can really believe we're already past mid-January of 2025, but this is going to be a big year. It's going to be a big year for everyone. There's lots of opportunity, but it also is going to call for a lot of fortitude and getting out there. So Dean, I would love for you to start us out. As what do you see on some of the biggest challenges for roofing companies, roofing contractors in 2025 around sales?

Dean Curtis: Yeah. I think, I'm not sure it's too much new, right? I think it's what's old is new again. I think that the idea of ensuring that every team is making the most of every lead. Which I mean of course you've always wanted to increase your close rates. You want to make sure you're in the home for less time. You want to do all those things.

It's really about ensuring that when you show up to someone's home, that you are doing everything you can. Actually, even before you show up to their home, that you're doing everything you can to ensure that that lead has the greatest chance of closing.

More importantly, that you have the greatest chance of solving the pain that that customer has, which is why you're there to begin with, right? So I would say if anything, which isn't too new, but I think lead and closing those and making sure the team's ready is number one.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, and you know, Dean, when times are really good and there's a lot of leads flowing, people do. It's like it's a little bit easier, and it's easier to maybe pass up some leads thinking, well, that may not be exactly what we want or not want. So really with the leads possibly getting a little smaller going into the new year, every lead is going to count more than ever, that they take care of it. Chuck, what are some of the things you're seeing that way and a little bit of your crystal ball looking into 2025?

Chuck Thokey: So just like Dean mentioned, we do have to make the best of every lead. Because the last four years it's like Oprah, "Everybody gets leads." And you try to take them in and sell them as fast as you can. Even to that point, all you had to do was show up over the last four years and it's really made roofers, in general, lazy. All they had to do was show up.

They get all this training and they show up and they're like, "The homeowners chase me around with a checkbook." That just isn't happening anymore. The close rates have really come down because everybody, if they were open before 2020, if they've been in business before then, they've gotten lazy over the years. If you started your business starting 2020, 2021, then you were really never taught how to get the business because all you had to do was show up.

Well, now competition is so fierce. If you look at how many roofers there were in 2019 and how many there are now, it's tripled. And so, the competition is big. The pricing. The fight against pricing, and so now it's the fight to the bottom. So again, you have to treat every lead and so, we put more emphasis.
People say, "Oh Chuck, you need to come in and help us figure out how to close it on the spot." This may flip some people out. We're putting more emphasis on how to follow up. That's where the biggest issue is, is how are you squeezing that towel to make the most of the appointments that you already have in your CRM?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It's true. I think follow up is one of the hardest things there is in sales in, I mean, no matter what you're doing, because you're onto the next thing. You're constantly, as a salesperson, moving.

Adelaide, What are you all seeing? I mean, national company. You are in so many different markets. What are some of the things that you're seeing on sales coming out of '24 and going into 2025?

Adelaide Opitz: Yeah. I'd say following up on what Dean and Chuck have been saying. I would say it's not really so much changing in the new year how we are selling, but more how we are presenting to our customer. I think now more than ever, our customers are becoming more and more educated with all of the resources that are available online.

You've got these instant-quote generators where they can go and get a ballpark price for their roof in a couple of seconds. And so, a lot of our customers are coming into these conversations already having more education. And having some a standard set, or an expectation for the outcome of that appointment.

And so, I think we are challenged with having to be more prepared, as Dean and Chuck were saying, going into the appointment. Doing our research ahead of time. Understanding our client, and being prepared to present to a wider range of objections and questions that the customer might have. And so, I think that's really where we have to challenge ourselves daily. And make sure that we are, like Dean said, truly being able to make the most of every lead that we're receiving.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So on that point, Adelaide, I'd love for you to keep going talking about instant quotes. That is, I mean, we're seeing it every day. We're seeing new companies coming in. Bringing that out with, we were talking earlier about EagleView. EagleView from 10 years ago, and now what we can do with all those measurements and what's happening.

So what are some of those trends that you're seeing in sales, that is for you all, creating success? What are some of your favorite things? What are the things that really are helping your sales teams?
Adelaide Opitz: Yeah. I love anything that really, truly does get the homeowner more interactive. With coming out of COVID, we've got this wave of DIY homeowners who really want to have a more hands-on involvement in the project. And so, tools like we've talked about the online-quote generators like your ROOFLEs, who can really give the homeowner an idea of what to expect on that project side.
You've got visualization tools with Hover and other products, where the homeowner can actually get involved with a 3D model of their home. Start playing around with design features, and really getting the gears turning. I love all of these because it really does get the homeowner engaged sometimes before we even come out to the property.

So they may already have some of those decisions made on what color shingle they want. What they want their siding to look like. That helps drive that conversation when we're there in the home. And can continue to build off of what the homeowner's expectations are, and really help them achieve that dream vision that they have for their home.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Dean, you're nodding.

Dean Curtis: I'm nodding.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Add to that. Yeah. What are some of the key tools that you're seeing that people should be looking at?

Dean Curtis: Well, it's interesting. I want to actually build on something that Adelaide said earlier. She said, "People are coming more informed." That doesn't mean they have the right information. All it means is they have some knowledge, right? So I think it creates a challenge of what are the things that you use to educate them before you show up?

I mean, we're presentation software. So in an interactive-content platform, we're seeing people use our platform to create pre-appointment information that is very engaging. That gives someone the information they want them to have before they show up. To maybe combat some of that online research they've done, or to debunk the super-low quote they got, right? They want to do price conditioning before they even get into the home. So all of those pre-appointment pieces of content we're seeing more and more prevalent within our customer base.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love that so much. Dean, I want you to keep going talking about that. Because I'm not sure if everybody out there is really aware of this pre-appointment, how on a sales channel, how that works.

Dean Curtis: Yeah. I mean, I think we've all had someone show up at our house and we were like, "Why did I have this person come here again? I know I scheduled it. I know I'm going to get this thing done or they're going to talk about this thing." The more the person is educated before you get there, and Adelaide made this point beautifully, the more quickly you're going to go through what it is you need to educate them on in the home.

It's like priming the engine before you start it. What are those things that are going to be super helpful to guide the conversation? Maybe it's here's how to take some measurements, and the measurements are ready when you get in the home.

Maybe it's just something as simple as, I'm going to show up. My truck's going to look like this. I'm going to be dressed like this. I promise to be out of your house in this amount of time. I'm pet-friendly. Whatever. Anything to make that customer feel more connected to the salesperson. Here's the number one thing. A picture of the person who's coming to their home. Right?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Dean Curtis: So who's coming? What do they look like? What can I expect? Those are some really simple things that we see people having good success with.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I mean, it's always scary having people come into your home. But since Covid, for some reason, that just took it to a whole new level on people worrying through it. Chuck, okay, I've taken a number of sales trainings and sales classes over my career. To me, I think about the ones I took many years ago and where they are today. It's totally different.

Talk a little bit about that. Using these, what we're talking about here with Dean and Adelaide, of the tools and the technologies, especially. The sale before the sale. How's that all coming together in training?

Chuck Thokey: So real quick on the technology that we have. If you look back even 10 years from now from where we are today, we didn't have these tools. A lot of it was guesswork. You had all these sales trainers says, "Oh, this works. This works." It was only because someone says, "Hey, I sold using this."

Now we have so much technology that we have scientific data as to what works, and we're coming up with all these myths like the old yes train. If you can get them saying, "Yes." They'll keep ... That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Even when I heard it I knew it was dumb, but now we have scientific data to prove that that isn't true.

When we look at the information that we have, and I'm not just saying this because Dean's on this, but we look at everything you can use and do with Ingage. We do more with Ingage before we get to the house than we do in the house, because of the videos and the experience that we can provide using Ingage.

You can actually have that sales rep, the sales rep that's going to show up, do a video of them getting out of the truck and saying, "Hey, my name is Chuck Thokey. I'm going to be your tech tomorrow, and I can't wait to see you." Everything goes out the day prior, so you don't have to keep making different videos. It's not like you're saying, "I'll see you at 2:00."

The day of you can send another video, and this one everybody does in the morning. They get it over to the admin, and the admin sends it to all of their appointments. Then they do that personalized video. Say, "Hey, I'm Chuck." I know you got my video yesterday, but I just want to let you know, I am very excited to see you at two o'clock. We're just going to cover this, and we're going to go through that."
The time we get there, that homeowner feels like this is the third time that we've met. So when people say, like, "Oh, how do you do a one-call close?" For one, it's not always about that. But they feel like this is the third time that we've talked even though this is the first time that we've met.

That's how we use Ingage. There's so many different things that we can use Ingage for, before we ever get to the house because this is an experience. We talk about the prospect experience. What experience do they get before they decide to move forward with you? And so, when you look at your close rate or your NSLI, we're doing NSLP now. But when you're looking at that, it will go up based on the experience that you provide.

Most of these roofers think that the experience that we are going to give is the moment we pull up to the house. No, it's the moment they decide they were going to call you. It's the ad. It's the home show. Whatever. It starts there.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. That whole experience from marketing to sales all working together. To operations. To that final referral. Yeah. This has been one of those conversations. It's the whole experience that brings on more customers in the future.

I just want to remind everybody, the chat is open. I want to say, "Hello." To Kathy, Tracy and Renee. Thank you for putting your names out there, but the chat is open. So if you have questions as you're hearing this great information, bring them on. We'll ask questions as we go.

So Chuck, I want to come back to that. Because as sales managers out there are prioritizing, and owners, roofing-company owners, they're prioritizing technologies. They're trying to figure out how to make all of this work. What are some of the things they should be prioritizing this year? Maybe talk just a little bit about the difference between being at the very beginning, you really have not used any sales technologies. To the people out there like Mighty Dog who are wanting to know the hottest new trend, what should they be looking at?

Chuck Thokey: I know that a lot of the technology organizations are going to hate me for saying this, but we are all the shiny-nickel people. We look at it, and we can't wait to get it. We buy it. It's all pretty expensive stuff. I mean, if it wasn't expensive, they can't advance and so, then we get it and we never use it.

The sales managers think, if I build it they'll come. That's never worked, to tell you the truth. If you bring that into your organization, you have to have priority behind how you're going to use it. There has to be an expectation. There has to be a system laid out. It can't just be, "Hey, we have this new tool coming in and we're going to show you how to use it." They do it one time in a sales meeting, and then they move on. They think that the sales reps are just going to miraculously just start picking this thing up and using it.

When we first started using Ingage, we would not allow any of our sales reps to use it in the field, until they came in one-on-one and they gave me a presentation. This was way back when we first started using Ingage even in our own organizations. That they were not allowed to use it in the house until they came in and use it with me. They had to convince me that they understood it, and then they can go and use it in the house.

We don't practice on the homeowner at all. We don't practice our pitch on the homeowner. I'm preaching to the choir here, that these appointments, they're $500 an appointment, so I'm not practicing at all. I'm not even sending a new person out unless I know that they know what they're doing.

So that's one thing with Ingage. Same thing with say, Rila. There's a lot of people that will buy Rila, and they think it's Big Brother watching. They don't put it into their organization correctly. If you're going to put your sales rep and say, "Hey, I want you to record this."

I don't care if they use Rila or any of the other forms of recording. That if they do look at this as Big Brother watching, their sales reps will not use it. They'll come up with every excuse. My phone didn't work or whatever. If they look at the actual benefit behind it, they look at the AI and the fact that it scores them to say, "Hey, you did this right. You did this wrong." And we do a positive reinforcement as to why we use it, the sales reps will use it more and more.

Same thing with Ingage. It's got a piece to it that tells me that they skipped past a couple of pages. If I came to a sales meeting and say, "Hey guys, I don't know why, but on page three, none of you are even using it." I can berate them or I can say, "Do you mind letting me know, what is it about this page that you guys don't like? If it's fluff, then we're going to take it out, but I want to know why."

So you've got ROOFLE out there. You have to use it correctly. If it's not used correctly, it doesn't work. If ROOFLE or any of the systems like ROOFLE are used correctly, it is an amazing tool. I have people come to me and say, "Chuck, you've always told people, 'Don't give them the price upfront.'" I'm like, "Well, what you're really doing at the beginning of it, it's clickbait. Then when they come in, they see what they have. If they click that they want you to come out after they've seen that range of pricing, how can you not sell it?" You might want think twice about the sales rep if they can't sell it at that point, really.

So there's a lot of technology out there, that we all put it into our organization, but you have to look at how am I using it? How am I expecting my team? Where's the expectations? Then you have to look at whether you're going to continue to use it. I'm going to tell you that anything that you buy, there's a reason why you bought it.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And a plan. And a plan.

Chuck Thokey: And a plan.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And a plan. Adelaide, you're over there, you're just nodding. I mean, talk more about that.

Adelaide Opitz: Yeah. I love this conversation. I mean, like Chuck said, "There's so many tools out there, and there's more and more every single day." I mean, we're coming right up on IRE, which is going to be out there. I'm so looking forward to the opportunity to seeing everything new since last year. But it's always going to be an overwhelming experience, and where do you start?

That is really what I love about our structure at Mighty Dog. So we are a national brand, but we've got a core-support team here in Omaha that really has the opportunity to help lean in, vet some of these systems. And help with the rollout with all of our independently-owned locations to help them make the most of all of these technologies.

Really leaning in. I will say, and I promise I'm not being paid by Ingage here. But I fully believe that if you're not using Ingage in your sales presentations, that you are behind in your competition. Ingage truly makes everything so simple and straightforward for that sales rep in the home.

From a training perspective, it really gives the sales rep all the tools they need, without having to have somebody else in the home mentoring them, shadowing them. It really gives them the confidence to be able to go out there. Follow along in the pages. Make sure that they don't miss anything, so that they feel confident start to finish in that home presentation. I think that the age that we're in, technology is always evolving. We always have to be a few steps ahead of the game, otherwise we're always going to be behind.

Dean Curtis: I made a post on LinkedIn last week. It was one of these moments of, do I really want to say this and be? Because we're tech company and people stop using our software sometimes, believe it or not. I made a post about how we wasted $20,000 on a piece of software that we thought we were going to use, but we never used. We never fully realized and implemented it, and it was because we didn't have a great plan for implementing that software in our environment.

Chuck, you mentioned it. Every company has the best intentions. It's like, hopefully I'm not picking on a nerve for somebody right now, the gym membership you signed up for at the beginning of January that you're no longer using. It's that same thing of you have the best intention. You think it's going to solve a problem, but what we failed at as a company, we didn't train people on it. We didn't implement into our process. We didn't inspect people using it.

Here we are at the end of our first year of the service and we're saying, "It's not valuable anymore." It's not valuable not because the software isn't good. The software's really good. It has great promise. We didn't do what we needed to do, in order to ensure that we had all of the things in place to make it successful.

We didn't coach our team. We didn't have the expectations. We didn't inspect what we expect. All of those things are critical when you're deploying any software. Any technology. Any process within your environment.

So a humbling moment for sure, but it was definitely a good decision to save them money. Also, it made us really think through our process for deploying technology. Because my sales VP came to me the other day with another request for technology. Well, he got a lot of questions that maybe we should have asked last year when we put this other piece of technology in as well.

Adelaide Opitz: Absolutely. Okay. Yay, Heidi's back. That was really great advice though, Dean. I'd love to pivot because we have a comment from the chat here from Brad Sutter. The question is ...

Brad Sutter: Ia Ingage applicable to commercial projects, or geared toward homeowner presentations?

Dean Curtis: Yeah. I mean, I would think of it as anytime you have complex things that you're selling, that is really where we do well. Because you need to train people on how to sell those things, and have a very consistent process that you want them to follow, we're a great fit.

So when you think about why. I'll just piggyback on some things that Chuck and Adelaide said. They have a very defined sales process that they want their people to go through. We have the tools and the technology to ensure that they follow that through the presentation. We make it super beautiful, and interactive, so that you can capture and keep the attention of the person who's there. So, yeah, I think it can apply, but I'll step back and ask Chuck and Adelaide. I mean, if they think it could have applicability in commercial as well, I would say I'm probably biased to say, "Yes." To that.

Chuck Thokey: So I do want to add to this. We have a certain number of commercial companies, and we do turn them on to Ingage. It's funny, they're like, "Well, isn't that a residential?" I says, "Can you imagine this? When you're looking at commercial, it's always a big PowerPoint of the big aerial picture of the roof and then all the products everybody is going to give them." That's their proposal.

Can you imagine giving them an interactive proposal where it has buttons, it moves around and it's fun to go through? That's what they're going to remember. They want somebody that's memorable, and that they can trust and they're going to do the job right. So the first thing is, is that are they memorable? Hopefully, I'm not saying too much Dean, but you can now easily personalize and gauge, where you're not just redoing the presentation every time.

Adelaide Opitz: I love that. I would wholeheartedly agree. I think that it's definitely a new opportunity in the commercial space. It really gives you the opportunity to position yourself against some of your competition in that area to show we've leaned in. We've put the time in. We've dedicated ourselves to this, not just on drawing up the bid or the quote, but really personalizing this experience to you.
This was going to continue to be how we operate through you throughout the rest of this process, is making sure it adds that personal touch. That we're really speaking to what your pain points are, and what your needs are. I think that applies to a residential homeowner, and I do think that applies to a commercial situation as well.

Dean Curtis: Yeah. I mean, we talk about it a lot in our marketing materials now around the professionalization of your presentation. So a lot of folks will show up and you'll present something. Maybe, again, I don't want to sound disrespectful, but at the same time, a lot of times it's not the thing that they spend the most time on. It's like, "Yeah, here's the products and here's our process and here's what it is." We try to professionalize that in a way that you set yourself apart from everyone else who walks in the door because not everyone takes it seriously.

We did a solar project at my house. I had way to people come out and pitch to me because I really wanted to see how everyone presented. It was amazing. Most people had seven different apps on some device that they were toggling through to show me pictures on one thing. And then product information from a manufacturer on another thing. And then financing on another thing. It was mind-numbing to go through.

We try and simplify all of that to make it super professional, engaging on all of those things. Yeah. Sorry. I don't want to be a commercial. We want want to educate people, but it is helpful. It really is helpful.

Chuck Thokey: It's hard not to make Ingage a ... Come on. We can sit here and talk. I mean, we can sit here and talk about it all day.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Having sold commercially and knowing that process. Brad, I have to put out there and Tammy Hall, I see you on here with commercial. I personally think this is one of the coolest things you could do to have in front of building owners. I'm not doing a commercial either. I'm just saying, this is something that building owners are not used to seeing, these full presentations all in one place and with so much to talk about.

I just have to say because you guys really have, in my mind, I'm thinking of all the things we have to talk about commercially today. Whether it's severe weather, or EPD, environmental-product data or any of those on the systems obviously, which are very complicated. It makes for a great space, I think and something really for the commercial world to be thinking about.

We do have some more questions here. One came in from Kathy Ziprik who amazing. If anybody doesn't know Kathy, Good Morning, Kathy.

Kathy Ziprik: Adelaide, what do you need specifically for manufacturers to help you sell their products more in the field? What more can we do for you?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Kathy works with ... I'm just going to put it out there. She works with DaVinci, and they do some beautiful roofs. What can they do to help?

Adelaide Opitz: Yeah. I love this question. So we actually put out a survey to our whole system recently, regarding some of our manufacturer partnerships that we've led with. To really diagnose what are some of the areas that those manufacturers can continue to lean in on, and help grow that support in the new year. So I love the timing of this question being asked here.

For me, I'm always dedicated and focused on the training and development side. How can we get a little bit better every single time we do this? One area that we heard a ton of requests for additional support in, is really the local-representative interactions with our representatives. Are they engaging? Are they continuing to lead the continuing-education events? Are they going out into the field with the reps?

At a very basic level, are they having a conversation and making sure that the representative is confident selling that product? Do they understand the product? Are they going to be comfortable selling it in the home? I think that so often we see, again, so many product offerings out there, there's so many to select from and lead with. Are we really challenging ourselves to grow, and be really the best we can in that one particular area with that product?

So what I love about some of the partnerships that we've made over the years, is we do have those local representatives who are able to lean in, who are proactive about that communication too. They are reaching out, "Hey, how are you? How's this quarter been for you? How have things been going over this past month? It's been a crazy storm season. What are your pain points? What are your needs? Where can we lean in and help support you to grow as yourself in an individual role, but also grow your business in the local field?"

So I would say just the local support. The ongoing training. And building off of everything that they've worked together with that local representative on is so, so important for our locations.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Let's talk a little bit too, about Dean in working with manufacturers to follow up on that question. How do they work on making sure that the contractors can get their products in there? That they have the right information? And that it's constantly updated because things change?

Dean Curtis: Yeah. Totally. Part of our go-to-market strategy is we work directly with contracts. We also work with 50-plus manufacturers to build content from the manufacturer, that they can enable the individual contractor with those presentations.

We believe if you want to get up and running quickly on a piece of software, you need to have great templates and samples and content to use. I'm sure Adelaide doesn't want to go and build content for every one of the manufacturing partners that they're supporting. So that was our philosophy was why don't we go work with them, and get those presentations in our Ingage marketplace? So that when you're selling DaVinci, you could have DaVinci content already readily available to you.

Who's going to make it better? The contractor or the manufacturer? The manufacturer, right? They own the IP. They want their brand properly represented. So we're working with leading manufacturers to make that happen. Because we believe that if you enable people really quickly, they're going to be more successful.

Also, the manufacturers who provide that makes Adelaide's job a lot easier. So who is she going to train her people on is the people who make her job easier. So it's the high-tide-lifting-all-boats mentality of let's help each other be successful, and that's really what's going to drive the ultimate success of everyone's business.

Chuck Thokey: Hey Heidi, can I jump in as well?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Please.

Chuck Thokey: So Kathy, I just got done working with DaVinci, with Joe and Mike and Sully, Tom Salzman. We just did a big presentation for DaVinci. Here's the biggest problem that we have when it comes to a lot of the high-end products, is that sales reps love the race to the bottom. They want to win and they want the easy shot, right? And so it's easy to sell the shingle on a house that probably needs a DaVinci roof. I mean, a three, four, four million house, it needs and it deserves a better roof, but yet the sales rep, they want the easy sale.

The other thing is people don't buy. The homeowners only buy what's presented to them. So if they're not presenting this in the house, then they can't buy it. The reason why they're not presenting it in the house most of the time, is because they don't know how to present it in the house. We spend, or the manufacturer spends so much time trying to educate them on the product, they don't educate them on how to present the product to them.

With DaVinci, most people don't know that there are designers that will help them pick a color. I mean, it's so cool what DaVinci can do. Again, here we go with a commercial for DaVinci now. But it's so cool what they can do, but most people don't know that that's even available, the support that Westlake and DaVinci give to the homeowner.

I had a marketing company. It was the Geico marketing company came into Able once. They asked the question, "What do people buy? When you present to them, what do they buy?" I said, "This is going to sound very morbid, but it's the easiest answer. They buy what I tell them to buy. So if my favorite color is brown on a roof, then 90% of the roofs that I sell are going to be brown. So if I like a certain brand, if I like a certain color, then that's mostly what they're going to buy."

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. And so, having the manufacturers really work closely with those sales teams to understand what's going on. I know I dropped off right when I asked this question, but I'm still, I'm going to bring it back around because not sure how much you talked about it, but business intelligence.
So when contractors are out there trying to add new lines to their program. Whether it's a DaVinci, or it's metal roofing or something and they want to expand. The business intelligence behind technology on what they're looking at on the pre-sale. What they're looking at during the sale. Where they stop. The questions. Educating them ahead of time. Dean, just talk a little bit about that.

Dean Curtis: Yeah. I'll give an example. So imagine you send a piece of content out to the homeowner, and it's literally one page. On that page are three pictures, and they could tap on three pictures. The first one is a typical asphalt roof. The next one is a beautiful DaVinci roof. The next one is a metal roof. I don't even know if you would do this, but just as an example.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I think it's a great idea.

Dean Curtis: Then all of a sudden when the sales rep's about to go out to that home, they go in and they look at the analytics on the back end to say, "Hey, did that customer even view the presentation? If they did, which one did they tap on and spend the most time on?" So now as you go into their home, you know that they were most interested in the metal roof or maybe they never tapped on it. So now can you tailor what you think, or how you're going to communicate and how you're going to present in the home, based on that pre-appointment information that you sent out?

Very simple example, but why not? Why not have a leg up on the conversation that maybe even, "Oh, you know what? I don't really sell metal too much. But I better brush up on that training before I go into their home because metal is the thing that they're most interested in." Maybe it's a terrible example, but I think that's the kind of thing when you're talking about business intelligence, that you need to have that data. That's one of the things that we do.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I think that is powerful. Chuck, I mean, as salespeople, there's nothing better. Because like you said, "Race to the bottom." I always hate it if I go into a sale and I'm like, "I undersold. They would've done so much more if I just would've known." I mean, that's powerful stuff.

Chuck Thokey: Yeah. We say that, "We save homeowners, we don't sell them." Many times that's meaning we're trying to keep them away from the rough contractors that are going to tell them about a warranty, and never actually turn the warranty in or whatever the case may be. It also is about products. We do have the race to the bottom. If it's easier to sell this, it's not going on my house, so it's easy to sell this product. I wouldn't put it on my house, but it's easy to sell it to them.

They need to care more about the homeowner than they do the commission, and the money will come. There's a phrase that we use all the time that if you just care enough, you do the right thing, the money will be there. The commission will always be there. Nine times out of ten, that commission will be much more because you're selling them a better product. More expensive product, but a better product that is going to protect that homeowner.

We go around a lot of these. When we come in for on-sites, I'm going to go around and ask people, "Can you tell me about the last couple, husband and wife or whatever, that you were able to sell?" They go into this big, long explanation of their job and what they do. I says, "You now know more about that homeowner than their neighbors do." I said, "Do you care about them?" They're like, "Yeah." I says, "Then give them the products they need. Don't leave wondering, 'Man, I really hope that works out for them.'"

Heidi J. Ellsworth: They need the types of products that are going to protect their roof. I mean, in being in storm restoration for so many years, Adelaide, that's the key is to be able to get homeowners to that next level, right?

Adelaide Opitz: Right. I love following up on what Chuck was saying there. I always like to think of it more as we're here to sell a solution to a problem. We're not here to sell a product. I think that I see so often in the industry, especially for folks who have been doing this for a long time, they'll get so focused on the granular. On the nitty-gritty of the products. Here's what this great impact-resistant shingle does now, and this is the latest technology out there.

When for the homeowner, they just need a fix to their problem. They've got a leak in their kitchen. They've got water coming in. They have a serious need. So if we can present to the customer as just selling the simple solution. Here's how we can fix it. Make your home a little prettier along the way. I think that goes so much further with a lot of homeowners, than diving so deep into the product side, giving them so many options.

If we can keep it simple. Take a step back. Give them a few options to choose from. I think it breaks down a lot of barriers with that customer, and really helps us get to that solve a little bit faster with them.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. My mind is whirling right now thinking about all this. I want to just real quick on the commercial side too, Brad, Tammy and everybody out there who's commercial, think about solar. If you can be talking to people ahead of time, and talking to those building owners and really what are their needs? What do they really need, and solve that problem for them. That's powerful.

Okay. I don't think it would be sales if we didn't talk about CRMs. And the importance of integrations that are going on with all of the technologies, and the partnerships that are happening throughout the roofing industry right now. So, Dean, talk just a little bit about that importance of CRMs and how all of these technologies are integrating for that seamless experience.

Dean Curtis: Yeah. I mean, our big focus in 2025 is to figure out and we have the technology to do this, to take what is relevant in the CRM and include it in the presentation that you're delivering in the home. So if I know that Adelaide lives on a certain address, why can't I have that address on the front page of the presentation?

It may seem like a very simple, simple thing, but that level of personalization, to know that someone took the time and care. Maybe it's an aerial shot from Google that just shows up as a picture within the presentation. What our whole philosophy is, if we can personalize the presentation, so that the person feels more connected to it, we believe that you're going to have a higher chance to sell that. Because not everyone who's walking in their door is going to do that. If you can set yourself apart by personalizing it in such a way that you can bring a greater connection, that's huge.

So we have technology that enables you to do that through our profiles. Most importantly, it doesn't take a lot of effort from the salesperson. It actually takes no effort. So if Adelaide has dozens and dozens of locations, the team picture and the company story, depending on who opens the presentation and where they are, it's the right team picture.

Adelaide's team doesn't have to go build 20 different versions of the presentation just to ensure that the team is correct, or the business license is correct or the insurance certificate. We've taken care of making that simpler for the operational side of the business, but more importantly, it's connecting with the customer.

A very simple example. Maybe the first page of what you're presenting in the home, is a picture of a home based on where you live, right? Florida, very different than Denver, very different than Maine. Well, we can make sure that that happens and we can figure it out based on CRM data, lots of different things.

So to go back to your question around CRM, it's really important. Because if you have all the great information, you've taken care to build that. Why not use that to tailor the presentation, and personalize it for a great experience for your customer?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Talk CRMs, I mean, same thing. All these integrations and how they're using them. I know I have to say, I've worked with several sales teams that just hated putting input into a CRM. How important is that and how is that part of your training?

Chuck Thokey: So having the right CRM is huge. So when you're shopping for CRMs, make sure it does what you need it to do. I'm going to lose some sponsors by saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway. There are no great CRMs out of the box. You have to make that CRM work for you. No matter what CRM you get, you've got to make it work for you. That's what makes a great CRM.

When you're looking at sales, we have to get the data into that CRM based on what happened while we were in the house. Now we work with a lot of contractors on the inside-outside sales model. We love it because the inside sales person, they're trying to get the rapport over the phone, not just take the lead.

So we train them on how to get that first rapport. Then sell the tech, or the estimator or whatever you want to call them, when they get out there. Then the estimator sells the inside sales person, so there's a team cohesion. And so, both of them putting notes in the system are very, very important.

The other thing that we have to look at is if you do use a recording device. That instead of just having the one field for the sales reps' notes, you have to have two, for the sales reps notes and then for the recording-AI notes. So with Rila, it'll spit out a whole detailed explanation as to what actually happened. So a sales rep is going to make excuses, and then that AI recording does not make excuses and so, it literally spells out everything that happened.

Because we also know that five, six, seven years ago, we counted on everybody to close on the house 60% of the time. Now it's actually dropped to 40% of the time, and that's only because people have gotten lazy. Organizations have gotten lazy. It's not that the buyers do things differently.

With that being said, if you don't have that information, then how are you going to follow up? Because sales reps don't follow up. I'm sure that some of you out there have some unicorns in your team that actually will make a phone call after they leave the house, but we will put in an inside-outside team because of that. When the outside guy or person leaves the house, they turn it back over to the inside sales rep and they take it from there. Their job is to clean up that CRM. So The CRM is very, very important, but garbage in, garbage out.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. Yeah. Adelaide, what do you guys use? How is this working for you?

Adelaide Opitz: Yeah. I love that. Actually, I love what Chuck said too here, that I wanted to talk a little bit more about. It's really about making the CRM work for you, and having that process built out. If you build that process correctly, you train your staff, you educate them and get alignment across your whole team, that's your lifeline. That will drive your business so much further than you could ever imagine.

For us, we track nine active KPIs throughout our business, to really focus on more of the activities that are going in to drive some of the data there. I will say that really having automation set up in your pipeline is important. But with how many applications there are out there that you can integrate into your CRMs, again, there's so many offerings.

How are you using them? Are you using them efficiently? The correct way? Are you keeping up on them? Are you making sure that you're still using them in the best way possible? Is this actually relevant to your customer, the way that you're utilizing them?

They can be nice on the front-end. To offload some of those administrative tasks that you find yourself burning a lot of time and energy on a lot of that follow-up that nobody likes to do. If it's not effective, if it's not engaging your customer, it's not piquing their attention. You're probably burning time and resources where you could be rewriting your process. And aligning your team a little bit stronger on the front-end of those activities, to be able to come out with a better resolution on the end.

I think too, really, when you're looking at your data and developing your KPIs or really the metrics you want to track, looking for those bottlenecks in the process. A lot of times that does come down to training and the process. With the process you've built out, does your whole team understand it? And do they understand how their role operates within that pipeline? What stages of the business they're responsible for, and is there that alignment across the team?

I think if you don't have that, if that process mapped out and you're not continuing to check that, then that can fall off the tracks so quickly. Then you end up in a position where you've lost so much time, burned so many resources, that you could have really put into place and organized from the start.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. That's so true. So Adelaide, you have piqued some interest out here. We have both Ty and Matt asking if you would mind sharing those nine KPIs that you focus on?

Adelaide Opitz: Yeah. I could speak to some of them for sure. So one thing that we do is when we look at our leads, we're going to break them down between an organic versus a paid opportunity. And really start to diagnose, okay, are we funneling too much money into our digital side? And we're not leaning into that organic side where we need to put together a plan? Whether that be a canvassing effort. Whether that be my favorite, which is leaning more into the referral side of the business, which I think we can all probably do a better job at.

So really tracking the spread. Making sure we're balanced evenly organic, between digital. I don't think I've ever heard a roofing company say they have too many leads, so making sure that we're really tapping into all sides of that business.

Then we're tracking all of our closing ratios. Our estimate-delivery ratios. The margins that we're selling on. All of that data to really gauge the sales reps' activity. Are they being efficient in the home? Are they challenging themselves? Are they truly pushing themselves the most? Where can we lean in? Are there opportunities for us to bring in other resources, other technologies to help them to improve that data?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's great. That's excellent. Well, I want to talk just a little bit about some of the things, because you mentioned it, Adelaide, training. Training is so important. So let's talk just a little bit. I'm going to bring up our information here so that everybody can see it. Excuse me one second. Okay, there we go. It should be coming up. Yes. Okay.

So Dean, I would love it for you to share, one, your commitment to really the training that we continue to hear about and the Ski Chalet. You have a couple of trainings during the year. So let's just talk about the importance of sales training. Then between you and Chuck, talking a little bit about what that's going to look like.

Dean Curtis: Yeah. I mean, I'll say this. When people start using our software, they're very focused on the sales presentation. We've already talked today about pre-appointment even before you're coming in. We haven't even talked about post-appointment, or production or what are the other use cases.
The key is though, none of it works without training, right? I'll go back to the example I used earlier. We spent all this money on a piece of software. We didn't properly train people, so it never got used. So we provide training for all of the different people in this stack who use our software. Whether that's the admins who need to administer the system to make sure everybody's getting what they need when they need it, and it's always up-to-date. The designers who are creating that content.

Two times a year we hold training events. The winter session is called Ski Chalet. The summer event is called Summer Camp. Catchy, fun names to keep some fun around it. This winter, we have it coming up in January, we're going to be focusing on two big things. So the first day is going to be focusing on content personalization, and coaching. So we're actually going to be working with Rila, who Chuck mentioned earlier, is going to be one of the featured speakers on those training sessions.

It's one of these things where you can register once. You can attend live, or you can actually watch all the replays. It's two half days of training, basically. So lots of different sessions on very different topics. Whether it's how do you add personalization within into your presentations, like I was talking about. Of either connecting to a CRM, or using profiles to ensure that the pictures get updated and all that kind of stuff.

The second day is about improving face-to-face connections. How can you use content at home shows, and in your marketing efforts? Also in the sales process, how can you train your people better around the use of content in those interactions?

It's not all product training, right? It's not all this is how you do. It's really what we want to do is bring best-in-class people in the industry to talk about these really important topics. So you can get the most value out of the investment that you make in any technology. Not just what we do, but and also the most value you get out of the time you spend training your people.

As I talk to business owners all the time, it is a delicate balance between the amount of time they're out of the field and in the field. And how do you get the most juice from the squeeze of that training? This is an example of us trying to provide some value to the market around these different topics around personalization, as well as face-to-face interactions.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Chuck, training. Training this time of year. Training year round. These kinds of opportunities, talk about that.

Chuck Thokey: So a mentor of mine, Brian Gottlieb of Tundraland. He helped me to realize that a very long time ago, that I'm sure that everybody's heard this. That we're a sales and marketing organization. We just happen to sell roofing. Guys, we're way past that and it's now every organization just needs to be a training organization.

People wanted to find out how we were able to take. When I came into Able, there was about 60 million. In four years, we've built it to 220 million and it was because I trained, and trained and trained. When they were sick and tired of being trained, I trained them one more time.

Now most of my sales reps either own their own companies. They're managers or VPs in other companies because they have been trained so well, so often and that we mastered. Then what we talk about is we go from, we know it, to we master it, to we go pro.

And so, you have to keep training. Most people think that it's like riding a bike. Understanding how to sell, or understanding the roofing industry is not like riding a bike. It's like shaving. You go two days without you're just a bum, and so you have to just keep it going over and over and over.

When we go into a sales meeting, they know what we're going to do. We don't go over what colors are discontinued in a sales meeting. They know that we have a topic, and we're going to go through that topic, it's two hours. If your sales meeting is one hour, stop. Just throw it in the trash because you can't do anything for an hour.

It's two hours. We're going to train them for an hour and then we're going to practice for an hour. Because by the time we leave that Tuesday meeting that we want them to have mastered, or at least know it so well that they can use it in the field, whatever it is that we trained.

And so, the other thing here, Adelaide had mentioned the KPIs. Well, now you get to figure out what KPIs? if you do the right thing with your KPIs that you're going to know what you need to train on. When we look at NSLI, which is your Net Sale Per Lead Issued, your Net Sale Per Lead Issued will take your close rate, your average sale and your profitability all in one number.

Well, we've gone one further where we want to know the NSLP, which is your Net Sale Per Lead Presented, so now we know what our sit rate is. I want to know did my sales rep leave a quote in the house? If he or she did not, I want to know why.

Then I'm going to go back to my phone team and say, "Okay. Our sit rate is now below 75%. We're going to go through these calls. We're going to find out why our sales team can't seem to get into a presentation." Now if it's my sales team and they're so weak that they can't get into a presentation because the homeowner's not chasing them around with a checkbook, we need to figure that out as well.

So again, when you're going through your training, you have to know what to train. You can't just watch a TikTok and say, "You know what? I think I'm going to train them on that today." So is it going to be question-based techniques? Is it going to be when they get into the house, how do they find that shrine? There's a lot of things that you can do inside your sales meetings to bring that training. When we look at training, it has to be consistent.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. I tell you, I mean, this is the great stuff. So real quick, Chuck, because we are there. Can you type in your contact information? Because I know there's going to be people out there who want to get ahold of you. I already see that someone has LinkedIn with Adelaide. So Adelaide, if you want to put your contact information in.

Adelaide Opitz: Yeah. Absolutely.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Dean's putting his in, but you can also find them on Roofers Coffee Shop in the directory for Ingage, where you can get everything in there. I just saw Kathy's hand was up, so I'm not sure if Kathy was going to ask a question, but if you want to put that in the chat.

Last thoughts, because we're right at the end of our hour. Oh, just so you know, Tammy Hall is going to get a demo tomorrow. I can tell you what, she's one of my favorite people. You guys are going to have fun. Adelaide, last thoughts for 2025 for all the roofing companies out there. What's your advice?

Adelaide Opitz: Absolutely. I think I did want to hit on something that Chuck said here about, "Always continuing to train and being consistent about it." I think that's huge. I don't care how long you've been in the industry, how many times you've done this, we all have an opportunity to learn from someone else.

That is something that we really try to highlight across our whole team. Whether it's our team of business coaches who are directly supporting our roofers, or it's the roofers themselves being proactive about those opportunities. Especially this time of year when things are a little bit slower, making the most of your time. Making yourself level up. Having those opportunities to get bigger and better, and embrace the season fully.

I think going into the new year, it's not so much about changing the strategy, but making sure your whole team is aligned on the same page. That you're all speaking the same message. I think that goes so much further than we take credit for.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Great advice. What a great nugget to leave everybody on. I want to thank you all. This has been so interesting. Thank you so much for being on today.

Adelaide Opitz: Thanks so much for having us.

Dean Curtis: Yeah. Thanks, Heidi.

Outro: Thank you. Please, everybody, the link to the Ski Chalet is in the chat. You can get more information. It's on the directory. This is the kind of technologies that you need for your business as we're going forward. Thank you again, Ingage, for everything you do.

I do want to let everyone know. February 6th, we are going to have our first ever metal coffee conversation. It's going to be on how to bring metal tiles, especially for asphalt shingle companies. You want to start bringing metal into your business. How do you do it? That's what it's going to be all about. Experts are going to be here to talk about that, so really exciting. February 6th, watch for that. Thank you all, and we will be seeing you again very soon on Coffee Conversations. Have a great day.