Matching Software Solutions to Company Culture and Vision

By Colin Sheehan, RCS Reporter. 

Industry-leading salespeople discuss their process for aligning software with a contractor’s personalized needs. 

RCS Partner Heidi J. Ellsworth virtually meets with Estimating Edge salespeople, Jackie Hart and John Lombardo, on this informative Roofing Road Trips Podcast. Jackie and John are industry leaders in software sales and are most concerned with making a difference for their contractor customers. In this podcast, the longtime salespeople discuss relationship sales and the importance of understanding a client's pain points and personal needs when it comes to choosing an estimating software. They also talk through how they match software to company culture and vision in order to provide the best and most productive long-term fit.  

Jackie Hart is a regional sales rep located in the Midwest region. She has spent a little over four years with Estimating Edge working in consultive sales, however, she’s been selling software in the construction industry for 23 years. “I’ve sold CRM, point-of-sale service and warranty, legacy integration with a lot of back-office emphasis and am blessed to be selling the takeoff and estimating solutions,” said Jackie. 

John started at Estimating Edge in 1990 as a representative for the Southeast U.S. and since then has worked with many contractors throughout the trades, helping them implement software solutions into their businesses.  

“Over the years I stayed in that position because I just love working with people and giving customers what they are looking for in a software, I love to give them answers and solutions to their problems. It's just fun,” said John. 

As software salespeople, John and Jackie describe a main component of their role as taking in a contractor's world. They speak to the importance of understanding and analyzing what each individual contractor is facing as well as the contractor’s aims for both everyday operations and long-term goals. Once John and Jackie consider all of this information, they can provide contractors with the software solutions they need.   

“You’ve got to open your ears and listen and try to understand what their position is all about to try to give them the answers they think they want, but they may not know what they want. It’s a difficult thing, but they have to have the trust that we understand what they’re trying to do,” said John. 

The two talked about the all-important “aha moment” that occurs when a contractor realizes where their dysfunction lies and that there are steps they can take to mitigate the problem areas in their businesses. 

“They’ve done their ‘day by day’ for so long that sometimes they don’t know that there’s a solution or an opportunity out there to do it better and more efficiently,” said Jackie. “Once they have that ‘aha moment,’ there's no turning back.”  

Listen to the entire podcast to learn more about estimating software that solve business problems and provide long-term sucess.