Rick Davis - Sales Tips for Contractors - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Rick Davis of ABC Supply. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

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Karen Edwards: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Roofing Road Trips. I'm your host, Karen Edwards and I am really excited for our topic today because we have Rick Davis from ABC Supply and we're going to be sharing some of the best sales tips in the industry today.
Rick, welcome.

Rick Davis: Thank you. I am so excited to be here and be talking with you today.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, so why don't you introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about you and your background.

Rick Davis: Yeah, I've been with ABC now for three years. But prior to that, I have a forty-year journey in the construction industry. Most of it has been as a sales educator.

And when ABC brought me to the team, I was very excited because I found an organization of the hundreds I've worked with that has a culture I couldn't believe and does things to help our contractors succeed, like join you on a podcast like this.

But I don't say that I'm ever been a roofing contractor. I've done a lot of contracting work for homeowners, but I really think what qualifies me to help is that I've done a lot of home improvement projects on my 125-year-old home.

I've worked with a lot of contractors, and I think from a buyer's perspective, it helps me see what can help contractors. Plus coupling that with my sales experience as a trader and educator.

Karen Edwards: Very well said. A 125-year-old home, I'm sure that needs a lot of projects, doesn't it?

Rick Davis: Won't do that again.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Live and learn. We live and learn.

So you kind of approach things... You have a, not necessarily a four-step process, but there's four... What word did you use to describe them? Phases?

Rick Davis: Yeah, I think that every contractor, when they're thinking about their interaction, I'm talking about with the consumer. For the low slope, maybe the more commercial type, it's a B2B sort of thing. But when I'm talking to the steep slope, we're talking about retail, we're talking about something to the consumer.

So we're talking about delivering some form of a promise. What are you going to do? What should the consumer expect from you? And I think that's an important thing that a lot of contractors don't consider that you want a brand. You know that?

And the second thing is that how are you going to leverage the sales process? What are you going to do during the interaction to close the deal, get the sale, whatever you want to call it.

Then the third step is, of course, the actual experience. And I think it's easy for a contractor to figure, I'll just get my guys here and we'll do the job. But I think they can leverage that whole experience to create more referrals, a happier customer, more Google reviews. All the things that are going to help them drive traffic to their organization, website-generating leads.

And then something that I like to call the validating sale. What they can do after the sale to reinforce the experience and again, leverage that moment for more referrals, more opportunities in the future.

Karen Edwards: Okay. So let's start with the first phase and the promise and dive a little bit deeper. What does that mean? What should a contractor be thinking about while they're, I guess, developing what their promise is going to be?

Rick Davis: Yeah, great question. And I think the first thing they should be thinking about is the fact that they do this every day of their lives. And the typical consumer might buy two roofs in their lifetime, probably one. But they're not doing this every day.

Karen Edwards: I agree. I agree. I work from my home and people come knocking on my door and I don't answer the door because I see them with their clipboard in their hand and they're going to try to sell me windows. They're going to try to sell me a roof. And I don't want to talk to him. I don't want him in my house.

Rick Davis: Yeah. So there's this pre-conceived notion like you're guilty until proven innocent, right? Yes. Oh my God. So what we want to try to do is overcome that, and I think the best way to do that is to have a prepared thought process, a promise that you're going to deliver.

And so I think the promise has to be that we're going to shepherd you through a difficult experience. We're going to make this easy for you. And I think for the contractor, they're so used to doing it, they haven't stopped to analyze the buyer's perspective. They don't know what's going to happen.

They don't know everything that goes into it. They don't know that their home's going to be a construction zone, that going to have to be cleaned up at the end of the day. That if they've got a pet, that the pet's going to have to be kept safe. That there's going to be dust if it's an older home that it's going to come through. That the walls might jiggle a little and you might want to take some of your precious paintings off the wall and pictures and things like that.

So I think that the good move in the promise is to let people know we're going to shepherd them through an experience. Before I continue, what do you think of that idea?

Karen Edwards: Yeah, I like it. You've got to tell people what to expect, because they have no idea what's coming.

Rick Davis: Yeah, and I think the other thing is then when you deliver that promise, it's how you do it. On your website, you should have one. It's not hard to have a website. If it's a Facebook page that you're using, I think it's really important that your message to your customers has a very clear thought process. "We're going to help you through this. You're going to be relieved."

And then the second part of that is that when you have those messages on your website, wherever it is, you want to create some calls to action. You want to create some interaction with people. And I think that really is what it takes to establish a really great brand promise.

So for example, if I've got a website, rather than just say click here for a free estimate, want to get some stronger calls to action. We're going to give you a free Consultation or click here to find out. Get our document. What you should expect when expecting a new roof.

You like that?

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. It's a play on those pregnancy books. What to expect when you're expecting. I like it.

Rick Davis: What to expect when you're expecting. And some of the things that I did is some brainstorming with a contractor that I consulted with years ago. When all the salespeople say, "Oh, it's just price. You don't get it."

No, no, no. And we went on sales calls and tested an idea, and the idea was that we would tell them, your home's going to be construction zone. All the things I just mentioned to you. We're going to clean up at the end of the day, but your shrubs or your grass is going to get trampled a little bit.

People don't think about that, and this is what the experience is going to be. But we're going to make this painless and easy and as easy as possible for you. And I think when you start talking in their language, their expectations, their vernacular, I think what you do is you create a quicker connection. So that's the whole brand promise that I think that the contractor should consider leveraging.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, I think it's important for the contractor, too, to tell them how they may mitigate some of that. We're going to protect your landscaping because we hang protective sheets and we're going to stage our equipment in the driveway to avoid damage to your lawn. And move your vehicles for us. There's a lot that goes into that.

Rick Davis: It's funny you say that because when I interviewed some sales reps for one of my clients, it was the contractor. I said, "What is it that you think they don't know that they should know?"

And one said, "Well, I don't think they expected dumpster to show up."

And one said, "Yeah, and we put ours on two by sixes because that way there's no risk of damage to the driveway."

I said, "I don't understand,"

He says, "Well, if you don't use the right width strength of wood, it could leave a dent in the driveway."

I said, "That's worth talking about.

That's the thing that puts the consumer at ease, right? And that's the whole game. That's the whole star of the promise.

Karen Edwards: Sure. So we've shared the promise and then we're going to move into the next phase. And that's the sale, right?

Rick Davis: Yeah. So I'm going to say something a little controversial right now. I think for a lot of roofers, I do not believe that you have to have a one-call close every time.

Karen Edwards: What? Blasphemy! All the other sales trainers out there are just rolling their eyes.

Rick Davis: I'm really different. I'm not saying I'm right, but it's my opinion that the old style of you got to use the 'how much too much is it closed,' the 'reduce to the absurd,' the 'ridiculous porch light close.'.

And some of those gimmicks are (A) so old school and so inauthentic that it's an insult to the consumer. And more importantly, (B) I don't think a lot of salespeople are comfortable behaving that way.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, that's a good point.

Rick Davis: We're asking them to do something that's really high pressure, inauthentic and not connecting to the buyer.

So one client that is a big customer of ours at ABC Supply asked us to do a program. I was the speaker for it. And I said, "You need to know something. I'm not a big proponent of this 'get it closed on the first opportunity.'"

He said, "Perfect."

They closed 72% of their sales on the second close or further.

Karen Edwards: Wow. Yeah, that's impressive.

Rick Davis: It is impressive. It's impressive they track it. It's impressive that they accept that as a possibility. I'm not opposed to the one call close, but you've got to leave yourself open for the next.

So the sale itself, in my opinion, is to be (A) how do you establish that connection? What are you doing to make sure that you're building the right rapport? Don't always assume you should get into the small talk about family and all the other stuff because not everybody wants that. Get into the business of it. Get into what they're looking for. And I think there's some key questions that every contractor should ask. They should be wondering why now? I think it's a perfect question to open things up. What's going on? What change in your life that's causing you to have this conversation with me today?

Is it a leak? Are they doing something as in a major renovation? Are they going to be doing more out of the house? What's the motivation behind it? What's the timing? When does this have to be done?

As a side note, Karen, I think that we teach our salespeople that in order to be able to build strength in your pricing structure and all that, you have to treat abundance. You either have to have a lot of customers, so you're not afraid to walk away from a bad negotiation or you have to have lots of prospects. I think a lot of contractors may be listening to this podcast, don't realize that the top contractors have a backlog of business waiting. And when you have a backlog of customers waiting for work, you don't feel so pressured to lower your price. You don't feel so out of control and so victimized by somebody saying, you came in way too high or something.

Karen Edwards: Yeah.

Rick Davis: So I think that that's an important thing for all of our listeners to consider. But then really when I go through that sales process, I think you should ask some questions prepared. Why now? What's going on? Maybe they can wait three months. Maybe they're not thinking about doing it right away. Get that information.

What's the goal of this? Some people are doing because they have a house, other people have a home. For some people it's just a shelter. For other people, it's a bragging piece. It's a statement of their lifestyle. And I think you need to start discovering those sorts of things.

Here's a great question I think they should ask all consumers. What is your experience dealing with home improvement? Because there are some people that have never done it and there's some people that are pretty experienced like myself. The reason you ask is to get back to the other thing we're going to talk about. Let's talk about what you should expect when you're expecting a new roof.

I had a document, I would teach people. To slide to them. We laminated it. It would include things like your house is going to be construction zone. We're going to be starting the work at approximately nine o'clock.

And by the way, the next one everybody knows. Most people know this. If you don't mind, I'm going to just let your neighbors know who's going to be here, that we're going to be here and shake their hands so if they have any questions or somebody... I'm going to let them know that they've got a pet and I'll put this in my proposal. Fluffy, Fluffy, the pit bull... You like that? Fluffy?

If Fluffy the pit bull, we need to make sure Fluffy is safe and you're going to have to account for that. And by the time you're done, you've put them at ease about the sales process. Then you start discussing what you're going to do. I think is incumbent upon the roofing contractor to teach people that it's a system, not just a roof. And again, I think a lot of people hearing this say, "Duh, we all know that."

Well, you know that now. But I'm starting one-on-one. I think that's really important. So I think a big part of the sale for me should be education. I think when people feel educated, they feel aware, they feel safe and I think that's a big part of it. I think that the salesperson should remove their preconceived notions because I have a lot on other shopping. Oh, it's best. Oh, they've got all these contractors showing up. I don't know what your experience is. I'm going to say this as a sentence in the form of a question. I want you to comment on this. I think we're so happy when we get somebody to show up that says they're going to show up, but to do something at our own these days, we're just thrilled they even showed up. What do you think?

Karen Edwards: I agree. I've been on... There's a website, it's called Nextdoor and it's like a social, but it's for neighborhoods.

Rick Davis: We we have that in my neighborhood too. Yeah.

Karen Edwards: And one of the biggest things that people are looking for are contractors. And one of the things that people are complaining about is, "I called him, he didn't show up. He's supposed to show up three times. Oh, he told me somebody was in the hospital."

So it is a big frustration and people are happy when you say you're going to be there and you actually are there. That scores a lot of points.

Rick Davis: When I did at exterior renovation in my home, I was in a new roof, new siding, five color Victorian, the whole nine yard, the whole shebang, right? One guy showed up and gave me a price on the spot, just wanted to do the roof, not the rest of it. One guy I never heard from who said, "Yeah, I'll call you back."

One guy who I actually knew from a past life as a customer of mine, never showed up. His assistant called a half an hour after he was supposed to be there to reschedule. I rescheduled. He didn't still show up. And the guy that showed up got my business. He came by three times. Took three times to help us get everything right.

Just show up. If you just show up on the sale, your chances for sale success will go up exponentially. I think you can close on the opening meeting, but you got to leave yourself a 'be back' reason.

Karen Edwards: Okay.

Rick Davis: Allow that to grow organically, and if you feel like you might not get it, maybe you're going to come back a second time to deliver your proposal rather than drop it the first time. Maybe say, "Great, let put some things together."

And your proposal should be more than a price and a list of materials. It should be what the experience is going to be, what we're going to do, what the timelines are, who your contact person is, what I heard and observed about your home and what your desires are. I think that can happen in that first call or can happen on a later call. Right?
Want to hear about Best-Better-Good?

Karen Edwards: I do. Yeah. I'm curious. Because it's ingrained. I think Good-Better-Best. Good-Better-Best. I need these three options. But you're flipping that around and starting with the best.

Rick Davis: I am, and there's a number of powerful reasons, but mostly I've tested this several times and it works. Best-Better-Good is the idea that you don't start with the average product and they get the better one and they get to the best. There's a lot of reasons for this.

First off, you're asking people to consider what they can do with their budget, but if you're willing to spend more... And that's a negative feeling for the buyer. So right away you've imposed a constraint on their psychology, whether you realize it or not. That's the first one.

The second one is I think salespeople do that because spending other people's money for them, right?

Karen Edwards: That's true.

Rick Davis: It's a very humbling moment in your sales career when you sell a window package that costs more than your entire home. That happened to me. I sold a window package for $245,000, which was $30,000 more than I bought my first home for 1990 or whatever it was. So don't spend other people's money for them.

Here's the real power. It's called the law of contrast. When you offer the higher option, people will come down if they need to. But studies have shown that when you give them the higher option first by the law of contrast, when you give them the three options, start with the higher one first, they more often gravitate towards the middle than if you start with the lower one and try to elevate it.

Worse yet that if you start with the lower one, it's much more difficult to get them to the best category. There was a Seattle builder that worked with a client of mine once and they would sell big homes. $3 million houses.

And the way that this builder worked, he said, here's the materials we put in it and you can switch anything out. But if you don't, I don't warrant those materials. I only warrant the ones that I recommend.

Karen Edwards: Yeah.

Rick Davis: Pretty cool, right? That's confidence. So that's my philosophy on Best-Better-Good selling.
The other reason, if you start with Good-Better-Best, they say, okay, this is how much it'll cost for this stuff. I better shop this and see what else I can do. When you start with Best-Better-Good, you've done their shopping for them.

Karen Edwards: Right.

Rick Davis: They don't need to make sure, keep you honest and make sure that they can. I think there's a negotiation opportunity implicit in that. I think this is the first time I thought about it, but the negotiation opportunity implicit in that is that if they don't like your price, well maybe the best is the right product for you. Maybe the good is the right product for you.

So instead of just having to lower your price and your margins and your profitability, you can give them some alternatives which help you in your negotiation in the moment.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Okay, so now we've talked about that and I want to go to the third phase. We have two more phases to talk about, and the third phase is the project installation. So tell me about that.

Rick Davis: Again, I think a lot of our listeners, probably your listeners are probably already doing this, but you need to have a key contact on the job. I'm amazed how many times I've had people that I don't know who they are, I don't know their names, I don't know who's in charge and if there's a problem with a neighbor or something goes wrong, I've got a question, I need to know who to go to. So they need to know there's going to be a key contact on the job.

I think another thing that's really important is obviously things like the cleanup at the end of the day and all those other things, but I just really believe that they should teach their staff members to know the names of the people they're working for and even introduce themselves. And I've had some that do that and some I don't know who's in my house. So I think it's just really important to consider that when you're on the job, it's not just getting materials on the home. It's about connecting with the homeowner so that they have confidence in the people and the touch, the personal touch and the communication. And I think anything you do to do that is good.

Obviously to ask permission, it's okay to have the music and all that. But I think they should teach them to wear the right shirt, get something logo-ed. Just to be courteous, to not always say sir and ma'am, but Mrs. Lewis, Mr. Lewis, things like that. And introduce themselves. I'm John, if you need help, boom. I'm Rick. I'm here to help.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Yeah, it's the small touches that can make a difference.

Rick Davis: It is small touches. It is small touches that feel good.

Karen Edwards: Well, I was just going to say and then when the project's done, the installation is done, it doesn't mean that the project's done, right? Or that the sale is done. So I want to make sure we talk a little bit about that.
Roof is installed, great. Now what?

Rick Davis: So what I advise contractors to do is to leave a folder at the conclusion of the project. And a lot do this. Home builders do this. At the conclusion of the project, the sales rep should say, "Mr. and Mrs. Jones, I'm going to be in the area later this week. I would love five minutes of your time to leave some important information with you and to thank you properly for the work we were able," and get that meeting.

The folder has the warranty information on all the products you supplied, the brand, the colors. If there was windows, maybe you had to do a dormer or something like that. The windows and the brand of Windows and the warranty on that, the maintenance schedule. That's where you sell your annual maintenance schedule. So I think it's really important to leave, what I like to call, the validating presentation.

That's where you ask them if they'd be willing to give you a Google review. For the contractors that don't know this, that's what drives traffic to your website. That's what moves you up above, what we call, above the fold in the parlance of internet searches, where you go to the map on Google. The way to get on that map is to get reviews. Ask them for the Google review. Show them how to do it if they want it, if they're interested.

So that folder should have a referral program. What they get, if there's a referral, it should show them all the products they bought, the warranties, contact information and so on and so forth. And I think that too many times, to your point, they think the sale's done because we finished the job.

Karen Edwards: Yeah.

Rick Davis: I think that if they want to get repeat business referrals, it's vital that after the job, they establish that contact point with one the information so people have it. So here I put a folder together for you. Notice at the top here it says 2024 Roofing and Siding Project. And they hand it to them and say, you can keep this in your files. You've done their work because people don't do that.

Karen Edwards: No.

Rick Davis: I have a paint folder that for every color and finish, I have it in my house because if I have to repaint something, I've got it. I think that's something you should give them. If there was any colors you paint, things like that.

So for me, that's when the sale ends, after you've validated and you've got them in the folds. I know a lot of our contractors out there have newsletters. Invite them to be part of a newsletter. I don't believe the newsletter should be a promotional newsletter. I think it should be here's how to maintain your home, how to winterize your home, a periodic thing to keep in touch with them.

A public service, so to speak, so that again, you're remembered and if they ever have a question, they ever have more work or they're going to refer you to somebody, you're the first person they think of. So it's part of the marketing. That's what that validating presentation is.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Wow. So really, you have shared a lot of great information today and things that are actionable, things that people can start doing immediately. So hopefully our listeners out there are noting these nuggets of information and try it in your next sale. We'd love to hear how it's working for you.

Rick Davis: And you've got great energy, so I really appreciate the time to be here. For anybody who's listening to this, you need to know something that you just got two cats here just talking to each other from the heart.
And if you forget anything else we've talked about today, Karen, I think that when you sell, you sell from the heart and people will feel you better. And I think that's the main tip of the day that I hope people will remember.

Karen Edwards: Thanks, Rick. This has been great, this conversation. And it's great that ABC Supply has someone like you on the team to help contractors succeed.

Rick Davis: The privilege is mine because it's the best company I've ever worked for in my life. And we were founded on the idea that you treat the roofer with respect because the founders were roofers. And that is our number one job.

We do not exist without our customers. We totally believe in them. Our number one core value is respect. And thanks for having me and allowing us to help.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, yeah. And if you want to learn more about ABC Supply, they do have a full directory on Roofer's Coffee Shop and of course you can visit their website and there is a branch near you. I guarantee it, because there's a lot of locations across the country. So stop in and say hi.

Again, thank you, Rick. Thank you everyone out there for listening. It's been great. We hope that you follow us on social media and listen to other episodes of Roofing Road trips. We are on wherever you like to listen to your podcasts. We're there. So thanks and we'll see you on a future episode of Roofing Road Trips.

Outro: If you've enjoyed the ride, don't forget to hit that subscribe button and join us on every roofing adventure. Make sure to visit rooferscoffeeshop.com to learn more. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll catch you on the next Roofing Road Trip.