Selling at a Higher Price Means Thinking in a New Direction

RCS Influencer Mark Holencik says that to sell at a higher price than your competitors, you have to know your competition and it’s not who you think it is.

First, you have to find out who your competition really is and most likely it’s your own mind.

Ten percent of people will always buy because of price and 90 percent of the people will buy for value given the chance. The funny thing is that 90 percent of contractors fight for the ten percent who only buy because of price.

If all things are equal, people will use price to make the decision who to buy from. You owe it to your customers to have the choice to buy value instead of price.

Ask yourself, “can I make my roof worth $100 more than other roofing contractors in my area?” There must be something that is different about your company that is worth $100.

Your reaction might be “what will $100 a job do?” One hundred dollars is an amount that you can wrap your mind around. It will get you started selling for more than the other contractors in your area.

I am a firm believer it is not how much you make. It is what you do with your money. So even if you can never raise your price more than $100 a job, here is an example what you can do with that $100.

Just to get your mind thinking in a new direction, let’s say you do 50 roofs a year. 50 x $100 = $5,000. Over 4 years that adds up to $20,000. This is a down payment on an $80,000 rental house. You make $200 a month on the rent house which gives you an income of $2,400 a year. Save the $2,400 with the $5,000 and now you can buy another house in three years.

If you continue this process, in nine years you will have four houses bringing in $9,600 a year. When you take into consideration all the other factors, like tax benefits and that the tenants will pay off the mortgage, you will make a lot more. This example is just to get you to take a risk of trying to sell your roof for a nominal amount more.

Get started as soon as possible. You will build confidence as you do. Couple this with reading books on building and selling value, and talking to contractors who sell value and not price will ensure that you will win the fight going on in your mind.

Most of our work is residential. No matter what your selling price is if you are booked six weeks out your price is too low. Raise your price.

Mark Holencik is the owner of Holencik Exteriors, Holencik Gutters and Holencik Insulation. See his full bio here.